Responsibility

We live in a democracy but I do not believe all of us truly understand what that means. By its very nature, a democracy implies compromise. We go with the majority and whether or not you are in agreement with that majority, you must accept their will. Threatening violence or political separation every time you do not get what you want does not serve a democracy. 

It is not difficult to confuse democracy with politics. If we democratically elect a government, we are empowering that government to make decisions on our behalf. I do not get to vote on every decision, I only get to vote for who is going to make those decisions on my behalf. It is my expectation that the government that represents me will make their decisions based upon what is best for the majority of their citizens. I don’t think it is unreasonable for me to assume that any government that represents its people will make decisions based upon the proper triaging of priorities. Saving a life takes precedent over saving a paycheck. Seems pretty obvious. Money can be replaced, a life cannot. Death is absolute, bankruptcy is not.

When politics enter a democracy, the government does not always represent the majority of their citizens. It does not take much for a government to be influenced by vocal minorities, especially when those minorities can bring a lot of campaign money to the table.

An indisputable fact cannot be more absolutely clear - our intensive care units are overflowing. At certain points of this pandemic, up to 80% of certain hospital beds have been infected by COVID outbreaks. Whether you think this virus is dangerous or not, it is affecting our health system's ability to cope. That means cancer patients are not getting timely treatment, psychiatric patients' treatments are compromised and in some cases, not even available anymore. People needing care and therapy cannot receive it because our system is overloaded, underfunded, and unable to cope with the realities of the pandemic.

So where are we today in Alberta? Our healthcare workers, a year into this pandemic, have been working relentlessly to cope under adverse conditions while the infection rate remains at an unsustainable level. At the exact same time many of our population are refusing to adhere to a mask policy that our government is failing to enforce. The biggest tragedy is how many special interest groups are preying upon the appallingly weak leadership in this government by successfully lobbying for the relaxing of COVID restrictions, at the very time that our healthcare experts are advocating for the opposite approach.

If this government is not going to provide the leadership necessary to save lives, who are they representing?

“People cannot be free unless they are willing to sacrifice some of their interests to guarantee the freedom of others. The price of democracy is the ongoing pursuit of the common good by all of the people.” - Saul Alinsky (1909 - 1972)