Photo Credit: Blacknight Solutions

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…The famous opening phrase to Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale Of Two Cities” was applied to the times in which Dickens lived, but it probably also applies to all periods in history, including our own. This past year represents both the best of times and the worst of times for us. What follows are a few random snapshots of the past year, representing both the good times and the bad.
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As H1N1 sweeps across the nation, Liberal poll numbers sputter and Prime Minister Harper sashays in Bollywood while the federal Liberal brain trust is slumped on Donolo’s bench gulping much needed oxygen between periods.

The Conservative’s India inroads must be particularly galling given the long tradition of Indo-Canadians voting en masse for Liberals – particularly when it came to needing quick votes at candidate nomination meetings.

The Liberals must be working overtime to come up with a platform that rings true with voters. Meanwhile Mr. Harper systematically and strategically chips away at their storied franchise.

But Harper has chinks in his armour. Not the least of which is the ire that he inspires in long-time, loyal Liberals. Even my close Liberal friends still summarize their entire re-election strategy as “I hate Harper.” You can mobilize loyalists on hate. But the majority of Canadian voters are another story altogether.
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It's just a flu and it's just a vaccine.

Just to be clear, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person and, as I spend a good deal of time with my husband the communist and my parents, the super-liberal and the skeptic, I am also especially well disposed to a great deal of distrust for anyone who stands to make money from a negative situation. All of this considered, I would love to believe that the H1N1 vaccine is some international conspiratorial plot to either a) fill tax paying citizens with mercury and poisonous neurotoxins or b) turn out the near-empty pockets of a world economy choked by recession for those last few coins and some lint. But no matter what I read or hear, I just can’t make the leap.
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Last week I found an interactive map on the Globe and Mail website that provides a big-picture look at the number of confirmed H1N1 hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths by province/territory and for Canada as a whole. Today, I found another great resource courtesy of the National Post.

The image illustrates how H1N1 vaccines in Canada originate from GlaxoSmithKline, the sole provider of H1N1 vaccines in Canada, and ultimately reach the general population. The image also indicates the eligibility groups province by province and provides up-to-date information on the roll-out so far.

Here is a summary of the content provided:

British Columbia:

- 1.16 million doses received.
- Over 900,000 injections thus far.
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A negative-stained image of the swine flu virus.

While searching the web for accurate information regarding the number of Canadians impacted by the Swine Flu, I came across a fantastic interactive map on The Globe and Mail site. The map provides a big-picture look at the number of confirmed hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths by province/territory and for Canada as a whole. Although the size of the rings surrounding each providence can be misleading, the facts are not. Here are some of the figures they’ve gathered:

Deaths per million people:

All of Canada: 2.76
Newfoundland and Labrador: 0.00
Prince Edward Island: 0.00
Nova Scotia: 1.07
New Brunswick: 0.00
Quebec: 3.48
Ontario: 2.09
Manitoba: 5.79
Saskatchewan: 4.92
Alberta: 3.35
British Columbia: 2.74
Yukon: 0.00
Northwest Territories: 0.00
Nunavut: 31.85
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The Canadian government’s response to the H1N1 virus has been widely criticized for its perceived lack of foresight regarding its ability to inform and inoculate an increasingly frightened public.

Although the actual logistics of providing the vaccine are largely being seen to by individual provincial health services, Steven Harper’s Conservative government has borne the brunt of attacks about their level of preparedness in managing what the World Health Organization has been calling a global pandemic of so called ‘Swine Flu’ since August 29, 2009.

On October 21, 2009, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. David Butler-Jones hosted a joint press conference in Ottawa to urge all Canadians to ward against this new, highly virulent and potentially deadly strain of influenza.

“I’m happy to say that today Health Canada has authorized the H1N1 flu virus vaccine,” said a reassuring Aglukkaq, “This is a milestone in our efforts to fight H1N1 flu virus.”
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Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien talks with his communications director Peter Donolo in this June 20, 1999, photo.

I’m sick of the H1N1 plague, Act of God, pandemic, curse, Rumsfeld’s gold, whatever you want to call it. It’s just too stupid for words at this point. I simply can’t believe the media coverage of a simple flu bug that causes less damage than SARS did.

So today I’ve decided to laugh my ass off at poor Peter Donolo, who I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting, is a very nice fellow, and probably just accepted the biggest butt-frigging job a communications guru could take.

It makes me laugh to see how relieved Liberals are at the very mention of Peter’s name, like he was the Messiah or something.

I’ll point out a few facts most Liberals (also known as the 20 something crowd) fail to take into consideration:

1. When Peter was brought in to work for JC, Jean Chretien had the advantage of being about as low in the opinion of Canadians as he could go. Iggy, sorry mate, but you have quite a ways to sink yet before everything that happens is all good.
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Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq

News of the Swine-Flu started drifting into the media back in April of 2009. It very soon began to seem like it was much noise about not much. Then it returned to the airwaves and started hitting all of us hard in early October as the date for the federal roll-out of a newly developed vaccine approached. One would imagine that the Ministry of Health would follow their own directives, as listed on their “About Mission, Values, Activities” page. Pay particular attention to the third sub-heading under “Core Values – Our Values in Action,” which is entitled, “Caring for the People of Canada.” (take a minute to click the link and read that one section). There’s talk about advancing the public good, as well as the provision of credible information and reliable advice – presumably to that same public. But what has actually happened falls rather short of the Ministry’s espoused ideals.

The Federal government, as represented by Canadian Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, told Canadians on October 21st, “I’m happy to say that today Health Canada has authorized the H1N1 flu virus vaccine,” and on October 25th, “I encourage Canadians to get the vaccine to stop the pandemic”. I live in BC where the H1N1 virus hit hardest, the clock is still ticking, people are still dying, it’s October 30th, and my family is still unable to get the vaccine. Unfortunately, or fortunately (I won’t know until the grim reaper has completed his grisly harvest), we’re not in a high risk category, so if we die, well, that’s just taking one for the team, don’t you see.
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The greatest thing about H1N1 is that it heightened social anxiety that is now out of control.

If government’s can’t control their message and act as the source for all direction, in a country with a national health care program and billions being dumped to support its existence, then people need to take this cue and start figuring things out for themselves.

Cudos to the media for enabling all of this ridiculousness. But like every other catastrophic doomsday prediction of the recent past – Y2K, moldy alfalfa sprouts, mad cow disease, etc. it’s great TV. But it’s starting to make humanity look like complete idiots.

In the last week, as the flu started to sweep across Canada with a predictable vengeance immediately after a 13 year old young rising hockey superstar from Ontario died, supposedly from H1N1, the circus began. I grieve for his parents but I don’t know if the media’s play on this was necessary. But it was unavoidable.
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We complain when the government spends money, but we complain when they do not. Take the millions of dollars that the government is spending on the latest round of flu vaccinations. They bought the drugs, which have yet to be proven effective in children or pregnant women, and have opened clinics to help deliver them to the masses. Every newspaper is showing stories of the latest numbers of infections and deaths, a small fraction of the numbers infected and killed by the season flu shot every year. Doctors are stressing that they would rather focus their efforts on prevention rather than treatment – a grand idea.

Everybody has formed their own opinions on this subject. Some of the comments from the CBC website today run along the lines of, and I am paraphrasing here because there are just far too many comments, “swine flu isn’t really a big deal, everybody should get the shot, people are dying from it” to “this is a media-hyped problem, you wouldn’t hear about people dying from the regular old flu”.
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