Lockdown 3; A neo-liberal policy failure of national proportions

I’m angry and out of hope, but I know we can’t forget what has been done as we move into this third lockdown in Ontario.

I’m angry about this third lockdown.
Mostly because it makes me sad.

A year ago, I thought we would crush Lockdown 1 and grow from it.

I was wrong…

I spent March 2020 waxing poetic to my family about how the pandemic lockdown was going to be the perfect time to improve society somewhat.
I thought we would see debt abolishment, a living wage, basic income pilots, and support for teachers, nurses, and doctors.
I was wrong.

I was wrong on all counts and, in Canada, we have seen everything that could go wrong GO wrong exactly as predicted by the experts we’re supposed to be listening to.

The summer was a false-positive as numbers went down and we all let our guards down.

Then, in September, Ontario continued its trend of treating teachers and students like human waste.
It has been consistently upsetting to see the way Lecce views teachers in Ontario.

Sidenote: It’s clear to me at 26 that I received a world-class education in highschool. I was prepared for so many conversations, for accepting other worldviews. I was taught how to listen and learn, and all of that is because of the teachers.

A Private school kid and an Unschooled kid shouldn’t be the two dudes in charge of our education system.

Continuing:

Federally, CERB ended in October and, while it was one of the best things Canada has done, the taxation requirement of 30% and the fact it ended before the middle of the pandemic was a MASSIVE policy failure.

The Federal Government promised to help young people by providing hundreds of millions of dollars in wages to jobs that would normally be volunteer-based, but never forked up the cash because their distributor became embroiled in scandal.

The NSLSC has continued to bleed Millenials dry while housing prices have skyrocketed enormously as the wealthy purchase homes as “investment properties” to rent to 30-somethings who are being outbid on every home they try to buy.

We’re locking down again because of increased ICU numbers, and while we have started to vaccinate LTC residents, we have not solved the crisis that was revealed by 80% of Canadian COVID deaths happening in those hallowed halls.

We are brushing past the harm privatization of LTC homes has done to our elders.
And we are ignoring the fact that rising cases in 20+ people is because they were forced back to work as CERB ended.

High-school students have lost critical moments, university and college students will never see graduation.
The pomp and circumstance of launching young people into the meat-grinder of capitalism has been stripped away.

Some grocery stores started paying their employees a little bit more at the start of the pandemic and then they callously ripped that income from their hands as soon as public attention went elsewhere.

Some jobs have retained that COVID hazard pay, those jobs are unionized (like the LCBO).
The ON government has been continuing its attack on unions all the while (like the teachers union), and yet increased pay for OPP (due to their union lobbying).

The second-most-popular paper in Toronto is running a smear campaign against doctors. and their chief pundit is dating Ford’s press secretary.

There is a faction of society who still thinks Trump won the US election, masks are muzzling their freedom (somehow), and vaccines will inject them with a microchip that causes autism.
These people are unhinged.

We did not need to have a third lockdown in Ontario. The Government of Ontario needed to admit it had been wrong.
But that would mean the government was operating ethically with the health and wellness of the citizens of Ontario at the forefront of their policy.
They are not.

Ultimately, we are being governed by cowards and grifters at every level.
Federally we have a milquetoast faux-feminist colonialist PM who is up against a literal fascist, and provincially we have a college drop-out business mogul Premier with no valid opposition.

I’m scared.
I’m angry.
I’m sad.
I want to help change the world.
I don’t want to get sick.
I don’t know where to turn, because everything seems broken.

Oh… and I’m angry.
This Lockdown 3 is political theater from a bunch of clowns.

You can find the original Twitter thread here:

Written by
Jack Fisher

Jack Fisher is an independent journalist. He holds a BAH from the University of Guelph, and a post-graduate certificate from Sheridan College in journalism.
@Jack_Fisher_4 on Twitter and Instagram

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Written by Jack Fisher