A video of a conversation between Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and a member of the public undercuts faith in public health as COVID-19 cases in the province surge, a health policy professor says.
The video was recently posted to social media, and appears to have been recorded without Kenney’s knowledge.
It shows the premier at a Stampede breakfast-related event in July, where Kenney was asked about people who are not vaccinated.
“They’re younger. Most of them are under 12, and the flu is a greater threat to them than COVID,” he says.
“The largest other cohort [of unvaccinated people] is in their 20s and they’re very healthy,” he says. “COVID is not a threat to people under 30, effectively.”
Alberta Health reported that there were three children under the age of 18 in ICU as of Thursday. More than 900 Albertans under age 30 have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic.
In the recording, Kenney also says Alberta will be open for good.
CBC Calgary reached out to representatives from the premier’s office for comment, and didn’t receive a response.
These types of statements create expectations in the public, making it difficult to impose public health restrictions when needed, says Lorian Hardcastle, a health law and policy professor at the University of Calgary.
In this file photo, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, right, cooks pancakes while hosting the annual Premier’s Stampede breakfast in Calgary on Monday, July 12, 2021. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
She says such statements undercut people’s trust in public health policies.
“I think that’s the problem that we’re seeing ourselves in right now, where it was promised that we’re open for summer. It’s the end of restrictions,” she says.
“Now that hospital capacity is where it is — and we may very well need more restrictions — it becomes very hard politically, for a government who made those kinds of promises to do what they need to do to keep people safe.”
Though he does not specify a timeline, Kenney says in the video that “we’re going to be at over 80 per cent vaccination in Alberta.”
As of Thursday, about two months after the video was filmed, close to 71 per cent of eligible Albertans are fully vaccinated, representing 60.3 per cent of the total population.
“Those are not numbers that you want to misrepresent,” Hardcastle says.
“I also felt as though it was concerning that he downplayed the risk by saying that people under a certain age really don’t have to worry about this. That’s not a message that we want to send.”
At the time of filming, health experts had predicted a rise of COVID-19 cases in the fall tied to the delta variant of the virus, she says.
“It’s concerning if he genuinely believed that delta didn’t pose enough of a threat that we could find our way back where we were, because certainly other experts did,” she says.
University of Calgary health law associate professor Lorian Hardcastle says statements like the ones made in the recording can undercut people’s trust in public health policies. (Submitted by Lorian Hardcastle)
John Church, a professor of political science at the University of Alberta, says the video shows that Alberta public health experts and political leadership are at odds about COVID-19 messaging.
“The science on all this has been very clear for some time, and the science has told us — not to mention the actual on the ground experience — has told us that hand washing, masking, social distancing and vaccination are the way for us to get out of this,” Church says.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
