Mr. Pierre Elliott Trudeau & her Majesty the Queen
First, this “Charter of Rights and Freedom” was never signed by the province of Québec (it was rather imposed on it).
Mind you, Québec had its own Charter, adopted seven years earlier that this charter. How many Canadians know this? For the record, you can read an old article by Ms. Josée Legault in the Journal de Montréal from 2017:
Second, Mr. Trudeau…. “Rights and Freedom”? Did Bambi hear the last word well: “Freedom”, right?
Below is an earlier post with her thoughts written in the form of an open letter to Mr. Dominic Leblanc: In the name of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, please do not let Covid-19 be a political opportunity to curtail freedom of expression!
More than ever our journalists need that freedom of expression (many may have to look for new jobs after the pandemic crisis?). For our own sanity and for the sake of democracy in our world, everyone needs it. Yes, we need it for us Canadians… and we also need it in order to keep giving hope to other nations living under dictatorships. Can we please keep being a beacon of freedom and hope to the rest of the world, Mr. Trudeau?
His real name is Mr. Daniel Bevilacqua. His artistic
name is Christophe.
This great French singer died yesterday at age 74, likely
from emphysema (a lung condition that leads to shortness of breath). In the
media, some journalists talked about Covid-19. However, his spouse did not mention
the latter in her official press releases.
Regardless, as they say in Arabic, “the causes of
death differ, but death is the same”.
Bambi would like to begin this post by thanking her sister (hi Rania ?) for sharing the following video. It shows a concert by an NGO meant for patients and staff of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) in Beirut, Lebanon.
A Lebanese public healthcare centre, the RHUC is the leading COVID-19 testing and treatment centre in this country. Its devoted staff and volunteers took a break from patient care. For a few minutes, they allowed themselves to “forget” about physical distancing and economic hardship:
If you are curious about the latest coronavirus update from Lebanon, here is a brief video (dated April 15, 2020; with 5 news cases today and same total of 21 deaths):
When Bambi searched the Internet to read about the RHUC,
she discovered a very short video, featuring Lebanon, posted by the Lebanese
Ministry of information.
The video in question is neither related to the pandemic nor to the financial tragedy of the country, along with their joint devastating effect on the economy… Perhaps, it is meant to remind us that Lebanon is still hanging on, with its eternal beauty and resilience. Yes, one day (no clue when!), there will be a “normal” life post-pandemic, for all the countries of the world, including us here and tiny bankrupt Lebanon.
In the case of Lebanon, Bambi hopes that normality will finally mean a dignified life. Lebanese people are not asking for the moon. They JUST need the basics: being able to put bread on the table… and sleep at night, reassured that their savings are not lost. Is this too much to ask for, even before a pandemic?
Although they greatly appreciate their government smart management of the Covid-19 pandemic, they are far from being dumb… they know how to recognize different types of haircuts, when they see them.
Yes, they do understand that their government is bankrupt. Plus, the pandemic was the icing on the cake. Nevertheless, even when quarantined, they do not forget about the epidemic of public corruption.
OK, Bambi is not confusing the days here, although she
almost called her parents today, thinking it was already Friday.
It was funny to hear her spouse clarifying that “we
are not Friday yet… and Good Friday was last week ?”.
Bambi celebrated Easter last week (with the majority
of Christians in Canada). Her parents, sisters, and half of her relatives are
celebrating this weekend. The other half of the Christian family members celebrated
last weekend.
Sometimes, the two Catholic and Orthodox Easters co-occur.
Sometimes they do not (one week apart, like this year).
Anyhow, Bambi loves the Byzantine chants of the Greek
Orthodox church. They remind her of her happy childhood.
Well, this evening, her cousin Elham made her day when she shared the first video below. In it, you can hear/see her talented second cousin (hello Zeina!) praying, with her choir and kids. They seem to have used a platform like Zoom. How well done, bravo!
Further below, you can see the same prayer by Father Elias (hello “Abouna” ?!). The latter happens to be Elham’s spouse. According to Bambi, he may have the most powerful voice she has even heard (solid and moving like the sound of a bell).
What is somehow moving in these two videos is the contrast between the first and second videos. In the first, everyone is quarantined. The second shows a dynamic church filled to its full capacity. This service traditionally ends with a procession on the streets of Beirut around Saint-Mary’s church. After a busy evening, in the early hours of the next day (Holy Saturday before Easter), Abouna flies to Jordan in order to bring the light from the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem. This candle serves to light ALL the little candles of all parishioners of all the churches. Bambi’s parents bring this candle back home to bless their place (a VERY old Christian tradition).
To Father Elias, Bambi would like to say: Thank you
for all what you do to your parish. She will say the same to your family too.
In three days, you/we all be greeting each other by
saying: “Christ is risen. Truly risen! This is how they say Happy Easter
in the Middle East.
The resurrection is at the heart of the Christian
faith… In other terms, the joy and hope that Easter brings remains the same, when
we have faith in our hearts. Regardless of wars, economic hardships, pandemics,
or simply being away from loved ones, we celebrate and hope for better days
ahead.
Those who believe, nurturing their faith, aspire to feel a renewal of hope in life. Those who do not believe in Jesus story can still just enjoy the beautiful music and the delicious Easter food. Bambi considers herself to be among the lucky ones who enjoy both… twice per year ?.
Here is a research project recently funded by Canada:
Le, Xiaochun C., University of Alberta, with researchers from Wuhan Institute of Virology (China) who are “who currently perform the standard diagnostic tests will lead this effort” ($828,046). TITLE: Point-of-care diagnostics of COVID-19 using isothermal amplification and CRISPR technology. See the bold characters in the abstract below:
“This research addresses the urgent need of rapid point-of-care diagnostics of COVID-19. The collaborative research is conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of virologists, chemists, infectious disease specialists, front-line practitioners, and public health researchers from the University of Alberta, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Wuhan Institute of Virology (China). The immediate priority focuses on developing two complementary techniques to be performed on-site and in resource-limited settings, in support of rapid diagnosis of COVID-19. The diagnostic innovation takes advantage of the most recent advances in chemistry, molecular biology, genome technology, and nanotechnology. Chemical reactions required for efficient amplification and sensitive detection of the viral RNA take place in a single tube at a moderate temperature, simplifying the operation procedures. The specific reaction products are visible to the naked eyes, thus eliminating the need for any elaborate equipment. The first test reads color changes, with red color indicating negative and blue color indicating positive. Readout for the second test is color band on paper strips, similar to those of pregnancy tests, with two red bands indicating positive whereas a single control band indicating negative. The mid-term priority focuses on validating and evaluating the new diagnostic tests for field applications in the epidemic center of COVID-19. Our team members in Wuhan who currently perform the standard diagnostic tests will lead this effort. Once validated and approved, the new diagnostic tools will be used to support screening and diagnosis of COVID-19 at the community level. The mid-term objective also includes adapting the point-of-care diagnostics at other collaborating sites, e.g., Karachi (Pakistan) and Nairobi (Kenya). A longer-term priority of this research includes refining the new diagnostic tools to enable monitoring of mutational changes of the virus as it continues to evolve.”
Those who know Bambi in person may have noticed that
she likes the term highlighted in the picture above: “Bravo”. She likes it, especially
that we can use it in so many languages, including English, French, Arabic, even
German, and of course… Italian.
However, should we always feel obliged to say bravo or
applaud entities or individuals, even when witnessing underperformance?
We can of course understand how they may have been frozen
by fear or overwhelmed or paralyzed by their ideology or cumbersome
bureaucracy, etc. We are all human. However, in pandemics, we do not have the luxury
of time to act or take a fast decision.
First, here is the CBC
article, she will be referring to below. It is entitled: “The pandemic seems
to be giving Canadians warm feelings about government. Can it last?” It is
signed by Mr. Aaron Wherry:
Second, the article in question made Bambi remember a
TV moment with her dad when she visited her family in Beirut, Lebanon, a few
years ago.
The scene, which took place in the Syrian Parliament when
Mr. Assad Junior was “re-elected”, predating their civil war. It showed the Syrian
politicians applauding. The TV moment lasted for SEVERAL long minutes (5, 10,
15… Bambi lost count ?).
Everyone was applauding and re-applauding… and this
seemed to go on forever.
Bambi’s dad, a wise man, asked her: “Do you know
why they are not stopping their applause?” Bambi was so amused (and felt
sad for the Syrian people) when her dad said: “No one wants to be seen as
the first to stop applauding”.
If Bambi can allow herself to draw such a comparison,
a bit like the Syrian public servants, our CBC journalists seem to rush to be
the first to applaud the federal government, without critical sense (it seems
to have been surgically removed a while ago).
This time, this article did not mention Mr. Trump, for
a change. Bambi has noticed a classical journalistic pattern in Canada (sometimes
even used by our own PM in his answers to journalists during his daily speeches):
Mentioning Mr. Trump, as a comparison, makes Canadians feel better. Yes, they
can allow themselves to make fun of him WITHOUT questioning their own PM’s
inconsistencies or immaturity. They can tell themselves, or our government may perhaps
think they would tell themselves: Thank Goodness, Trudeau is not Trump, even if
they share the same first letter in their family names.
Is this all what we aspire for as Canadians? To beat Mr. Trump’s style/bad reputation? The bar is not set high then, isn’t it?
Mind you, Bambi wrote the above and she is not a Trump
supporter. However, she knows when/how to recognize when he may be right on something
or doing something serving the best interests of his country.
Even if she did not vote for Mr. Trudeau a second
time, she also knows how to appreciate his good decisions.
Yes, even Mr. Trump, can be right sometimes. Similarly,
even Mr. Trudeau, can be wrong at other times. The latter can even be pointless,
even if he may have a richer vocabulary and even if he does not have orange
hair.
She is doing so because she has considered that he is perhaps
“the brain” of the Liberal Party of Canada. He is not only intelligent. He is
SURELY one of our MOST competent federal politicians…This is clear in her mind.
She has even wished he would have won the leadership of his party a few years
ago, not Mr. Trudeau… He would have been our PM now ?.
Thank you for your 18-year-long service to Canada, even if you may be at times controversial to some (we cannot please everyone in politics, just like in life. A leader must not aim to please all, but rather to earn everyone’s respect).
On a more personalized citizen level, Bambi has voted for
you, Mr. Leblanc, almost all her NB life (12 years in August, 2020).
She could have easily done so during the last electoral
campaign. She did not.
Almost a year before the electoral campaign, she made
up her mind and it was like a grieving process to her: She will not be voting for
you. No, not because she suddenly started to find you less competent.
It was rather because of your boss (colleague and
close friend), Mr. Trudeau.
Because of a lack of clever leadership, along with a
rather collective stupidity in our country, and by extension perhaps in the Western
world in general, Bambi became worried about Canada.
Today, more than ever, she is concerned. This is why she
is writing to you.
For Bambi, writing is a pleasure. The pleasure of the actual
writing process for sure, but also the joy of sharing to confront our ideas. The
latter is all what we have left in life when everything else would be lost or
killed. It is called freedom.
See, Bambi considers herself as a free thinker, a classical liberal. So, it was only logical to find herself voting for the Liberal Party of Canada for decades. She has been faithful to that vote almost ALL her 30 years in Canada, except when your party cheated with the sponsorship scandal (time at which she voted for the New Democratic party) and recently, she voted for the People’s Party of Canada.
In the name of those so-called liberal values, she is writing to you today to express her disappointment and beg your government to come back to its sense with regard to the following: Please stop any bill “against Covid-19 misinformation”. Bambi does not buy it. Although she may be wrong, she thinks that this is a mere political move for more power (= less freedom) in our country (in the name of covid-19). This is not healthy power. This is a risky slippery slope.
Citizens are not idiots, Mr. Leblanc. Even if they are
not trained lawyers like you, they recognize odd laws when they see them.
Citizens who come from China (my friends in Toronto)
or Lebanon (my friends in Montreal) left their home countries, aspiring for the
freedom of the Western world. Please do not disappoint them. They and we all deserve
better.
We deserve an open country where we can debate ideas
and express emotions.
As Mr. Anthony Furey wrote well in the first article
below:
“It’s widely known that Health Minister Patty Hadju, Dr. Theresa Tam and
other officials have now done complete reversals on many aspects of this
illness. They previously told Canadians that the risk remained low and that
COVID-19 did not spread asymptomatically. Then there was their insistence that
flight restrictions and widespread usage of face masks did not work, only for
them to turn around and voice opposite policies.
Everyone understands that there’s a steep and frequently changing
learning curve when it comes to getting a firm handle on all the aspects of
COVID-19. But if the public is expected to cut officials some slack, the
government should extend the same courtesy to the public.”
Like Mr. Furey, Bambi strongly believes in learning
curves. Her blog is a little example. She thinks about matters out loud, so to
speak. Perhaps a month or a year from now, with new external input and new thoughts,
she would likely see an evolution of her own thoughts. She may perhaps question
them or laugh at them. She may perhaps think to herself: “Oh no, that is still
valid” or “OK I was wrong on that one”, etc.
Please let my fellow Canadian citizens have that freedom to question themselves and others, to share their ideas, even the craziest. Trust that other readers will have the critical judgment to know what makes sense or not.
In relation to this topic, as described in an earlier
article in La Presse entitled “federal money to fight disinformation”, “among the selected entities, we can
find the professional federation of journalists in Québec ($330 164) and
the Asian Environmental Association ($64 660), which fights misinformation
in communities speaking Chinese and Vietnamese languages in Vancouver.”:
Can’t that money above ($394 824) serve to buy PPE to
protect those citizens rather or their elders, etc.? For instance, journalists will
need PPE to keep us informed. Citizens in Vancouver who may be served by this “Asian
environmental association” would also benefit from PPE or from more urgent
matters in pandemic times (perhaps local food banks, etc.).
Can you please reassure us that we are strictly serving
Canadian citizens with initiatives like the above, without any collusion with a
(Chinese) government they left behind to live more freely in Canada.
With Mr. Trudeau’s
vision for Canada, we have all the rights to ask for this reassurance.
Thank you. Be safe please. Be well.
By the way, on a more human level, you do not know it
but Bambi has sent you positive vibes and even prayed for your wellness when
you have been sick. She is happy to know you are doing well.
She is reading your Twitter, from time to time, during
this pandemic. She appreciates all the helpful links, both federal and provincial.
Thanks to three journalists from La Presse for this clever investigation and for sharing it with us, William Leclerc, Daniel Renaud et Tommy Chouinard!
They wrote:
“The president of the group that owns the CHSLD Herron has already been convicted of drug importation conspiracies and fraud, in addition to having been pinned for tax offenses and singled out by a judge for a real estate “scheme”. His company can still manage institutions for the elderly, while simple attendants can be refused a job if they have a criminal record.”
Full details in the article below…. In French, with a picture of the guy in question:
Sadly, the man in question shares the same
ethnolinguistic background as Bambi. No, she is not proud ☹. Actually, what a shame!
He also shares two other points:
1972— the year he immigrated to Canada was the year Bambi was born.
His family name is like one of her grand-mothers (it is a common name over there… a bit like the Tremblays or almost the Smiths). However, her grand-mother was the most compassionate and decent person she has ever met in her entire life. What a contrast!
All this does not matter here. What matters the most is the following: He is the President of a CHSLD with the responsibility of taking care of our seniors!!!
The journalists are right to write: “His company can still manage institutions for the elderly, while simple attendants can be refused a job if they have a criminal record”.
This sad story makes Bambi thinks of a horrible one in the USA, tragically by a physician also of Lebanese origins who gave cancer treatments to patients who did not need it ☹!!
A picture taken from the Internet (an anonymous US media)
First, here is Mr. Dumont’s article published today in the Journal de Montréal.
Thanks, Mr. Dumont. Bambi read your paper after reading two contradictory information yesterday, one where Mr. Trudeau repeated that no province has yet asked for the direct help of the army and the second where Mr. Legault said in English that Québec is considering asking Ottawa to send the army (as per the second article below):
Regardless of any
miscommunication in times of crisis, here is a translation of Mr. Dumont’s
article:
“When an excessive force is applied to a system, it is the weakest point that lets go. This is true in mechanics. This is true for the human body: in the face of too much stress, each person has a weak point that falters. For some, it’s the back, for others, it’s the digestive system.
A pandemic strikes Québec and imposes a huge shock on the health system.
The weak point dropped: the CHSLDs [Residential and Long-term Care Centres]. Can we really pretend to be surprised? Can someone really
stand up in Québec and pretend to ignore that
the CHSLDs represent a weak link?
Baths, potatoes
Not long ago, it was hard to bathe patients. Over the years, we have cut back on hygiene and the quality of food. We almost had national celebrations when the powdered potatoes disappeared.
The caregivers of our seniors were offered the lowest wages in the public and para-public sector: $13, $14 an hour with very little opportunity for advancement. Let’s admit that our governments have not taken a chance on the recruitment and stability of the workforce. Especially since it is hard work.
Coroner Godin, who investigated a death last year at Residence Herron, found the flaws. Her report stated that staff did not know how to react to the situation of a choking person. This gives an idea of the weakness of the training. It also gives us an idea of their inability to handle complex procedures to prevent the spread of a virus.
Last Saturday, Prime Minister Legault took the hit. With humility and frankness. He cannot bear the blame for a social problem that has dragged on for so many years. But he must take responsibility for an obvious lack of preparation in this branch of our health system. And it is admittedly the place where the most vulnerable population is.
The announced measures arrive a little late, but they could help to limit the problems. A visit to 2,600 residences in Québec could be used to identify other problem sites. The team of experts can improve the procedures if they work quickly enough.
Solutions
Both the government and the opposition parties are now promising to make top priority of improving living conditions in CHSLDs. I guess the trauma that this crisis has created will cause real change this time.
The problem is, you need arms IMMEDIATELY. And in quantity! The reinforcement promised by the government does not arrive on the ground. Perhaps because many are afraid of entering infected environments.
There are two choices. The conscription of teachers or other public sector employees available. Risk of union battle? Or the use of the military: thousands of disciplined, efficient people available on call. The hours count.”
