At the beginning of 2021, after suffering through 10 months of social deprivation, we finally had some good news. Amazingly, reliable, tested vaccines were ready for distribution. The end was in sight. This good news was somewhat tempered by the spectre of several new variants in Britain, South Africa, and later Brazil which threatened to undermine our salvation. At that time, the variants were not widespread, so it seemed obvious to most of us that it would make sense to shut down international travel, and limit inter-provincial travel.
Trudeau, the dithering dilettante, couldn’t decide to do either, so we just had to accept that the variants were on their way. Following a good deal of lobbying from the people, our fearless provincial leader John Horgan checked, and amazingly found out that it was “not possible” to stop inter-provincial travel. The Atlantic provinces did so, but I guess there must have been some meridian of longitude that legally prevented it in B.C. So our leaders decided to just live with the variant death toll, and hope that doing so would not completely undermine the vaccine’s promise.
Now, the variants are winning the race, and Premier Horgan thinks it’s OK to shake his finger at young people and order them to forget about their youthful pursuits, for the good of the old people. Young people have already lost one year of their youth. John Horgan enjoyed his youth with wild abandon no doubt. If there is one thing I have learned about youth it is this — it doesn’t last for long. How is it acceptable to expect young people to give up their young lives for the good of the whole? Meanwhile the Horgan government is chafing at the bit to allow religious people special dispensation to congregate indoors with their deity, and many older, more wealthy people are still flying around spreading the virus world wide. Clearly, those variants did not waft in on the breeze.
I can forgive our governments for being a little slow to react to the virus in the beginning, but failing to stop the spread of the new variants was an epic mistake, and trying to put the blame for our current situation on our young people is reprehensible. I think our leaders should accept the responsibility for their OWN failure.
Rod Retzlaff
Glade, B.C.
