Overcoming COVID by golfing with four of my besties instead of watching virtual concerts at home
Any success Canada has had in limiting the spread of COVID has been in spite of most government efforts, not because of it
Throughout the last year, there has been a lot of talk over what the pandemic has laid bare. From generational wealth gaps to the fine margins in which our health and social programs operate, COVID-19 has revealed us to be lacking and vulnerable in so many ways.
One of the shortcomings that has bothered me the most is how committed our governments have been — even in the midst of these unprecedented times™ — to maintaining their stupid little games of governance in which they wield their power to dole out benefits upon the favoured, greasing squeaky wheels rather than worrying about the bike’s entire drivetrain and generally being too lazy to ensure equal treatment for all.
It felt rather arbitrary this past fall when the Ontario government, after shutting down fitness facilities in COVID-19 hot spots, announced it was reopening dance studios. But the credit for this goes to former National Ballet dancer and current Leslieville School of Dance and Music owner Kristen Dennis, who collected more than 65,000 signatures on a petition. The Ford government relented and allowed dance studios to open, while keeping gyms shuttered.
The premier’s clumsy explanation half-assedly echoed the lobbying efforts of dance studios when asked about the distinction:
These groups are coming in different groups into the boutique fitness areas compared to a dance studio that is there for teaching and they have a cohort, if you want co call it that, compared to the fitness studios. I don’t think you can compare the dance studios with certain students over and over again to fitness areas.
The fuck?
Meanwhile, the irrationality as to why it’s okay to shop at Costco and Wal-Mart and dollar stores during a pandemic but not The Bay comes down to simple industry classification. The Bay is the only store classified as “department store general merchandiser,” and therefore doesn’t fit into the allowances made for the others.
The most recent stay-at-home order which requires the large retailers to rope-off their non-essential sections so as to only sell grocery and pharmacy items is hilariously purposeless, as if offering more space to shop for additional products would increase transmission risk.
One of the least sensical things to me to come out of the most recent order is that it simultaneously asks Canadians to only exercise outdoors close to home while allowing golf courses and driving ranges to remain open. Instead of going for a run in the country, call up four of your buds to enjoy a round of 18 holes? And don’t worry. Halfway huts and beverage carts are still good-to-go.
According to Golf Ontario’s website, the rules confirm “that GOLF IS SAFE and that now, more than ever, safe outdoor recreational options will be critical to ensure the physical and mental well-being of Ontarians.” It also recommends that members not be too boastful that their country clubs are operating.
While happy that golf courses will be open in Ontario, there will be many, many businesses very negatively impacted by this stay-at-home order and we need to be mindful of this. We ask that in any external communications (social media, etc.) you be very aware of your messaging and ensure you are being thankful that golf will be able to provide a SAFE outlet for the physical and mental well-being of Ontarians. We don’t want to be too celebratory in our tone in light of the significant challenges other businesses are facing.
Compare this to concert venues in the province, many of which were struggling even before the pandemic. They’ve been told they can’t livestream concerts from empty locations — presumably because it would require production crews working in close proximity indoors.
Maybe if event halls called their crews cohorts instead and ensured that audiences of five ridiculously dressed country club members got priority seating, they’d not only be allowed to keep virtual concerts going, they could have drink cart service too.
The only way to help your case in the midst of arbitrary pandemic lockdowns seems to be to strengthen your government lobbying efforts, something that’s become a pandemic cottage industry. There’s some seriously dark comedy to be found in all of the small businesses being forced to utilize government loans and assistance to buy PPE and ensure a safe place for customers under ever-changing guidelines when the money would have probably been better used to hire a leeching insider to buddy up and make your case to the powers that be.
During regular times, we sort of tacitly accept this kind of polite corruption in our governments, but just as inequality in other areas becomes more difficult to hide (and therefore dismiss) during a pandemic, so to does the difference between the haves — by which I mean, have a lobbyist on retainer — and the have nots — those without friends in common with the premier.
It’s funny to me that we’ve sort of been lightly encouraged not to talk about this part of the government’s response lest we either associate ourselves with anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists who maintain COVID is no worse than the flu or come across as simply expecting too much of our leaders.
This is from a John Ibbitson column in Thursday’s Globe and Mail:
And it’s easy to accuse politicians of chasing after votes or pandering to their base or succumbing to dogma rather than science if you aren’t responsible for decisions that could throw many thousands of people out of work, send businesses into bankruptcy and leave the economy in even worse shape than it already is.
Might I profer that it’s easy for a reason, or that the ease with which it might be done should not stop us from doing so?
By all means, let’s hold governments and politicians at every level to account. But let’s also remember that they’re human, that they and their advisers have been working around the clock for a year, and that most of them, most of the time, are using their best judgment, for better or worse.
Lives. Livelihoods. All in the crosshairs. But those we selected to do this duty are working hard at it, so we should give them a break for all the missteps? I am appreciative that they’re working hard. I just wish they’d allow others the opportunity to work at all.
As Canadians, we’re generally compliant, especially when it is clearly to the benefit of public safety. And throughout this whole ordeal that has been revealed to be a major strength. As much as we’ve been called “dummies” and worse by officials for isolated incidents of stupidity, the worst of this virus (and especially the death toll in Ontario) has been the fault of government myopia that predated COVID (privatized long-term care homes) or the result of things deemed necessary (warehouse outbreaks) despite the risks.
In a recent column in the National Post, Chris Selley sums it up really well:
Canadians’ generally cautious and communitarian good nature has been responsible for our relatively not-so-bad performance against the pandemic — that the real knock against the people in charge is that they didn’t help us do better, instead (in many cases) managing to combine maximum misery and incoherence with minimum results.
I might add arbitrary restrictions to “maximum misery and incoherence with minimum results,” but otherwise, that’s exactly the reason why I feel a sense of resentment and bitterness toward the government’s response.
It’s not merely because I’m frustrated and aimlessly looking for someone or something to blame. They’ve really fucked up. And it’s okay to get mad at that without becoming a COIVD-denying lunatic. There’s space between the two extremes.