Letter: Leader may change, but regime will stay the same

By Letter to the Editor on May 25, 2022.

In response to Scott Schmidt’s May 21 column, “What could be worse than Jason Kenney?”

Dear editor,

The facts recounted in Mr. Schmidt’s editorial are correct. During the last three years, anyone paying attention will have observed the choices made by the UCP, and the dismal outcomes from those choices.

The most dismal outcome of UCP choices was the results of the “Best Summer Ever.” On June 2, 2021, the UCP declared the pandemic over in a statement by Mr. Matt Wolf, executive director of issues management for the UCP.

His whole statement, verbatim, was “The pandemic is ending. Accept it.”

Aside from being wrong, his statement was dangerous, foolish, dismissive, ignorant and imperious. On July 1, 2021, Mr. Kenney and then health minister Mr. Shandro publicly unveiled a banner declaring Alberta “Open for Summer.” They promised us we would have the “Best Summer Ever.” Did we?

Between August 1, 2021, and December 31, 2021, Alberta suffered 1,000 COVID deaths out of a total of 3,500 COVID deaths in Canada. Alberta has 11% of Canada’s population. On a proportionate basis we ought to have suffered 385 deaths. The 615 extra, unnecessary deaths resulted from our “Best Summer Ever.” The UCP, indirectly, is responsible for those deaths because, in the face of strong evidence not to do so, they chose to end public health restrictions and public health information gathering. If you don’t want to believe this, ask yourself: is Alberta’s health care system so ineffective, compared to the rest of Canada, that we suffered nearly three times the COVID deaths? The correct answer is that our health care system is as good as, or perhaps better than any in Canada, yet the families and friends of those 615 people experienced their worst summer ever.

The preventable tragedy, described above, happened because a significant number of UCP supporters and members have core beliefs hostile to government having value. They view government as alien to people, and, therefore, governance as inimical to “freedom.” This view allowed self-satisfied ignorance to dictate government choices. Good science and the common good were ignored by the UCP to assuage and legitimize the self-satisfied ignorance of some of their supporters and members, thus, people died. This failure will happen under any UCP leader and government, on every issue, because, when those who govern us do not believe that government has value, we will always get government worse than Jason Kenney. The leader might be changed, but the regime will remain the same.

Gregory R. Côté

Irvine

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