Beamsville, Ontario's Dillon's Distillers is diverting some of its whiskey operations into producing disinfectant alcohol and hand sanitizer needed to help combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the States, a number of boutique distilleries are doing the same, answering the public demand.
Now what we need is a government with enough courage to cajole, coerce or commandeer manufacturing plants to produce ventilators, respirators and other medical supplies so urgently needed for treatment of intensive care patients and in such short supply across the country.
And yes, Mr. Trudeau, that means you. As prime minister, your "fundamental obligations" are set out in the Emergencies Act, to wit, " the safety and security of the individual."
This pandemic is obviously a public welfare emergency under Part 1 of the Act which confers great powers on the federal government.
public welfare emergency means an emergency that is caused by a real or imminent
(a) fire, flood, drought, storm, earthquake or other natural phenomenon,
(b) disease in human beings, animals or plants, or
(c) accident or pollution
and that results or may result in a danger to life or property, social disruption or a breakdown in the flow of essential goods, services or resources, so serious as to be a national emergency.Bingo. This rings all the bells.
Why Mr. Trudeau has not already sought a public welfare emergency declaration is unclear. Why he has not already commandeered suitable manufacturing capacity for the production of essential equipment and supplies is unclear.
8 (1) While a declaration of a public welfare emergency is in effect, the Governor in Council may make such orders or regulations with respect to the following matters as the Governor in Council believes, on reasonable grounds, are necessary for dealing with the emergency:
(a) the regulation or prohibition of travel to, from or within any specified area, where necessary for the protection of the health or safety of individuals;
(c) the requisition, use or disposition of property;
(d) the authorization of or direction to any person, or any person of a class of persons, to render essential services of a type that that person, or a person of that class, is competent to provide and the provision of reasonable compensation in respect of services so rendered;
(e) the regulation of the distribution and availability of essential goods, services and resources;
(f) the authorization and making of emergency payments;
(g) the establishment of emergency shelters and hospitals;
Our government seems to have fallen far behind the power curve on this one. It's time they corrected that.
6 comments:
The Chinese built hospitals when they saw it coming. (At one got dismantled already.)
Moscow is doing it right now.
We should be building them too.
We have very few hospital beds in Canada per capita.
It's clear to me. This guy is typical of the type of leader Canada has gotten used to. He doesn't actually know how to do anything, He's a dilettante who's been guided through his political career by a bunch of other guys who also don't know how to do anything besides how to help him get re-elected. I suspect that whoever the CRAP Party would have in his place would be worse. What kind of jobs do any of these guys have experience in planning? In a few months this generation of what passes as "leadership" will be gone just as it always is and should be when a long-standing bubble of complacency finally bursts. A lot of things are going to be redefined.
I'm taking it personally. The staff at local agencies responsible for the homecare of seniors and the disabled are now in a knot as the questions that I put to their bosses almost a month ago are beginning to wipe the slate of their pat answers clean. They gave me shit on Monday ("It seems that you're unhappy … ") but I expect that the next time I call they'll be asking me. Maybe not, though. I'll probably have to go through a few more rounds of new meaningless pat answers before the guys who answer the phones realize that nobody on the planning and organizational sides in their shops actually knows how to do anything.
Let's not wait. Put them all on stress leave now.
Trudeau didn't do it because the people would not have abided it. You can not lead where people will not go.
Suddenly every one is "concerned" about seniors. No one seemed to care before this. Ontario has had case after case regarding lack of care for seniors. Did the population ever care? Not so much that the government had to change things up. Now suddenly people are tearing their hair out because they're dying. Well get a grip. What did anyone expect with low staffing rates, unclean care homes, it was all about the profit in most of these places.
In B.C. the first cases were in one North Vancouver Senior's Residence. We have 8 deaths in B.C. and 7 of them in that care home. Staff is not well paid. Some work in several of the chains care homes. Its so easy to spread the disease this way. Workers had no choice. Many who work in these places work double shits to make ends meet.
Every one can blame the politicians but no one cared before.
In home care for seniors and the disabled has been on the low end of the priority list for as far back as I can remember. Prior to that there wasn't any. Voters and governments were more than happy to allocate contracts to the lowest bidder and staff were poorly paid and not qualified. What do you expect? For many who run these companies the idea is to make a profit, not help people. They themselves were not qualified to run these companies, but hey they were making money.
Had the care for seniors and the disabled been at the level it ought to have been the voters would has screamed to the heavens about how burdened they were by the taxes. Society doesn't even care that much that kids go to school hungry, that welfare rates for the disabled and families is so low they live at 50% of the poverty level. Society has been fine with it for decades and now you want politicians to suddenly change. Get a grip.
e.a.f. - the only admirable thing I ever heard Nixon say came out of the Frost interviews. The conversation got into the issue of leadership. Nixon said the test of real leadership was the ability of the leader to persuade the public to support unpopular measures. Your definition has the leader going where the public wants to go and, in moments of peril, that's no leadership at all. That's crass political opportunism which is pretty much what's on offer these days.
.. Dillon's Distillers just got a fab boost on CBC at 9:45 today, March 18
Well deserved.. ! Now who had I already decided would most certainly
be a vendor on my shopping list re special gifts.. ? Duh..
e.a.f.
I get that we have the type of political leadership that we collectively allow.
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