#corona response

[nielsmichiels]

Now this is what a US president should sound and act like, and a majority of you ISN’T voting for him!

[krysslabryn]

Considering how the American shows I’ve seen are reporting on Covid-19, I thought I’d share a look at the Canadian response, for a Canadian audience.

Global is one of our larger television stations. This is from April 11th, 2020, so the Saturday of this past Easter weekend, just a couple of days ago as I post this.

Frankly, the biggest thing that strikes me offhand overall is just the calm tone of our broadcasters in contrast to the American ones, who always seem to me to be rather strident. Also, the debate amongst our political parties (the Liberals are in power right now with a minority government; the Conservatives are the Official Opposition*; and the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois, along with a few others like the Greens, make up the rest of the government, with the NDP and BQ the largest of those remaining) is not about whether to help; but about the most effective way, and what kind of oversight we ought to have for it right off the bat. Everyone involved is fully aware that the federal government needs to act swiftly to support our population.

I’m also very happy to see them practising social distancing in Parliament, and to hear that committees are meeting remotely. I mean, we have the technology; why not? Nice to hear the concern about the support workers that would be needed if they did come in, as well.

And finally, I’m proud and grateful to see the spirit of cooperation between provinces, as well. As Red Green says, we’re all in this together. <3

* The job of the Official Opposition (formally “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition”, and the party with the second most votes in the election) is to critique the ruling party’s way of doing things. They are there to point out the flaws in plans and executions, and to provide some balance to things that way. When the government’s response is pretty okay, though, and nobody really feels that they should be doing something completely different (whatcha gonna do, argue that we shouldn’t be supporting Canadians through this?) the Opposition tends to argue that they should be doing more. Right now, they’re not arguing against some kind of a universal basic income, but rather that it ought to have more oversight than the government is currently planning.

I really like the idea of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, because it helps to reinforce that, despite our differing ideas for how to achieve it, we are still all working together for the greater good of the country, however we might define that “greater good”.

[jmichealortiz]

evrybody calling this "outbreak", the response seems more like "Fallen" ..thru social distancing we are trying to starve this body jumping killer. In the movie, trapped in its last dying host, no other people for miles, the killer just jumps to a cat and walks off into the night.

jmortiz