Some think COVID19 is a hoax

The inconvenient truth of COVID-19 is that it’s going to infect millions and hundreds of thousands will die. That reality is slowing dawning on a majority of Canadian as the virus moves closer to home. However a small minority see it as a hoax, a government plot to invade our daily lives. I’ll call this group the “Illuminati faction.”

A larger minority have politicized what is a health crisis. This group votes for the Conservative Party but I’m reluctant to label them as such. Let’s call them the “political partisans.”

Four million Canadians say the whole crisis is overblown, extrapolating from a poll conducted by Angus Reid on March 30. Twelve per cent of respondents agreed that “the threat of a coronavirus outbreak in Canada is overblown.”

Two-thirds of them voted Conservative in the 2019 federal election.

Other than politics, I can think of no other reason why Conservative voters would regard a health crisis differently than anyone else. The coronavirus does not select victims based on how they vote. Regardless of what they tell pollsters, I suspect that this group is as worried as anyone else.

The official stance Conservation Party is sensible. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said: “There really isn’t much philosophical difference when it comes to fighting a virus or keeping Canadians healthy and safe (CP, March 22, 2020).”

The motive of the political partisans seems obvious. They are reluctant to give the prime minister any kind of advantage. During a health crisis the prime minister appears statesman-like.

That bump in popularity has certainly worked for Prime Minister Trudeau and to slightly lesser extent for U.S. President Trump. Two-thirds of Canadians think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is doing a good job handling the COVID-19 crisis. Some provincial leaders have seen even more of a bump. The highest score came for Premier François Legault of Quebec with an approval rating of 93 per cent.

However, the Illuminati faction has more of a populist inclination. They distrust anything that the Mainstream Media (MSM) has to offer which they regard as fake news. The truth is revealed through the blogosphere.

I found two examples of the Illuminati faction on the Facebook page of a Kamloops user.

Henry Makow is the author of Illuminati: The Cult that Hijacked the World. On his website he proposes that governments are part of a sinister plot. His April 3 post warns:

“Flu Psyop — Pretext to Impose Orwellian Dictatorship?” ‘The Depression [resulting from the pandemic] will deepen and an oppressive political regime will be instituted.” “Their goal is take away our freedoms. Then if we want them back, we’ll be forced to receive vaccines to gain a digital certificate of movement which allows us to be tracked on 5G control grids.”

And a YouTube video with 508,068 views as of March 31, 2020, is titled “CoronaHoax Pandemic Proven Fake… Yet The Lockdowns Continue… Here’s Why.”

Like climate change deniers, COVID-19 deniers would prefer to believe some guy blogging from his basement. Unlike climate change, the effects of the virus are not glacial –they are immediate and deadly. And when not deadly, it’s extremely painful with possible permanent damage to the lungs.

Who says irony is dead?

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Rona Ambrose: the best leader the Conservatives never had

For someone who has been out of federal politics since 2017 and has no intentions for running for leader of the Conservative Party, Rona Ambrose remains popular. Even the minority Liberal government likes a bill she crafted.

Image: The Star

Before she dropped out of the leadership race, she was favoured by core Conservatives over second choice Peter MacKay, 34 to 19 per cent. Even non-Conservatives favoured Ambrose 25 to 21 per cent according to the Angus Reid Institute.

Last week the Liberals reintroduced a bill she crafted while in opposition.

There’s a number of astonishing things about this.

First, her bill probably has a greater chance of being passed by the current Liberal minority government than by the ruling Conservative government that she was a member of.

Former Prime Minister Steven Harper’s tough-on-crime agenda was championed by Justice Minister Vic Toews who later become a judge in Manitoba. Ambrose’s bill, critical of fossilized judges, would not likely have seen the light of day.

Ambrose originally introduced her private members bill in 2017 in response to a number of high profile sexual-assault cases. In one, Alberta Federal Court Justice Robin Camp asked a rape complainant: “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?”

Her bill would ensure that all newly appointed provincial superior court judges undergo training in sexual law and social context.

Ambrose’s private member’s bill passed unanimously in the House of Commons in 2017, but died in the Senate last June as Parliament adjourned before the federal election campaign. Now, as a government bill, senators are obligated to treat it expeditiously.

Conservatives are in the awkward position of supporting a Liberal government bill brought forward by one of their own. Opposing it would be unpopular among Conservatives and supporting it could be seen as being in compliance with the Liberals.

This Conservative ambivalence became evident when NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh proposed fast-tracking the bill and some Conservative MPs opposed it. Singh says there is no reason to delay its passing since the house has already approved it in essence.

The Conservative’s response to Ambrose’s bill was tepid. A spokesman for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said in a tweet that they want to expand the bill to include members of the parole board and parole officers.

Ambrose gave the Conservatives new life as interim leader after their defeat in 2015. Stephen Harper’s icy grip on the throat of the Conservative Party was lifted and MPs began to speak their own minds.

For example, in 2016, Cathy McLeod, Conservative MP for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo stepped out of her role as Opposition Critic to the Minister of Indigenous Affairs when she introduced a private members bill that would require labeling of codes on all foods and drugs that could be read by smart phones.

With the uninspired race for leader of the Conservatives and the voice of Conservatives represented by the parochial premiers Scott Moe, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford, the party seems doomed for the wilderness. They make the tepid Liberal minority government look impressive.

Canada’s dull but productive minority government could last years.