Chris Selley reminds us that despite all the attention the media pays to every twitch of the federal government, it’s the provinces that are actually responsible for the healthcare systems in their territory:
Front view of Toronto General Hospital.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Here in Canada, however, astonishing scenes continue. On Thursday the Toronto Transit Commission announced it intends to make masks mandatory for riders — no word of a lie — in three weeks, on July 2. That’s assuming the commission approves the measure … next Wednesday. TTC CEO Rick Leary was at pains to stress the rule would never be enforced.
Meanwhile Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, could not appear more reluctant to endorse mask wearing unless she advised against wearing them altogether — which was, famously, her original position. On Wednesday, she unveiled a four-bullet-point plan for getting safely back to semi-normal under the moniker “out smart.” The word “masks” does not appear. Supplementary text only concedes they “can be used … when you can’t maintain physical distance of two metres.”
This is a strange qualification: The official federal advice stresses you shouldn’t touch your mask except to take it off at home and immediately wash your hands. You shouldn’t be taking it on and off while you’re out and about, when social distancing suddenly becomes impossible. But it’s not as strange as the qualification Tam offered on her Twitter account, where she offered a link to an instructional video but only “if it is safe for you to wear a non-medical mask or face covering (not everyone can).”
It is true that some people with asthma or severe allergies have trouble wearing masks. Presumably they know who they are, and would not risk suffocating themselves when mask-wearing isn’t even strongly recommended, let alone mandatory. Blind people will struggle to keep two metres’ distance from others. People with aquagenic urticaria can’t wash their hands with water. People without arms can’t cough into their sleeves. Those “out smart” recommendations aren’t qualified, because that would be silly — as is the qualification on masks.
I would be lying if I said I had any idea what the hell is going on. But this never-ending weirdness is doing us a favour, in a way. The fact is, we have been paying far too much attention to the feds throughout this ordeal. Canada’s COVID-19 experience was always much too different from region to region to justify everyone taking their cues from a single public health agency — let alone one that comprehensively botched something as simple as issuing self-isolation advice to returning foreign travellers.
Canada is a federation by design, not by accident, and thank goodness for that: Far better that most provinces’ authorities did a good job knocking down COVID-19 than that a single one screwed it up for the whole country. It’s something Liberals and New Democrats should bear in mind next time they find themselves demanding yet another “national strategy” in a provincial jurisdiction.
