One Woman’s Passionate Plea to Premier Doug Ford: “No More Lockdowns!
Premier Ford,
As you may be aware, Quebec Premier François Legault has decided to shut all non-essential businesses for two weeks, beginning Christmas Day, as a result of new COVID 19 infections in that province. Essential services such as grocery stores, supermarkets, drugstores, hardware stores and garages will not be affected by the measure, which will apply from December 25 to January 11.
Apparently, you have refused to rule out similar measures for Ontario – or at least in the GTA – which would appear to have the lion’s share of new COVID 19 cases.
I am strongly opposed to this potential new lockdown in Ontario – as I believe that it will do very little to thwart the rising daily number of new COVID 19 cases. The current lockdown in the City of Toronto and Peel Region, which have been in place for a few weeks now, has completely failed to do much of anything,especially given the fact that those who most enthusiastically support these job destroying and small business ruining lockdowns – would appear to hypocritically have no problem with public schools and other facilities remaining open. I am guessing that the potential electoral backlash from those many parents who use public schools as a type of glorified baby sitting service – resonates much more with lawmakers than any business lobby ever could – hence the aforementioned glaring hypocrisy and contradiction?
Never mind that public schools are far more likely to be vectors of COVID 19 transmission – than any restaurants offering indoor dining – which are already operating at 75% or less capacity – and which have implemented expensive social distancing and contact tracing measures – along with regular decontamination protocols – all at great financial cost – ever could. Nevertheless, in my experience, very few, if any, elected public servants are prepared to deviate from the proverbial script – much less the iron yolk of mass conformity during these times.
An eye on the next election cycle and one’s Sunshine List six figure salary as well as OMERS pension – would appear to bury any righteous objections – much less the use of critical thinking skills and deductive reasoning abilities in most of our public servants (surely an argument for strict term limits and recall mechanisms – to say nothing of ranked ballots – at all levels of government – if there ever was one) – when their primary focus at ALL levels of government should be individually advocating tirelessly with your government to find ways to mitigate and alleviate the restrictions on workers and business owners.Instead, many, not all, but many of your Liberal and NDP aligned opponents, both provincially and municipally, largely give your government a blank cheque, when it comes to these draconian lockdowns, and rather focus on demanding that your government run up even higher deficits to cover income supports for all of those dislocated by these unnecessary lockdowns.
Unfortunately, no real organized opposition or individual dissenting voices, with the notable exception of MPP Randy Hillier, currently exists at Queen’s Park, but I believe that that will soon change with the formal registration in the early new year of a new populist provincial political party, which will finally give a voice to the the tens of millions of Ontarians who have had their jobs and businesses taken away from them as a result of these repeated lockdowns.
Being a skeptic or a critic during these Covid 19 times – is increasingly an audacious and revolutionary act. However, for a growing number of Ontarians like myself, fidelity to truth, facts, common sense, personal freedom, individual liberty, property rights and bodily autonomy are paramount.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that any new lockdown in Ontario – or enhanced lockdown – for those Ontario regions which have already been under this statism run amok for the past few weeks – will result in the cancellation of countless numbers of surgeries and diagnostic imaging in hospitals – as hospital CEOs are already asking their staff to “make room” for an anticipated wave of COVID 19 cases. I wonder how many Ontarians will now die as a result of cancelled surgeries and/or diagnostic testing? In the UK this year,over 2000 people have died from pancreatic or liver cancer alone – as a result of British hospitals cancelling surgeries, diagnostics and treatments.You are aware that cancer, HIV/AIDS, clogged arteries and sclerotic organs do not take a vacation just because COVID 19 gets disproportionate attention, right?
I also wonder how many idiots with a mild cough or sniffle will now flood ERs all across Ontario as a result of your government’s extreme and disproportionate overreaction to these rising – but primarily asymptomatic cases – where there is a very low hospitalization rate and an extremely low mortality rate? The vast majority of COVID 19 deaths are the result of comorbidity – with those of very advanced age and immunodeficiency being the primary victims.
Of course, the sensationalizing media will no doubt fan the flames of public hysteria over any new or enhanced lockdown.
If you are so concerned that Ontario’s hospitals will be overrun with new COVID 19 cases – which is apparently your justification for – what in my opinion – are these illegal and unconstitutional lockdowns – which trample all over my fundamental rights and freedoms – then why have you not over the course of this calendar year – since the very beginning of the pandemic – established a parallel healthcare system – perhaps operated by the medical corps of the Canadian military – which could erect vast tent cities on the outskirts of any and all sizeable Ontario population centres – for the sole purpose of diagnosing and treating those with suspected or confirmed cases of COVID 19. A toll free number could be established and an over the phone assessment would determine if a person has or likely has COVID 19. This would immediately remove the threat to civilian hospitals of being overrun – and separate medical transportation to such COVID 19 centres could transport those who have or think they may have COVID 19. I am thinking a hermetically sealed special ambulance – equipped with oxygen tanks.Of course, it would have to be strictly voluntary for anyone to go to these COVID 19 treatment/recovery sites – but it would result in not requiring these economically destructive lockdowns. Such facilities would be open and transparent – with full access for visitors and the media. Why are you and the other Premiers not already discussing this option or at least something along these lines with the Prime Minister? Surely, anything to avoid a lockdown and paralysis of the economy should be your very top priority?
You also could create a separate provincial medical corp made up of recalled recently retired physicians, nurses, etc. to exclusively diagnose and treat COVID 19 patients inside of a plethora of provincial government owned buildings – both those in use and those which have been decommissioned. There are also countless municipal government buildings, schools, community centres, military bases,airport hangers, etc. There is no valid reason why civilian hospitals need to be overrun and ICU and ER beds taken by severely ill COVID 19 patients – assuming there are truly going to be that many of them – I have my doubts – and this can all be accomplished in my opinion – without the need for any current or existing lockdowns. You simply are not thinking outside of the proverbial box here.
I am quite certain that your well paid team of literally thousands of physicians, public health officials, policy wonks and other assorted bureaucrats could conceive of many different ways to deal with this supposed “imminent tidal wave of Covid 19 cases” which are both creative and anything but the status quo. The fact that you or no other national or sub national elected leader has bothered to think outside of the proverbial box and devise creative solutions to this issue – makes me and a growing number of people highly suspicious as to what is really behind all of this madness.
I believe that the COVID 19 pandemic is very real – but I question the degree to which it is truly a danger to those who are not already of an advanced age and/or who have serious immunodeficiency. I also believe that many state (governments) and non-state actors (big businesses, banks and pharmaceutical corporations) all over the world – are exploiting this tragedy to advance their own self serving agendas. Not all of them, but many of them.Too many things do not make sense -nor do they add up – as it were.
I am also very disheartened to see you and many other public servants ,state, “I will listen to the advice of the medical experts” as the standard scripted generic reply to any inquiries such as mine. The medical officers of health are NOT all seeing and all knowing. They DO NOT possess a monopoly on solutions. In fact, some of them even publicly disagree and contradict each other concerning which measures to take and when to take them. The recent disagreement on whether or not to put York Region into lockdown between Dr Kurji and Dr Williams comes to mind. Yet, so many of our elected officials meekly abdicate all decision making to these unelected “experts”. It is truly shameful to say the least. What ever happened to shopping around for the proverbial second opinion? Why do you and most of your public sector ilk always side with the very worst case scenario where COVID 19 is concerned? You seem to automatically assume that whichever “medical expert” paints the most dire and bleak scenario – is the correct one by default – yet this comes at the expense of my livelihood, dignity,freedom and liberty.
While I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this email will fall on deaf ears – where appealing to you to publicly oppose a lockdown is concerned – I would like to take this opportunity to at least ask you not to begin any new or enhanced lockdown until Christmas Day – as per Quebec’s example? Individuals and businesses both need as well as richly deserve sufficient time to prepare for it. Furthermore, the days leading up to Christmas Day are the most important all year for the vast majority of businesses. This time of the year is truly the economic lifeblood for most businesses and their employees – especially retailers.
May your critical thinking skills, deductive reasoning abilities and healthy skepticism wisely guide all of your future public policy decisions.
Be bold, be strong, be courageous and work smarter – not harder.
Best
,Sara Makhlouf