November 22, 2022 — Changes Aplenty
Mid-November, and finally, after long stretches of unseasonably warm days, the outdoor conditions have caught up to the calendar. The temperature is dropping; this week, Ottawa residents faced their first messy and snowy morning commute of the winter. At last, a dramatic change in the weather (a phrase I cannot write without thinking of the 1986 John Fogerty song, from Eye of the Zombie — surely an under-appreciated album).
Other changes, too, are in the air — in politics, for example. Locally, an era has ended: the fourteenth of November, after 12 years as mayor of Ottawa, was the final day in office for Jim Watson. He may well wish that he had chosen an earlier departure in order to have avoided the twin fiascos which dominated his final year in office: the problem-plagued light rail network (cost overruns, derailments, a sinkhole…), and the extended, horn-blaring ‘Freedom Convoy’ occupation of downtown Ottawa in early 2022. That disruptive carnival of looniness finally ended with the federal government invoking the Emergencies Act to remove the entrenched anti-Trudeau/government/vaccine protesters after municipal and provincial police forces demonstrated a remarkable incapability of doing so. Nine months later, the myriad issues — translation: repeated revelations of bureaucratic inertia and incompetence — related to both the trains and the response to the protest mob remain constantly in media headlines as their respective public inquiries grind mercilessly forward.
(As an irresistible aside, the unrelenting gridlock and intransigence of the occupiers led to an uncomfortable-sounding assurance by Ontario’s man-of-the-people premier Doug Ford to Prime Minister Trudeau, during a February call to discuss the ability — or lack thereof — of the Ottawa mayor and police force to deal with the situation, that “I’ll be up their ass with a wire brush.” Ouch! Not exactly a pleasant mental image. Perhaps our illustrious provincial leader should stick with the tiny shovel that he likes to use to heroically rescue stranded motorists.)
Shifting from local to global, but also, arguably, in politics — after all, the early 19th century Prussian general Karl Von Clausewitz famously stated that “war is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument… a carrying out of [politics] by other means” — there has been a dramatic shifting in the situation in Ukraine, over half a year into Putin’s unconscionable invasion. This week, the Russian military-occupied city of Kherson was liberated by Ukrainian forces; several weeks ago, the Ukrainian military advanced through and recovered a large swath of territory from Russian forces in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. It’s a welcome and dramatic improvement in Ukrainian fortunes, though overall, as Russian missiles pound Ukraine’s cities and power grid, there remains no sign of any imminent cessation of the unprovoked attack. Large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine remain under Russian control.
In chronicling these various changes, it seems appropriate to also note a controversial non-change, specifically in relation to the never-ending debate over how best to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On November 14, in the midst of widespread media coverage of provincial hospitals’ emergency departments and pediatric wards being beyond capacity due to surging rates of COVID and respiratory viruses, the Chief Medical Officer of Ontario, Dr. Kieran Moore, issued a statement “strongly recommending” — but not mandating — masking in indoor public settings. (The following day, the majority of the members of the governing Progressive Conservative party did not wear masks in the legislature — including Premier Ford.) Moore’s decision — which came amidst increasingly urgent calls from medical professionals for a reinstatement of a provincial mask mandate — came as further confirmation of the provincial government’s reluctance to impose new health restrictions.
As explained by Peter Graefe, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University, “what’s going on here, both at the level of the medical officials and of the premier, is an assessment of the political risk of requiring something that may be very unpopular and not followed that closely by a fair number of Ontarians… they would rather push the pressure into the [health] system than face the potential political cost of public unhappiness with having to wear masks.”
In the same way that the illogical rantings of the Freedom Convoy crowd are entirely selfish, as though the pandemic had happened to only them, the poll-based policy-making and self-serving spinelessness of our elected leaders is both disappointing and pathetic. Why is it so damn hard to suffer a tiny inconvenience in order to provide vulnerable elders and children with a greater level of protection?
Let alone putting more effort into other public health tools, which Nam Kiwanuka suggested — this month in a TVOntario column entitled “With our kids at risk, Ontario needs less debate and more action” — could include measures such as reinstating longer quarantine periods, more actively promoting vaccination and flu shots, improving indoor air quality in public buildings, and reducing the average number of kids in classrooms. In a similar vein, author and health columnist André Picard stressed (and far from the first time — he must sometimes despairingly think of himself as a broken record), in “Mask mandates: Good science, bad politics” (The Globe and Mail, November 22), “if there is one overarching lesson of the pandemic, it is that no one public-health measure works in isolation.”
But however politicized, and whether mandated or only half-heartedly recommended, one might assume that masks would be low-hanging fruit. Au contraire. The extent to which mandating them is highly contentious was dramatically demonstrated at a late November meeting of Ottawa’s largest school board, called to debate and vote on re-mandating masks in schools. The session, which attracted a full house of pro- and anti-maskers — “some masked and others draped in the Canada flag and wearing jackets with ‘Freedom’ etched onto them” — quickly turned shambolic, with security and police having to remove a number of attendees for disruptive behaviour, including “inappropriate screaming.” After repeated delays, the meeting was adjourned; the vote was postponed.
For what it’s worth, until recently my son was continuing to mask in the classroom; my sense is that it’s only a small — but very vocal — minority who are adamantly anti-mask. I’m with Picard’s Globe and Mail colleague Marsha Lederman, who sensibly argued last week that “at this time of year, what used to be called cold-and-flu season… masks need to return to our lives annually, brought back out along with the puffy coats, hats and mitts. The escalation in infections is predictable; with COVID, it has happened for three years now. So think of this as part of the winter wardrobe switch. You pack away the sandals, lug out the snow tires, and restock your household mask supply.”
That must, surely, cover (sorry, couldn’t resist) every angle of the masking debate. Redirecting to the personal front — and setting aside the urgent need to install snow tires — the hopes I expressed last month in regard to K and I have very much materialized. Two and a half years after initiating this writing project, I’m still unaccustomed to chronicling positive developments! But suffice to say that the ‘best kind of lightheadedness’ phase is ongoing, and that our relationship has deepened as we continue to spend time together. I’m loving the serendipitous fact that we’ve both had “A Change of Heart” (an unexpectedly hilarious song by The 1975) at the same time.
So with that appropriate segue — if there were a soundtrack to this ch-ch-ch-change-filled narrative, of course Bowie would, for many, come first to mind. But there’s plenty more enjoyable listening to be had on the theme, from recent (“Change” by Big Thief; “Everything Has Changed” — Best Coast; “Little Changes” — Frank Turner) to FM radio staples (Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’”; “A Change Would Do You Good” — Sheryl Crow; “Change the Locks” — Tom Petty), to local (“Change the Channel” — Winchester Warm; “Change the Sheets” — Kathleen Edwards; “Change the Record” — Recoilers; “Changing Scenery” — Jim Bryson), to, even, memories of this past summer’s Ottawa Bluesfest (“The Laws Have Changed” — The New Pornographers). It’s an enjoyable audio rabbit hole, diving into this change business, where theme-related music is concerned.
But amidst all these changes, there do remain a few steadfast, seemingly rock-solid constants: it is, after all, work from home week 141.
