Dear John…Letter #2

Dear John.
It’s been a while since I last wrote an open letter to you – 16 months to be exact, and while so much has changed since then… a lot is sadly still the same.

First let me remark how refreshed you look in your recent ‘phone in questions only allowed’ press conference! One wouldn’t even guess we were in the midst of pandemic where many are still struggling to get by, businesses are closing in alarming numbers, parents are on edge with school reopening, and cases are rising daily. As you can see by my masked up photo on the side, I’m a little weary looking from harvesting crops, getting ready for winter and worrying about what cold and flu season will mean for my family and many other British Columbians this winter.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself here, and I only have a short time before I have other things to take care of, so let me get to the clip that I think is the source of many British Columbians anger, surprise and disappointment right now.

First ( for those of you  who may not follow often), I’ve  already made clear my feelings on a snap election this fall in my most recent post here : https://lailayuile.com/2020/09/03/a-bc-election-during-the-pandemic-sure-why-not-they-keep-building-a-dam-with-no-foundation-too/

I also shared my views on how ridiculous it is for you to be jerking around the press and Elections BC, who is getting ready for an election we may or may not have. I didn’t really think you would try and instigate an election…you’ve said all along publicly its working, and reaffirmed this in a letter posted to the BC government website even when Weaver  stepped down to sit as an independent. Even your online influencers immediately started suggesting to everyone and anyone that an election was not a possibility unless the  BC Liberals or  BC Greens prompted one ( via a non confidence vote)

But then you answered Vaughn Palmers questions  in this press conference and everything changed. ( by phone, apparently its safe enough for regular people  to go to work and school  1 metre apart, but not to have reporters  masked and distanced at 2 metres at a microphone … maybe try sitting them in desks, facing forward, like Dr. Bonnie Henrys instructions for school kids )

Now John, I’m going to ask my readers to please watch this entire clip which is just over two minutes. And I am going to ask them to pay attention to your  answers on the CASA agreement with the Greens that allow you to be premier. I can’t even contain my disappointment and surprise at the hubris and arrogance here:

Wow.

So…poli-geeks who watched this will go “WOAH, game on bro!!”

People who are not actively watching or following politics will go: ” Wow, is he actually going to use a pandemic to break an agreement keeping him in power?”

It was a bit remarkable,  because within hours, the online  BC NDP influencers (who have been (rightfully) verbally slapping Trudeau and the Federal Liberals silly  for proroguing government so he can attempt inserting a poison pill into new legislation when the house convenes  to instigate an election and blame it on another party)…were now faced with their leader implying he would do the same thing. But they veered right into attack mode on the Greens, as expected.

Now that is loyalty… and blind partisanship… when followers  will  try to protect you John, from the same criticisms much of Canada has been tossing at Trudeau.

This is no time for an election unless you are an opportunist, pure and simple. British Columbians absolutely want you to focus on the present and future John… but when you openly express ways to justify getting out of an agreement you signed, you only increase cynicism. You literally just showed us that you would be willing to rip up an agreement.

You and your government are losing trust John, because you hoard information and focus on good in your pressers, while glossing over the not so good. And it is starting to show now.

Case in point is this graph released by Dr. Henry in her Thursday presser last week.

I’m not an epidemiologist, nor do I profess to be.

But research is something I do well and I also pay attention to the views and concerns of people outside my own. I do not live in an echo chamber, and you know this well. You acknowledged this years ago when you called me to chat. The charts above presented by Dr.Henry last Thursday show a different story from one told in pressers. I totally get that parties and banquet halls are harder to trace because of all the different people who don’t know each other there, and lack of names and contact numbers.. but letting the public know most kids under 19 are getting Covid from their own household contacts, might get people being more cautious. No parent wants to unknowingly infect their own child.

Letting people know that transmission is happening at work with people we know…. might have them acting more cautious. These numbers alone should not be discounted, and this data was largely not picked up on by a press that still has not remembered they have a duty as a journalist. In combination with the highly questionable cohorts model in full classes…. well… one doesn’t need to be a scientist, only a parent, to understand how fast germs travel in school.

I have to say though, I’m glad that a journalist finally asked Dr. Henry about Covid Long Haulers this week. I haven’t watched the video, but I did see Lizda Yuzda post this:

Well you might be wondering why this matters John, but in case our readers don’t know, let me expand on this. Across the world, there are increasing reports of those reported as ‘recovered’, who actually have long term impacts of Covid, that have become known as Long Haulers. For some its months of recovery where they cannot work, for others its intermittant flares not unlike those known to us with autoimmune conditions.

So.. for the 5000 plus people listed as recovered in BC, please tell us how many of those people are being followed for long term effects, and how many are unable to currently work? Because this is also what people deserve to know about.

Why, for the love of all the transparency you rightfully harassed the BC Liberals for, are you giving incomplete info on Covid 19 patients? If  you want people to comply,.give them the truth of risk in their own area. Daily. Weekly if need be.

It doesn’t help you, it hinders you, not unlike how forcing reporters to call in while expecting everyone else to go to work doesn’t help you either. For a party espousing to be of the working person, you are all acting more like the elite than Andrew ‘where did he go?’ Wilkinson is.

John, I strongly suspect there is  going to be a time this winter when the people of BC need a leader they can trust, and that will tell them the real deal… and that leader will likely be you.

I can tell you now though, that using this pandemic to justify an election no one wants, will work against you

I can guarantee it.

You will end up in another minority government and it may not work in the NDP’s favour this time.That is where  we are John.

We, the average people, have no patience for this right now.. We see California and Oregon burning.Many are treading water to stay afloat.Some have already given up, closing businesses even here in tourism driven Comox Valley. Your swing ridings will not work in your favour if your advisors are as out of touch as I think they are. ( and the record of NDP losses in BC over a decade supports this)

Don’t do it John. BC deserves better than this.

 

Best regards, Laila Yuile

 

** I leave you John, with this thread by a Green candidate. I do not know him,and have no knowledge of anything about him beyond this thread.  I am still not a member of any party. But this speaks so concisely as to why snap elections by any leader – Trudeau, Horgan  or anyone else – removes the average person from democratic process ,and why it is so offensive.

This isn’t right, and it isn’t what the people of BC voted for. It is the opposite of everything the NDP claim to stand for… and more

https://twitter.com/JamesVanCentre/status/1304158147628560385