I've lived both side of the border. On this side I had cancer with multiple surgeries and radiation while living and working in a precarious income and job circumstance (grad school). It cost me zero dollars. I worried about money zero. This wasn't a hip, I was triaged to the absolute front of the line with zero wait times. The biggest non-medical nuisance was when I crossed the US border and was still radioactive enough that I caused a minor international incident and delayed our red eye bus for six hours as the doctors offices were closed and they couldn't confirm my treatment and wouldn't accept the signed letter I had from them In the US, that might have gone the same way, but also a few things being slightly different (like a semester as contract adjunct without medical insurance) and I'd have had a WHOLE lot on my plate.

The point here is that as much as I think dental care and pharmcare should be included in our universal health, these are just vastly vastly smaller inequities in the system than what the US has.

By the way, I also did IVF on both sides of the border and sadly many provinces in Canada don't cover this. Kinda fun pushing the value of a small car off a cliff each month to try and have a baby and in this case both countries were equally ****.

So Shifty, being his typical self, was VERY mad that I once posted a poll a while back showing at the time higher levels of vaccine hesitancy than the Canadian average. He kept trying to push back with irrelevant things effectively poorly worded versions of that demand was outstripping supply. It was irrelevant because at some point that reverses, and then the question of vaccine hesitancy is impactful. That point has now arrived.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...says-1.6056660

Alberta is now near the bottom of the country by first dose percentage, and the rule breaking dud of a premier is ringing the alarm bell. BC is at the top, by the way.

Hopefully this reverses and we don't see a situation like the US where vaccine hesitancy is a huge problem. But the early signs are showing.

And as always, can we get a round of GREAT JOB RIGHT HONORABLE JUSTIN TRUDEAU for procuring and effectively delivering an incredibly supply of vaccine quickly and early that means we have passed the US so convincingly already and are now the envy (or source of angst!) of the world?

This is unbelievably tragic.

Just so horrible and gross all around

Tourists visiting canada in the future must be fully vaccinated. Ofc there's still no (public) time table for when that would be, but he dropped the v bomb

https://www.680news.com/2021/06/07/w...ly-vaccinated/

As an aside- cases in canada are down 37% past 7 days

Under Kenney's plan 70% of Albertan's need to be vaccinated to go to stage 3. We are a 125,000 doses short right now though the governments says 100,000 are booked. So were close. I think the federal government could help push that number by announcing a plan for opening the US/Canada border that requires a vaccine passport
Personally I am excited to get my second dose and eligible to book on the 14th

I think the discussion has been made that Trudeau has done a good job procuring and delivering the doses. Also we have a long ways to go to pass the USA on second doses. As to the Envy of the world . Do you have a link that can show that? We went with a first dose strategy which I agree was the way to go but I do believe that decision was made by provinces alone

Canada will fly past the USA in terms of second doses in the not too distant future. Shifty will be able to get his haircut, while daydreaming about the US health care system, well before that time.

Israel is a good comparison. They were the first in the world to explode to about 60% of their population with a first dose months ago. Then it completely stagnated. They are now at 63%. Canada is growing rapidly and is now at 62%. So we will be literally first in the world for that metric, better than the US and the UK by a long shot. Now I certainly agree that this is always an unfair comparison because Canada has a different strategy than most of the world, and if you look at "doses given" Canada is doing very well, but not going to hit that #1 spot like we will for single doses. Another unfairness in the comparisons is that Canada did an earlier approval for kids 12+.

However, the key point is that second doses are not hard. We are getting the supply and will be rapidly catching up on the second dose thing right now. What is hard in general is getting a high percentage vaccinated. For instance, people that are anti-vaxxers, or hesitant about the vaccine, or are hard to reach due to poverty or politics or whatever else, those are the long term stumbling blocks to a successful vaccine program. So for instance the utter stagnation in Israel is a real point of concern despite how fast their program was because we want those numbers to be 75-85% for herd immunity, not the 63% they have been stuck on for a long time. In the US the hurdles are more political/cultural with red states being quite a bit worse than blue states in general. In many poor countries, there are huge hurdles with poverty and lack of health infrastructure. So there is a lot of reason to think that Canada with its excellent procurement, excellent distribution, egalitarian health care, highly developed infrastructure, generally scientifically minded cultural views, etc etc are going to be really effective. Some concerns about Alberta being a tad behind the rest due to vaccine hesitancy for cultural reasons, but hopefully it will be just a small blip. Either way, things are looking great.

You don't get a green card for most visas. In fact, the most common visa for professionals is the TN and it's rejected if you tell them you are planning to get a green card and emigrate. H-1 is better but the employer has to go through a bunch of hoops to get that one, which is deliberate so they hire an American instead.

Then to get citizenship after the green card it's an additional seven year wait.

If you think those issues are solved by living in the US you're living in fantasyland. They magically solved their issue of health care access by kicking ~10% of the population out of the system.

100% sure you can still fly in as an american with no vaccine. just need to pass a covid test. I know this isnt "implemented" yet, cuz it wont be imo. A simple covid test a few days before flight seems reasonable and should continue. forcing a vaccine is pretty LOL when talking about hurting the economy. Many tourists wont have a vaccine, so putting up a restriction WILL hurt the economy as much as doing the opposite. You cant have both trudeau you dumb dumb.

and cases are down because we are still in nazi ontarioland, with everything locked down. Its funny to be ****ed in the middle of summer like this still, and then turn on the NHL playoffs and see 15,000+ people stuffed into bostons arena screaming with zero masks or restrictions. Or like 18,000+ people in Vegas's arena. Literally sold out games.

i know soo soo sooo many people that are never getting vaccinated, me included, so its not a smart move if you are trying to stimulate the economy.

Utterly pathetic. It is really hard to find any shreds of empathy for the anti-vaxxers amongst us. I do think Canada makes a mistake by framing vaccines so much as a personal choice which allows anti-vaxxers to proliferate without consequences. My first reaction is to want to have vaccine passports so people like you are blocked from every restaurant, every sporting event, every type of travel etc etc until Covid is effectively eliminated. Want to be an anti-vaxxer? Fine. You can't do anything. Ok, ok, I can probably be persuaded this is too heavy handed and relax my position, a bit, but **** people like you piss me off.

There is also a decent debate about the most effective ways to help persuade anti-vaxxers. Probably name and shame isn't the most effective. But here too, my first reaction is still to say **** off.

My opinion differs and I got the vaccine. I am also fine with Vaccine passports by governments or businesses. Though I do believe it is a choice and if you had Covid I understand why you may not want the vaccine right away. I also understand why folks may not trust big pharma. Reality is I have the vaccine so I should be safe.

The problem I have with JT saying your not coming in from another country unless your fully vaccinated is the fact it may take them years to figure out a system to do that. Though it may get more folks to get the vaccine but we also have seen forged covid tests I am sure will see the same for vaccinations

I am curious though are you as outraged at folks that choose to not immunize their kids or those that never get the flu vaccine noting I do realize they are different and the flu does not kill as many folks.

A Texas friend just emailed me this but I think it was meant for lozen.

Even tho I agree a lot with uke on a lot of stuff .
I will always favor Free will over government control WHEN an option exist -> aka vaccine .

Once a vaccine exist and vastly be distributed , I don’t see the purpose of a vaccine passport .
People with no vaccine will eventually suffer (or benefit ?) the consequences of not taking it .

people can still smoke and it’s fine by me .

The gov't should just entice/incentive the hesitant to get shots.

Reach out to the celebrity Musician/actor/Comedian Canadian crowd, all desperate to get some work and usually happy to participate in feel good, rebuilding events and put on a series of concerts and meet and greets called 'Getting back to the New Normal' or something and make them for 'Vaccinated only' and paid for by gov't.

Allow restaurants/Art Galleries/Museums/MovieTheatres to host a series of free events at full capacity for vaccinated only with the bill paid for by the gov't based on a set price/menu.

Let people know their next Passport/License/etc fee will be waved for the vaccinated.

Make the unvaccinated motivated as they feel 'left out'.

Unlike in the US the crocodile tears of 'how dare they not include us' by the unvaccinated would go almost ignored here and I would bet that such strategy would move the needle in that group as not all are the true hardcore types.

That's ok. No matter what the system is, there is always the potential for abuse on the fringe. It was the same with CERB or any of the regular programs in Canada. There is never going to be some perfect system that prevents all abuse, you just have to design one that is effective as possible, with various fines and enforcement. If it keeps 95% of non-vaccinated people out that is ok with me.

Yes, every kid over 12 should get the covid vaccine, anti-vaxxer morons be damned. It isn't close. Get the vaccine. Also, everyone should get the flu vaccine. I'll admit that the latter is something I think a lot of us were rather uninformed about. I've gotten it in recent years, but I didn't in my 20s for sure. I had no position against it, but was being intellectually lazy to realize it is something important to get. A huge number of people still die completely unnecessarily from this in normal years so this should be something as a society we are being much more prominently encouraging.

I don't think this analogy is useful. Firstly, smoke (mostly) kills the primary user, but for covid it very often isn't the anti-vaxxer like WateryBoil, it is someone elses grandma who dies because of their anti-vaxxer inaction. But further, we as a society do a LOT to discourage smoking; you can't do it in many public places for instance. I think the same model could work here: you can be a moronic anti-vaxxer, but are excluded from most public places without a vaccine passport. I'm not 100% sure that is truly the right answer, and certainly not the direction that Canada is going, but there is a compelling argument for sure there.

Anti-vaxxers are a lower form of life, but in the end I do agree with this sentiment

In the end, anti-vaxxers like the one in this thread, will play a different math game based on their warped beliefs, and fortunately due to the vaccines they will no longer have as much of an impact to those outside their little group (though it is not 0).

Sure, it stinks that they did not pre-pay their medical costs like smokers do with their cigarette taxes, but by later this year we will see story after story of anti-vaxxers who get Covid and croak, and there will be minimal sympathy for them at that time due to the choice they made.

Most anti-vaxxers will avoid any serious issues, because - math, and they may subsequently claim they made the right choice, but it will not be hard to look at 100,000 vaccinated people and 100,000 anti-vaxxers and see how the math plays out. Seems like the USA has kind of embraced that at this point (since getting anti-vaxxers to see common sense is a time waster) - so likely we will see that dynamic down there before we do here, and in the end I suspect an anti-vaxxer death by Covid in November 2021 will be regarded as more of a bad choice by that person, nothing more. Basically a viral version of a person doing a stunt seen in a "Jackass" movie that goes wrong. Dummies gonna dummy.

It will be interesting to see the societal dynamic that creates, even though it will not be as dystopian as many people who want the world to end will want to see.

Not so. Those who catch covid will be the ones to spawn new variants, potentially the one that beats the vaccine.

Variants can flourish everywhere , not just in human bodies .

I'm no fan of Andrew Coyne - indeed any article he writes reflexively leaves me more likely to take the opposite view - but this old piece on the 2017 conservatives (including O'Toole) refusing to support even the most banal condemning of islamophobia from a private members bill is making the rounds once again given the recent terrorist attack on muslims in Canada. And it is biting.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/and...n-islamophobia

As much as you know these bills are for political show only I would agree with you its an easy vote.

Though can you imagine If Jason Kenney passed a bill that bans public workers in positions of "authority" from wearing religious symbols, specifically while they are on duty.


On the passport front maybe it will not be as hard as I thought with a conservative province having one . Both hard copy and app

https://winnipegsun.com/news/news-ne...er-second-shot

I like the guy complaining about how Ontario isn't open and then in the same breath talking about he's not going to get the vaccine.

Like hey, wanna know why they have sold out hockey games in Boston but a few miles away in Toronto you can't even go to bar for a beer? Because they got vaxxed and you didn't.

Just pure stupidity some people.

it will be the same if variant spread, such as is happening in the UK takes hold in Canada or the US by taking hold in the unvaccinated.

If society then decides selective closures and other measures must be again implemented, the largest crowd complaining about it will be the very ones who are the root cause of it.

You can take that to the bank.

Fully vaccinated travelers can skip hotel quarantine in the coming weeks

https://www.cp24.com/mobile/news/fed...d-19-1.5462600