The COVID pandemic that began in early 2020 exposed once again the folly of believing that the key to success for a society is maximum freedom for individuals and business enterprises and a limited role for government and publicly funded programs. Thousands died in seniors’ homes which lacked adequate staffing and equipment to contend with the virus. We discovered that our Public Health Agency’s early warning system, expanded after SARS swept across the world, had been largely dismantled a year prior to COVID. We also found that our stockpile of PPE (personal protective equipment) had not been maintained and kept up to date. Front line workers were showered with words of praise, but businesses cancelled the extra hourly pay they had been receiving as soon as they could. Incredibly, Ford’s government has been announcing cuts in funding for seniors’ homes in recent days.
Our emergency response teams have also been shown to be quite inadequate to the demands that are placed upon them. Recent media reports describe how those attempting to save people dying from the intense heat in B.C. heard, after dialing 911, that all too frequent message about “receiving a higher volume of calls than usual.” In some cases, they waited 40 minutes or more, and then an additional two hours for an ambulance to arrive (far too late for the individuals who might have been saved).
Another commentary after 9/11 noted: “When tragedy hit, people didn’t look to Bill Gates or the President of Coke or the CEO of General Motors or million dollar basketball players. They looked to their city, state, and federal agencies, and the thousands of people they employ for help, and they got it.”[1] The author went on to argue that we must uphold our governing institutions, not chip away at them through tax cuts. It is striking that as I worked on a draft of this blog, Richard Branson had just returned from his flight into space. In a few days, Jeff Bezos will attempt to repeat that achievement, and Elon Musk will not be far behind. These three individuals are worth close to $400 billion and one can only imagine what a portion of that massive wealth could do for mankind if it were not being used to support “boys and their toys” and their race into space for future bragging rights.
[1] Linwood Barclay, “Our tax dollars go to work on dark days,” Toronto Star, September 17, 2001.