The numbers don’t lie: Why Canada’s pandemic efforts are among world’s worst

It’s Monday morning and here I am sipping on my tea and penning my weekly column for scores of media outlets.

However, today I am out of sorts, like many people, and I am normally upbeat and optimistic – just ask anyone who knows me.

I feel confused, frustrated, and down, over the breaking news that hit the presses on the weekend.

Did you hear what’s been going on? Well, unless you are totally living off the grid, then you would have heard that Canada has ranked among the world’s lowest in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis; that is, we have been labelled as an international embarrassment in how we are handling a global pandemic here at home.

Politics aside – our leadership at all levels of government is being placed into question.

This weekend the Lowy Institute based in Australia, who are hailed as one of the world’s most respectable think-tanks, released its tracking metrics to gauge how 98 countries so far have responded to the worst pandemic the planet has experienced in over 100 years.

Canada ranks as one of the worst countries in the fight against COVID-19

How did Canada do? Well, we have ranked 61^st, behind Myanmar, Belarus, and El Salvador. We are leading the USA, who ranked 91^st. Brazil hit rock bottom at 98^th.

Here is the scenario in Canada: Each day approximately 130 of our citizens die. Our failure to respond to the pandemic is total a joke. To date, we have 779,000 cases, 706,000 recovered, and 20,032 deaths (this data was compiled and verified over the weekend via the Federal Government of Canada – COVID-19 Tracker).

A national economy in shambles, and lives ruined

How did developing countries handle the pandemic so well? I am not trying to pick on third-world nations, but our government always touts us as the best in everything.

Not this time.

When the pandemic hit, third-world countries and scores of other first-world countries implemented a full lockdown for a long period of time, which helped flatten the curve in numbers. New Zealand, Vietnam, Rwanda, Australia, Malta, Malaysia, are just a handful of countries that closed-up everything, and were strict in the rules, and issuing fines, and in many cases, jail for people who tried to deviate from following the rules.

Now back to Canada. We closed most things, but all the box stores remained open, even the liquor stores, and there was no shortage of places to pick up cigarettes and lottery tickets (the sin taxes prevail, and always will).

So, this all makes no sense. Why would our national and provincial governments not take a stand and demonstrate leadership? Are they more worried about votes in the upcoming elections?

Here is the result: our politicians didn’t deliver the goods on the leadership and decision-making fronts and it’s no cost to them, but instead us, the people. Aren’t our leaders the so-called innovators of tomorrow?

All drama degrees aside, the government has been busy issuing payments to people they put out of business. Millions of Canadians are now unemployed, thousands of businesses have closed their doors, and mental health cases, along with suicides, domestic violence, and crime, are through the roof.

Now let’s jump back to third-world countries. It used to be we watched the news and saw the daily violence and chaos erupting in our media. Yes, the message was clear: third world countries are bad, and that sort of thing doesn’t happen in Canada, let alone North America.

But what’s happened is that we have instead achieved the opposite. You see, our news now shows riots, protests, and an unstable socio-economic system.

It’s all bad now, but how worse can it get? Who has to pay all the recovery support when the world gets back to a new normal? The citizens do – people like you and me.

Why didn’t our governments – federal and provincial – implement a full lockdown when the pandemic hit? If we closed up everything for 8 to 12 weeks, we would not be in this mess.

Why travel is so easy to blame

What’s really disappointing is to see how travel got hit so hard from the pandemic and all the propaganda.

Why have governments been so quick to snub our industry? Think of all the job losses and missed opportunities for the future.

According to data collected by the government, there have been 265,000 cases of COVID-19 in the province of Ontario, and less than 1.8 per cent were due to travel (this includes domestic and international travel). The government has offered little support to the travel industry, and we are a major contributor to the $1.5 trillion global tourism industry. But yet we can freely roam box stores, buy beer and wine, tobacco, and gamble.

Something is not adding up right.

When the pandemic hit, it was nothing but flip-flop-flip-flop by our leaders. Myself, and many in the travel industry, including travel agents, advocated for rapid testing at airports (arrivals and departures). What took the government so long to employ this method? And why are they not doing rapid testing at airports right across Canada? Again, this is all a case of doing things half-right. Leaders are afraid to make decisions, that’s what many of us are now assuming. Many of us make assumptions based on observation and facts. If we were supposed to go into lockdown, then why wasn’t it enforced like in other countries? The ones who went all the way, that is those who walk-the-talk, now have their economies moving and lives are being saved.

Why are we not following a national strategy? And why are we not handling this crisis properly?

Lives ruined, businesses shut down, mental health and crime on the rise.

This isn’t the country we all once knew.

Who has to pay all the money back after this is over? How will businesses, including travel, reboot when we will be saddled in debt?

There are provincial and federal elections coming up in the near future.

Political analysts contend that voters are forgetful. Not this time – change will be evident in our leadership when we all go to the polls.

Today Canada is a national embarrassment, and it looks the same for the future as we dig ourselves out of this mess.

I only hope we prevail.

So many questions, not enough answers.