Erin O' Toole has been pounding the Trudeau government's response to the COVID pandemic. Chantal Hebert writes:
For more than a week, the Conservatives in the House of Commons have been accusing the ruling Liberals of fiddling while the rest of the world has pre-emptively been procuring vaccines.
For now, a variety of independent sources have contradicted the Conservatives’ assertion that once vaccines are available Canada will find itself relegated to the back of the line.
It would not be the first time the Conservatives, on O’Toole’s nascent watch, have overreached in their critique of Trudeau’s pandemic management.
Their current offensive mirrors an earlier one — in September — that saw O’Toole accuse the Liberals of having missed the bus on the procurement of rapid tests.
It has now been weeks since thousands of those tests were distributed to the provinces and for a variety of reasons that have little to do with the timing of the federal delivery most have yet to put them to use.
O' Toole's problem is that his fellow Conservatives are not acting on testing and vaccination:
While O’Toole and his leading critics were on the vaccine barricades this week, one of his former leadership rivals was publicizing a petition replete with misleading information about their alleged perils.
In the Commons, the Conservative leader repeatedly accused the Liberals of putting the lives of Canadians and the health of the economy at risk by allegedly dragging their feet on deploying vaccines.
But outside the House, O’Toole had little but evasions to offer about Ontario MP Derek Sloan’s role in spreading anti-vaccine falsehoods.
Mr. O'Toole is trying to present himself as the new Stephen Harper. It's clear though that he's the new Andrew Scheer. And, even if he were the new Harper, O'Toole would clearly be misunderstanding the moment.
Image: ctvnews.ca
10 comments:
He is indeed the new Scheer, Owen. There is zero "wow factor." He's a frump. There's no magnetism. Like so many Tories, he's a grey suit stuffed with wet cardboard. Trudeau must be tempted to call an election. Despite the pandemic, John Horgan picked up a nice majority and the public seemed just fine with mail-in voting. It's probably not the right time of the year. Spring must beckon.
The conventional wisdom seems to point to the spring, Mound. But I suspect that O'Toole's prospects will be about the same then.
O'Toole: Trudeau's incompetent because he's not getting the vaccine to Canadians fast enough.
Sloan: The vaccine hasn't been adequately tested, it's unsafe and not ready for prime time.
Sloan seems to be undermining his leader's message. If Sloan is right, Trudeau should slow down approval and distribution until we see what happens to the early vaccine adopters.
Harper would never have allowed a backbencher to undercut him like that. O'Toole is sucking and blowing, appealing to the anti-vaxers while trying to rush delivery of a vaccine. This is the sort of disorganized messaging that sunk Weak Andy.
Cap
Precisely, Cap. Whoever leads the Conservatives has a hard time keeping them in line.
Thank goodness there's some rational brainpower at work here, unlike another ProgBlog site I could mention. I have less than zero use for Cons myself, or their apologists on certain issues. The continual nonsense about firm delivery dates has been handed a setback anyway -- Pfizer now says it can make only half the doses it previously envisioned because of "supplier" issues. O'Foole hasn't mentioned that, naturally; he merely dreams of sugar plum fairies and getting to be PM by hook or by crook and divisiveness. Country builders the Cons are not. They're sh!t disturbers.
Those new rapid Covid tests have been used a lot in NS these past ten days. There's a pop-up test centre in Halifax City, and we have two mobile testing stations that rush to hotspots, crewed by trained volunteers. The training was done by Dr Lisa Barrett of Dalhousie University and NS Dept Health. You've no doubt seen her on national TV answering Covid questions these past 9 months. Massively competent, just like our Chief PHO, Dr Strang. If a positive shows up, they get the real PCR test to confirm. Also in NS in the last two weeks, regular PCR testing is also now capable of over 4,000 tests per day versus the previous 1500.
https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/provincial/nova-scotia-to-deploy-mobile-testing-vehicles-another-covid-19-case-linked-to-school-526363/
Not every province is stuck in a Covid rut like Ontario or especially Alberta. Thank goodness. OTOH, the Cosco crowd loves to make up excuses for gallivanting off outside our restricted zones to shop. And people like me, or indeed Dr Strang himself, live in bedroom communities just outside the capital, and have to travel in to get groceries. Doing that once a week with our actual level of virus doesn't seem risky to anyone. However, I have a friend whose wife goes out every day because otherwise she'd go nuts, so there's dynamics like that at play.
BM
This isn't easy, BM. And, because it isn't, leaders need to tell us what we need to hear -- not what we want to hear.
.. I lost yet another laptop.. thus comments of The Salamander might arrive as 'anonymous' with a mention in the comment body. It seems a function of Blogger plus my Google account plus Mac Operating Systems no longer supported.. C'est la vie !
Your comment arrived here safe and sound, sal.
.. most excellent ! Now to track down the elusive Mound Mk 11
When you find it let me know, sal. I'm still looking.
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