Alberta's Premier remains tight-lipped about hundreds of Calgarians who protested relatively lax pandemic restrictions—after going on-air to appeal to South Asians over virus surges.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is facing steep criticism for failing to denounce a group of mostly white people protesting COVID-19 restrictions in Calgary on Saturday—after partly blaming the province’s alarming increase in infections on the South Asian community.
Alberta now accounts for nearly one-quarter of all active cases in Canada with 15,692.
The province also has more cases than Quebec and Ontario, despite being one-third and one-quarter the size people-wise, respectively.
Hundreds of Calgarians ignored the 10-person cap on outdoor gatherings and protested the relatively lax restrictions on Saturday, but Kenney remained tight-lipped on the matter all weekend, CTV News reported.
Kenney did have words for the province’s South Asian community though.
“Let me be absolutely blunt and get to the point,” Kenney said on RED FM, a South Asian radio station in Calgary. “The largest spread in the province is in northeast Calgary and we see a very high level of spread of COVID-19 in the South Asian community.”
“I don’t say that to blame or target anyone,” Kenney immediately added. “We know that it’s a tradition to have big family gatherings at home and we think this is one of the reasons why we have seen a much higher level spread in the community.”
In an email to VICE World News, Kenney’s spokesperson, Christine Myatt, said, “I reject the premise of your inquiry.”
This is so ridiculous on so many levels. NE Calgary is a largely working class section of the city, where people typically don’t have jobs you can do remotely. You know… frontline essential service type jobs… Kenney is so outrageously out of touch. It’s pathetic that he’s scapegoating South Asians for his incompetent leadership.
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