Zeitgeist

That would mean that freedom is always promised to be just around the corner with the coming boost, but of course once most eligible people get it, it will be considered of waning effectiveness. That’s the real game, using the promise of health purity as the incentive to obey restrictions on freedom and endless vaccination. Sadly the promise never gets fulfilled. However, the controls are in place and freedoms are permanently removed. That’s very clearly what’s going on, but because this operation has been implemented incrementally, with plenty of official “research-based” backing, government announcements, and media fanfare, the slaves don’t see their chains or just how impossible it’s become to overturn restrictions. Amazing.

I don’t buy into government responses that infringe on freedom without a damn good reason. Making fully-vaccinated people wear masks at work and inside businesses and public buildings tells you that vaccination hasn’t restored your freedoms. Even the fully vaccinated must pass Covid tests in order to travel. Even though all of the vulnerable age groups can get vaccinated and almost all of these people are, they must continue to carry and show vaccine passports to enjoy basic freedoms. Why? Who are we protecting? They’re the protected. The few unvaccinated hold outs will not overwhelm our hospitals if they get Covid, yet government continues to hound and batter them, take their jobs, and alienate them. Our governments are disgusting. They have oppressive tactics. The sadists in organizations have been empowered and are enjoying themselves. End all restrictions immediately! Your inaction is enabling oppression. Don’t you see that restrictions and further mandates will do nothing more to reduce the prevalence of Covid? Anyone who wants vaccines can get them and almost everyone is vaccinated. Government can continue to encourage vaccination and for people to take precautions. It should end there.

It’s criminal and fascist to make people show passports to enjoy basic freedoms. With almost all eligible people vaccinated we shouldn’t need them. Our government has become oppressive and diabolical. What’s more, in workplaces like mine with vaccine mandates, workers are forced to wear masks and visors. What’s the upside of vaccination when the vaccinated must wear masks and face continued restrictions on travel, socializing, and other behaviour? You are being oppressed. End all restrictions immediately! That workers are being forced to enforce our oppression is so unethical, especially when many of them oppose restrictions.

If Canada buys some Caribbean islands I might agree with you. There was talk of Canada buying Turks and Caicos years ago but it didn’t happen. Our winter is too long. I also don’t believe people should be restricted to being in one country. Canada isn’t supposed to be a communist closed society. We really aren’t free.

It’s horrifying how easily and permanently these restrictions on freedoms were imposed. People really don’t understand how hard it is to remove them now. I’d really hoped that pandemic restrictions were temporary. They are not and people are accepting the feeble excuses for maintaining them. Well the Dark Ages lasted around 1000 years. I can’t help but think we’re right back in them.

17 Canadian children have died of Covid 19 since the start of the pandemic. Now that the vulnerable age groups all have access to vaccines and virtually all of them are fully-vaxxed, we can't use the excuse that restrictions on the young (masking, distancing, etc.) are necessary to protect the vulnerable. These are draconian government mandates that at this point make life unnecessarily miserable for children. Now we'll get the added prophylactic of child vaccines. Between boosters and self-imposed precautionary measures, vulnerable adults can protect themselves quite well. What the hell are we doing to kids? With our low death and hospitalization rates, the the hell are we doing to adults?

For God's sake, 17 Canadian children have died of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. It's absolutely evil the restrictions we're imposing on children and the society at large. They were defensible before most of the vulnerable became fully vaccinated. Once everyone in every vulnerable age group got the opportunity to get vaxxed, and particularly after reaching the point we're at now, with around 85% fully-vaxxed and over 90% at least partially vaxxed, there's no justification for further restrictions and vaccine mandates whatsoever. Only if and when hospitals become overwhelmed are greater precautions necessary. What's happening now is nothing less than extreme government overreach and control. It's fascism.

I know that sometimes I make strong statements for effect, but what I'm about to say is important and true. Let's be honest, many of the posters on here are retired or not working for whatever reason. I'm not in that boat. Almost everyone who is employed by a company or is a government worker, including educators and health care workers, is essentially banned from international travel because, if you are forced to quarantine upon return from your trip due to a positive Covid-19 test, and the quarantine period extends beyond your designated "time off" from work, you will be put on an unpaid leave for the quarantine period and subject to disciplinary action. How do you know whether or not you have Covid-19? Only from the test results, unless you're symptomatic. Americans don't face this disincentive from travel. This punishment of having to pay for a Covid test and the threat of losing pay/employment due to a positive result is a huge disincentive to international travel for Canadians. Canadians don't face this disincentive to traveling between provinces or territories. Why must Canadians traveling to and from Michigan or New York rather than Quebec or B.C. be treated like they're biohazards deserving of crippling fees and potential job termination? When so many eligible Canadians are vaccinated, after having made so many personal and financial sacrifices to obey public health mandates, this is the reward they get? My government disgusts me more and more each day.

Governments don’t make decisions based on ethics but what they can get away with. They realized they’d lose too many health workers with vaccine mandates, but they can get away with squeezing businesses.

Losing the ability to travel is another marker of the drop in living standards. The American Dream is fading fast.

Really we need to look at quality of life too. Natural disasters raise GDP but are clearly undesirable. We need to look at average commute times, air and water quality, social cohesion, overcrowding, hospitalization/time off due to stress, mortality rates, purchasing power of average income, cost of living (housing, food, etc.), level of public safety, upward mobility opportunity, etc. It’s about both what your income buys you and what the general living conditions are like beyond your private property.

Totally disagree. We got vaccine mandates and restrictions. I’m sure they’re coming for kids. If they come, will the masking and restrictions end? Do you work in a workplace? How much longer should restrictions be extended? Offer boosters to those who want them. I’m sure Covid vaccination will be added to the list of mandatory vaccinations. Will the restrictions end at that point? Under your direction I’m sure the answer is no. No thanks. Not the world we should have to live in. People who want additional protection beyond vaccination can mask up and take additional precautions. Those should remain personal choices. Parents and powers of attorney can make the decisions for children and those who aren’t in a position to make health decisions. You’ve got the vaccine passports. You can no longer blame the unvaccinated, who are few and far between and living like untouchable pariahs.

Yes, but if that can happen to a fully vaccinated person in a population that’s almost entirely vaccinated, then all we have left, apart from possible future enhancements to treatments, are endless restrictions. We were never going to eliminate Covid. All we can do is slow the spread and equip ourselves with antigens so that few people die or require hospitalization. That’s it. Under restrictions, workplaces are miserable places. Employees carry out their duties masked up and distanced, without being able to break bread with colleagues. Schools are bereft of sports, clubs, and dances, even though the staffs are vaccinated and the students are at low risk of serious illness. We fail to take into account the psychological and physical effects of these conditions. We’re not giving any credit to individuals to make their own decisions about how to protect themselves. Let those who want to mask up or stay home do so. We don’t all want the same lives, nor should we have to have the same lifestyles. That’s what freedom is about and I’m not sure we’ll get it back given the level of subservience we’ve come to accept.

End all restrictions and vaccine mandates immediately. That’s quite enough trouncing on people’s health privacy and discretion. We’ve got about 90-92% of Canadians aged 12 and up with at least one vaccination and 80-85% fully vaxxed. Clearly the hospitals are quiet. Hospitalization and death rates are low and will likely remain so. The vulnerable age groups can be vaxxed if they want to be vaxxed. People have had their pay suspended or have been fired en masse. Nice. At this point if you’re worried about getting Covid, mask up, wash your hands compulsively, etc. We’ve lived under 20 months of public health technocratic fascism. It needs to stop. Push back or continue to live as slaves.

True, and EV’s are all for naught if the means to produce the electricity and batteries are environmentally problematic. The self-contradiction in Canada is too much. Oil and gas production and resource development are Canada’s high cards. They’re central to the transfer payments Quebec expects and Trudeau uses to fund international pet projects that he can show off alongside his socks. Russia, China, and the Saudis will happily take Canada’s market share of world fossil fuel production. Biden asked them to boost production as he shut down Keystone. These are not serious leaders.

Anti-meritocracy is a huge threat right now. When people start to feel that no matter how hard they work and how talented or skilled they are, merit won’t pay off, we enter extremely dangerous territory.

I think it’s primarily our federal leadership, though the provinces are mostly on the same page.

Well it all comes down to, “What have you done for me lately?” I can’t think of anything Trudeau has done in recent years that makes me proud. I guess our Covid numbers weren’t as catastrophic as in the US, UK, or most western developed countries, but our freedoms have suffered, I believe. We’re over-taxed, over-indebted, and overly generous to special interests.

Canada was a huge overachiever in both world wars. On a per capita basis I do think Canada beats both the US and UK, and not just in those venues, but that’s my national pride. We’re all very similar and contributed similarly. I do agree that many modern Canadians are ignorant of their history and don’t appreciate their inheritance. Canadian history is being re-written and few will stand up for past great figures who are being slandered.

Well I disagree with that. Canadians made enormous personal sacrifices in both wars and the armament production and technological development of aerospace and other manufacturing was formidable for such a small country. Canada should’ve had France’s permanent seat on the Security Council. We could talk about the liberation of Holland, mach two aircrafts, the first satellites in space, communications tech, medical and agri tech, the first phones and smartphones… The problem is that rather than building on those foundations we became distracted by cultural projects that have sucked the oxygen out of the room, like Quebec nationhood and Indigenous reparations. We tell ourselves the lie that some ethnic and cultural groups deserve special treatment. Meanwhile the cultural group that most defines Canada’s foundation, Great Britain, is written off and denigrated as a colonial occupying power. There wouldn’t have been a Canada (or US) without the UK.

Well Canadians did a lot of heavy lifting and Canada’s successes in the world wars are hers, but yes, the institutions that made Canada possible and continue to do so have a thousands year-old history derived from mostly British institutions. However, Britannia herself was a Roman construct. Rome was quite derivative of Greek institutions, and so on. I understand Canadians’ desire to forge a strong and independent identity, but when the country can’t even defend itself and the institutions that built it are undermined and written off as colonial, including progressive early giants like Ryerson, that’s where I check out of Trudeau’s creepy identity politics love-in.

True. Social media amplifies the impact of outlier paranoid doctors and other positions. One rare case of the death of a healthy person due to Covid becomes the excuse to remove freedoms and gut the economy. Again though, our population is increasingly pacified and unwilling or unable to push back. We think that rights are expendable for a fake notion of health purity that is being peddled to us by pharmaceutical companies and health technocrats. Human rights simply don’t count, even when the public health risks of death and hospitalization are low. There isn’t much preventing suspension of rights and slavery.

The problem is that a fringe of Canadian elites squandered Canada’s real mid-20th century success. We’re reaping what was sewn by giving into Quebec’s demand for asymmetric federalism and the multiculturalism that was used to offset it and develop modern Canada. Pacifism and the dismantling of our military is also haunting us as it’s become harder to develop any independent economic policy. Basically Canada is leaning heavily on her reputation of tolerance and growth through immigration. People from around the world want to be here and there’s much to enjoy. The downside is a radical shift away from the traditional forces that built Canada (which were strong and largely admirable relative to other international forces), overpriced housing, greater dependence on foreign powers, and a rudderless leadership that over-promises and empowers radical forces that undermine national unity and pride. Trudeau has created three-tier citizenship based on race and ethnicity. Indigenous have the most rights and privileges. They pay the least taxes and receive the most tax money and respect of any cultural group. Quebec is second, receiving more independence and federal money per capital than any other large province. At the bottom is everyone else.

We’re at the point where lifting restrictions poses an acceptable risk. The problem is that, while it’s impossible to eliminate risk and the effort to do so creates all sorts of bigger problems, there are some people for whom no level of risk is acceptable. The health puritans may be a fringe of society, but they’re more willing to fight and scream than the majority. They’re as bad as or worse than the anti-vaxxer fringe. Governments have to override their ridiculous demands and fear-mongering.

I oppose all unnecessary restrictions on freedom and all taxation that doesn’t provide a clear benefit to most people, especially when it most drastically impacts the poor. How much more do we compromise individual freedom to meet the impossible and dangerous goal of hive health and environmental purity? The overreach of government is damaging mental health, freedom, and happiness. What do we live for? Safety isn’t enough.