Right in the centre - Things that must end, things that should never have been
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- Published on Friday, April 9, 2021
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
Last week, there was a story out about a lady in a care home who, even though she had been vaccinated, said she and her fellow residents were still largely confined to their rooms.
That doesn’t make any sense. If the C-19 vaccine doesn’t protect people, then why on earth is it being so heavily promoted? If it does protect people, then why would vaccinated care home residents be confined to their rooms?
We also hear a lot of prattling about how vaccinated people still must be careful about getting C-19 or spreading C-19, wear a mask etc. That’s utter nonsense. It needs to stop.
Among other things that must end, and should never have been, is the uneven restrictions on businesses. All, and I mean all, businesses should be allowed to be open at 50 per cent capacity. That’s the way it always should have been. Look at last week’s ridiculous example from the Brandon vaccine centre. By the way, in person reports are that both the Brandon and Winnipeg centres are going fairly smoothly, in spite of daily stories in the Winnipeg Free Press about how bad things are going, but that I will deal with below. So at the vaccination centres, you make an appointment, you line up, you answer questions, you wear a mask, you keep your distance, yada, yada. But, after you leave, you can go to Walmart or Costco and cram into a building with 100s of other people. It’s utter nonsense, that’s what it is.
Ok, I get the mask thing. Go into a business, wear a mask. It’s the right, respectful, sensible thing to do. But social distancing is highly overrated, especially for short encounters
There is another thing that makes no sense. A church might have a C-19 allowable capacity of 100 or 200 or more. But, for a funeral, they are restricted to 25. It makes no sense at all.
The problem is if you put bureaucrats in charge, you get a lot of rules. Some make sense and some do not.
Another thing that doesn’t make sense is the constant haranguing by the Winnipeg Free Press against our Manitoba government. Last week, they slammed Manitoba and Premier Pallister for doing a poor job with C-19. The problem with that slam is that Manitoba did as well as, or better than, many other places. If we are going to blame a government for handling C-19 badly, let’s get the facts straight. The federal government didn’t get vaccines soon enough, didn’t close airports soon enough, didn’t restrict travel soon enough. None of that was any province’s fault. Manitoba fell short, especially in protecting care home residents, but certainly no worse than any other province.
It’s a sad thing, but two of our province’s two daily newspapers, the Winnipeg Free Press and their sister paper, The Brandon Sun, have a major problem. They hate conservatives and they especially hate Premier Pallister. Never mind that the majority of rural people always vote conservative and often the people of Winnipeg do as well. The daily papers are on some kind of death wish to be opposed to all things conservative. I will be the first to admit that Pallister is a bit bristly. These papers make every attempt to tear down our bristly premier and dream daily of their glory days when the Doer/NDP administration plied the daily writers with beer, burgers, big billboards and ads to prop up their indefensible editorial policy.
The dailies let Gary Doer get away with BiPole III, with a disastrous devolution of child welfare, with neglecting care homes, education and economic development. The dailies failed all Manitobans. Why? Because all their journalists have been trained to hate all things conservative at Canada’s journalism schools that have become so open-minded that their brains fell out.
When the insanity stops, we will all be better off.
