I see some early warning signs that things are about to get worse

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I’m back in Toronto after a few days in Calgary meeting our team. I hadn’t met some of them before because they were hired during the pandemic and of course most of our people (including me) couldn’t travel over the past year. I liked meeting them, and I’ll have some news in the weeks ahead about our plans for a permanent Calgary office.

Anyways, put aside the current airport meltdowns. I was talking to this gate agent about the extremely limited exceptions there were for letting unvaxxed people on planes. Planes, by the way, have some of the best air circulation anywhere, as you can guess. I mean, it’s easy to get a stream of fresh, cool air when you’re flying at 500 miles an hour five miles up. Great ventilation.

In fact, no-one less than Theresa Tam herself said that transmission in a plane is extremely rare. But Trudeau banned the unvaxxed from planes, though he permitted them to take the same journey, at a fraction of the speed, on buses. Riddle me that.

But here’s what this Air Canada staffer pointed out. There were extremely limited exemptions for medical reasons. Air Canada actually had a team of doctors whose job was to reject exemptions. A history of anaphylactic shock wasn’t even enough, for example. And extremely limited religious exemptions. I’d be surprised if there were 100 exemptions granted by Air Canada in the entire country. But here’s what this staffer told me: there were no compassionate exemptions.

And this Air Canada staffer told me it was his job to tell that to people who were grieving. Thanks, Trudeau.

That was a bit of a downer; but I was happy to travel again, despite delays in both coming and going.

But you can make a mistake in life by assuming what you see is what the world is; that if it’s not in your field of view, it is not happening. Solipsism is a word for that. So while I was happy to travel again, and happy to back, to the fairly free city of Calgary, and perhaps that might make me feel hopeful, I must temper that self-centred view with other observations.

So I opened Twitter and I see they were pushing a story from the Globe and Mail very hard:

Fears of a COVID-19 summer surge prompt experts to call for a return to masking

“Experts”. Please don’t use that word with me ever again. Has there been anyone more debased this past year than experts. I’ll read a bit from the story: image "It’s time to bring back indoor mask-wearing requirements, some health professionals say amid concerns of a potential surge in COVID-19 cases this summer.

In fact, according to Alberta emergency physician Chuck Wurster, public health authorities across the country dropped the mandate prematurely.

“There wasn’t any indication that it was safe to do that,” Dr. Wurster said, pointing to the influx of COVID-19 patients he has seen in the emergency department as never really having stopped. “Masks should always be the first thing that we use and the last thing that we get rid of.”

So they’re priming the pump. They’re starting to get you psychologically ready.

The article isn’t that interesting, to be candid. It’s just some celebrity doctors who clearly miss being on TV because their fifteen minutes, or fifteen months of fame are up.

But the fact that Twitter was promoting this story all day seemed odd to me. Except as a premonition — they’re not done.

So, get ready for more abusive policing — the chief has summoned it.

But I’m worried about it all converging. Remember, most of the laws that were used to put us in lockdown remain on the books. We are still in a pandemic emergency — that’s the only legal basis for people to take a drug that is not yet fully tested; it’s called an emergency use authorization. All the machinery is there.

Here’s a small example. A few weeks ago Trudeau cut a bizarre and unscientific piece of red tape. If you were flying into Canada — which meant you were vaccinated — they still pulled aside a random sample of people and made them take a COVID test. Why? What’s the science? Aren’t they vaxxed?

Well, imagine what that did to travelling logistics.

Anyways, after this airport meltdown, like I say, they cut that red tape. But they didn’t cancel it. They just suspended it. Temporarily.

Here’s the Reuters headline:

Canada to suspend random COVID testing to reduce airport wait times

...The random testing will be discontinued from Saturday and will resume "off-site" on July 1, the statement said.

So they’re actually bringing it back.

They’re not done.

They’re ramping up the calls for masks. They bought 400 million doses of meds. They’re bringing in more flight rules, not less.

They’re arresting peaceful protesters. They’re prosecuting, not pardoning, people who broke the lockdown years ago.

My friends, I don’t think we’re done with this yet. They miss the lockdowns. They miss the drama, they miss the power, they miss the sense of purpose it gave them. Because they didn’t suffer — only you did.

If they bring back the lockdowns — what will you do?

GUEST: Sheila Gunn Reid (@SheilaGunnReid)

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