Photo: Bruce Forsyth 
Photo: Bruce Forsyth.
January 2022
As we enter the third year of pandemic caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Virus, why are our hospitals still in danger of being “overwhelmed” and our schools are constantly in danger of being closed due to surges in infections? We’ve had two years to make the appropriate changes to make sure we lessen the chance of having any problems, if not eliminate, further problems with our schools and hospitals.
Sure, some problems exist due to budget constraints (there’s only so much money to go around at any one time), compounded by decades of underfunding by numerous governments. The backlog of issues that need to be addressed in both our health care system and our schools, make it difficult to correct all issues that are being exacerbated by the pandemic. This is one unavoidable issue, but it’s not the only issue.
Of course, we have other issues, like class sizes, that the teachers’ unions continually bring up as an issue that is prolonging the pandemic (they want smaller ones), but this is a subjective issue (15 students in a classroom are safe, but 16 aren’t?), and one that they were bringing up long before the pandemic. Obviously, the unions have a direct interest in smaller class sizes that have nothing to do with student safety during the pandemic, that being more dues-paying union members.
A big issue that needs to be addressed is why are we still facing problems two years later, given the salaries that we pay to CEOs in our health care system and to Superintendents responsible for our school boards?
Additionally, why did our politicians and high-ranking public service bureaucrats (from department heads to Deputy Ministers) completely ignore the pandemic preparedness report, co-authored by Dr. Theresa Tam in 2006, along with our experiences from SARS and H1N1. Our politicians may (or may not) pay politically in the next election they face, but we can certainly take action against the bureaucrats right now.
So many politicians like to equate the struggles were experiencing to the struggles the populace faced during World War II. Well, one facet of that argument that those same politicians seem to ignore, or perhaps they simply don’t know, Canada accomplished a lot during the war in a very short period of time. One pleasantly stunning accomplishment came in the form of the Canadian-run British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP).
Under the BCATP, over 100 Royal Canadian Air Force Training Schools popped-up across Canada, almost all within the first year of the war, to train airmen and airwomen from Canada, the UK and other Commonwealth countries. Most of the schools training flight crews had at least one relief landing field located 10 miles away from the main aerodrome, along with the required hangars, barracks, administration buildings, and other buildings needed to operate. It was a remarkable feat, by any standards.
So, why are we still falling short with our schools and health care facilities, just to name two?
