I generally, uh, follow the rules. To be both clear and honest, that has more to do with my marital status than native inclination. One must compromise if one is to live successfully with others, eh?
But sometimes, OK, often, I revert to type. I assumed I was doing that when I crossed from one of the current de facto health regions in this province to the other... the one that includes about 90 per cent of the entire humongous landmass of B.C. The same one all those folks who drive into the province from Alberta—Canada’s Brazil—can travel through with, if not impunity, at least no fear of a random road stop. The one that runs from Yukon to Washington with itty bits carved out for the Vancouver Coastal/Fraser Valley health regions and Vancouver Island. The one that includes Haida Gwaii.
In the past 15 months I’ve witnessed, as I’m sure you have, any number of actions and pronouncements related to how we’re supposed to deal with this pandemic that are, let’s be generous, confusing. Too generous? Let’s be clear, are dumb. But this current one may require we retire the dumb prize. Health regions as boundary lines? What possible value are health regions as a metric by which to parse risk of contagion? And here I never thought they’d find a way to make the concept of bubbles seem sensible.
An argument could be made that with Vancouver Island being its own health region, we are at least buffered against those who rule from Victoria, lest we catch whatever has affected their thinking.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I boldly ignored these absurd travel restrictions and made my annual, springtime sojourn to Smilin’ Dog Manor in the southern Cariboo. I felt empowered. I felt bad. I felt more like myself than I have since this drama began.
Until I discovered I hadn’t actually breached the travel restrictions. My four-hour drive from Vancouver Coastal to Interior Health actually fell under one of the 287 exceptions and was totally permissible. I’m not certain I want to divulge which exception but Smilin’ Dog is where I claim my Home Owner Grant. Just as well since I didn’t bother to think up a reasonable sounding lie in case there was a roadblock somewhere on the Duffey.
I thought I was proving the point that stupid rules beget increased rule-breakers. Instead, I was unknowingly following the rules. Curses.
Fortunately, I have another chance coming up. I have to come back to Whistler, then onwards. I’m trying to decide which of the 362 exceptions I’ll fall under this time. I might be transporting commercial goods. But I like the idea of heading to a parole check-in, or providing care to a person because of a psychological impairment, self-help in my case. But I don’t want to be too prepared since it’s highly likely there’ll be no roadside checks. Lest anyone think I’m a walking super-spreader, my travels are mundane to the point of boring. From one house to another. One set of friends I can’t see to another. The only difference is which grocery I dash into and out of, masked and sanitized and distanced.
Meanwhile, domestic and international flights are still landing at YVR and other Canadian locations. As reported in The Globe and Mail, there were 1,873 flights that arrived or departed from Canadian airports between January 1 and May 5 that carried at least one passenger who later tested positive. In January and February, 60 per cent were international flights. Now 60 per cent of viral cases come in domestic flights. And those are just the known cases, which I’m sure were 100 per cent of all cases.
Regardless, it sometimes seems all of those that landed at YVR ended up in Whistler, at least until the powers that be threw the town under the bus and closed us down once again. But hey, land in Vancouver and Whistler’s in the same health region. What could go wrong?
But we’re still being calm and kind. How kind? The first weekend RCMP set up roadside stops, no tickets were issued. That’s kind.
By comparison—and leading the too-little, too-late race—Alberta has actually arrested several high-profile serial offenders. Brothers Artur and Dawid Pawlowski were carted off to the hoosegow for continuing to open up the church they lead while ignoring such niceties as reduced-capacity limits, masks and distancing. Their flocks are outraged but to date, no one has been struck dead by the hand of God for arresting them.
Another freedumb fighter, Chris Scott, proprietor of the Whistle Stop Cafe, was finally popped for continuing to ignore common sense and closure orders. News footage of Scott and his supporters whipping each other up into a frenzied freedumb loop play out, reminding me uncomfortably of a gaggle of gobbling turkeys lacking enough sense to come in out of the rain.
Personally, I’m not sure arrests are the way to go. They only aggravate those who believe it is an assault on their personal freedoms to make them do anything that makes sense, or believe this virus doesn’t exist or believe since they haven’t dropped dead, it’s all just a big conspiracy.
Good enough for me. If you believe the lord will protect you, if you believe serving up gastric distress is an absolute right, if you think masks are for pussies, Bill Gates is out to turn us all into slaves, right on, dudes and dudettes.
I think we’d all be better off not hitting the hornet’s nest and instead of arresting miscreants, videoing them, pump their faces into a biometric database and turn any of them away at every hospital in the land if they have the audacity to show up complaining of COVID-19 symptoms, carting them off instead to a repurposed feedlot where they can wallow in their own respiratory distress. You want freedom? Here’s the ultimate. You believe your deity will come to your aid? Put him/her/them and your faith to the test. Unwilling to join the social contract and protect others? Don’t look for any help from those others.
Why clog the healthcare system with people who won’t accept simple rules? Why force doctors, nurses and first responders to treat people who wouldn’t lift a finger to make their already hellish lives a little easier? They’ve opted out of doing their part to protect society. They’ve chosen to put their own distorted concept of individual freedom ahead of the common good. Give ‘em a dogeared copy of The Fountainhead and toss their asses into the Feedlot of Freedom.
To quote the late Lou Reed, I’m sick of ‘em.
