Human beings have the amazing capacity to learn from their past. Sadly, they are also notoriously known for sometimes letting “history repeat itself”.
This being said, by the own admission of our federal government’s website (https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/res/doc/information-backgrounder/espagnole-spanish), Canada has founded a new bureaucratic layer (Department of Health) in 1919 as a response to critics for failing to provide resources and coordination to public health authorities across the country:
“Criticized for failing to provide resources and coordination to public health authorities across the country, the federal government responded to the crisis by founding the Department of Health in 1919. From then on, public health was a responsibility shared by all levels of government” (please see the last paragraph of the website above).
Despite all the best intentions of the world, like anyone else, Bambi has seen outcomes of bureaucratic processes in her life.
Always frustrating, especially in pandemic times where rapid decision-making, implementation of decisions, and careful coordination (to avoid miscommunications, duplication, potentially harmful mistakes, etc.) matter more than ever.
It is surely not helpful to have a very large country with several jurisdictions. However, it is also an amazing opportunity to cooperate and learn from each other, to adjust decisions or mistakes that are bound to happen (and that’s OK as we can learn from them). The idea is to have a plan, to try it, and to adjust the stages, according to new daily input or damage in sectors or lives, etc.
Bambi does not have any issue with mistakes. Her problem is more with ideology mainly, coupled with continuous vague answers to journalists’ important questions.
Mr. Trudeau is right. We all need to collaborate by staying in social isolation. However, what will he do to help provinces/territories/communities OR companies (transportation, etc.) enforce measures imposed by the authorities? Concretely. Not a time to answer vaguely with beautiful but empty words.
For instance, does he feel comfortable to support provinces, if some people from groups he considers racialized refuse to quarantine or others attend religious services (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mosques-coronavirus-1.5508545 as seen in other countries in the middle east, including Lebanon and Israel?
What about groups from first nations communities? What if, may God forbid, the virus spreads there (e.g., in Montreal or elsewhere) and people do not collaborate?
On a different topic, why does he talk to us every single day? Would it help if he does it every second day? Or as needed? In the meantime, we can listen to our own provincial authorities. And that way, he can rest to keep his energy alive for this pandemic (a lengthy marathon).
Yesterday, Mr. Trudeau told kids that they are going to lead us through this crisis. Like him, Bambi loves children and was happy to see him thinking of them. However, she found this platitude scary. How can kids be leaders in pandemics? Why doesn’t he be a leadership model for them? They may be looking up to him for that. Who knows?
Children, adults of middle age, and especially seniors, we are all eager to see more concrete actions.
As his own (and our!) Sophie Grégoire Trudeau wrote on her FB yesterday, to overcome this crisis, we need science AND compassion.
Science means public health experts and input from the “health soldiers” on the ground. Emerging science on this new virus, yes, but ultimately political decisions need to be taken, even in the absence of full knowledge.
Mr. Trudeau keeps talking about coordinating with other countries. If she may, Bambi thinks that now more than ever, we need to see him putting us first. Before other countries or other ideologies. Please Mr. Trudeau accept to be more flexible with your vision.
As far as compassion is concerned, when we have it, we can naturally care for all people, including those in more dangerous regions and those more vulnerable. Related to the latter, Mr. Trudeau has all the compassion needed. It should be easy then.
Last but not least, compassion may also mean putting aside one’s older political ideologies (i.e. globalism mindset or other) and so-called values, as he told us yesterday during his press conference. He said that he assures us that “Canada will act according to our values”. Bambi finds this sentence rather scary, not reassuring.
Mr. Trudeau needs to be ready to innovate in actions and to surprise himself even with that. For example, the Hezbollah (which Bambi is clearly NOT fond of) understood this and is acting smartly: Their Chief even ordered mosques to close a while ago and said that “this combat is more dangerous than July war” (2006 conflict with Israel, that left over 1200 civilians dead). We all know how much he hates Israel. If we forget, every now and then, he goes out publicly, reminding people of it.
If Mr. Nasrallah is able to be “covidwise” like that and forget even his own values (and raison d’être, in a bankrupt country which was able to secure 1185 ventilators in a quick partnership between the public and private health sectors), why is Mr. Trudeau so attached to his “values”?
Can he remain faithful to them in general (post-pandemic) but change his mindset now to help in protecting us?
Not only did I laugh at your sense of humor, but I also paused and reflected. Indeed, in times of urgent crisis where decisions matter more than ever matter, it is time. It is time to think strategically. How so? We need a leader who can see the big picture- who relies on the scientific data to make decisions, who is a few steps ahead of this virus by modeling its potential path based on available data and allocating resources accordingly; someone who remains flexible to release hold on his purse strings faster. Someone who sees big, while keeping in mind urgent issues. That someone is a leader who turns to his team of leaders, empowers them to make decisions based on their informed knowledge of their territory and acts as a ‘collector’ of these ideas to feed into the big strategic plan.
Children are our future, but they are not our problem-solvers. They won’t have a future if adults do not act like leaders and begin to see the big picture.