{"id":65146,"date":"2021-04-13T03:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T07:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=65146"},"modified":"2021-04-12T15:36:49","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T19:36:49","slug":"loving-a-country-also-means-being-honest-we-should-never-get-high-on-our-own-own-flag-covered-syrup-scented-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2021\/04\/13\/loving-a-country-also-means-being-honest-we-should-never-get-high-on-our-own-own-flag-covered-syrup-scented-supply\/","title":{"rendered":"“… loving a country also means being honest. We should never get high on our own own flag-covered, syrup-scented supply.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Line<\/em>, Lauren Dobson-Hughes<\/a> sits Canada down for a bit of an intervention:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, there was a fairytale castle with soaring turrets and gabled windows. The castle had long been undergoing renovations, so the owners draped the scaffolding with trompe l’oeil<\/em> cloths \u2014 fabric imprinted with the image of the historical building beneath, to maintain an impression of the beauty hidden below.<\/p>\n

From the cloth, you imagined the castle must be stunning. And yet behind the fa\u00e7ade, it is crumbling. Its walls are mold-ridden, and the floors are rotten. The scaffolding props up a shell.<\/p>\n

This metaphor has come to represent the way I’ve come to think about Canada since this pandemic began. As a country, we are so fixated on the mythology we project out to others \u2014 the trompe l’oeil<\/em> cloth \u2014 that we’ve allowed the actual capacities, systems and structures of our country to crumble.<\/p>\n

The first inkling came early in the pandemic. As COVID-19 numbers rose, it was revealed that the Public Health Agency of Canada did not have nationwide case numbers. This piece<\/a> delves further, but “Ottawa does not have automatic access to data in [provincial and territorial] systems.” Provinces were sending daily case numbers to Ottawa on paper<\/em>. This is one small example, but a revealing one. In fact, we lack a nationwide public-health system at all. And as the auditor-general’s report<\/a> showed, we also lack the knowledge and expertise \u2014 the skilled people \u2014 to manage crises like this, too.<\/p>\n

Then came protracted discussions about financial support for Canadians affected by lockdowns. The debate was not about whether<\/em> Canadians deserved help \u2014 it was that Canada’s financial systems are so outdated and disjointed, that we literally could not work out how<\/em> to get money from the federal government into bank accounts. It shouldn’t be this complex. In a functioning country, the central revenue agency should be able to transfer money to people without task forces of bureaucrats and experts, the establishment of new IT systems, and McGyvering an assortment of existing programs. <\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The list it goes on \u2014 the chaotic vaccine roll-out, the fractured public communications, the devolving of responsibilities to the very most local level with little overarching purpose or even organization. All of it marked by disjointed, outdated systems, lack of skills and know-how, and no overall goal or narrative. We need to face it \u2014 we have allowed our nation to crumble from the inside, while holding tight to the mythology that we\u2019re an effective, functioning country.<\/p>\n

At this point, I feel the need for a disclaimer that I love Canada. But loving a country also means being honest. We should never get high on our own own flag-covered, syrup-scented supply. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Line, Lauren Dobson-Hughes sits Canada down for a bit of an intervention: Once upon a time, there was a fairytale castle with soaring turrets and gabled windows. The castle had long been undergoing renovations, so the owners draped the scaffolding with trompe l’oeil cloths \u2014 fabric imprinted with the image of the historical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,84,66],"tags":[1202,156,244,1363],"class_list":["post-65146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-cancon","category-government","category-health-science","tag-epidemic","tag-fail","tag-publichealth","tag-wuhancoronavirus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-gWK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65147,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65146\/revisions\/65147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}