Covid Journal, December 11, 2020
Subsidies, Bailouts, Whatever = We Should Own It = NO Dividends, Bonuses
I admit, I’ve had many a moment being cranky about the CBC.
With that in mind, stories like this piss me off.
Two of the largest long-term care providers in the Toronto area have received more than $157 million in federal and provincial COVID-19 relief while also paying out tens of millions of dollars in dividends to their shareholders.
Extendicare Inc. and Sienna Senior Living Inc. have paid a combined total of $74 million in dividends this year.
Meanwhile, more than 480 residents and staff have died of COVID-19 at the companies’ care homes in Ontario.
Here we have family members being forced to cut off limbs to save themselves from vile diseases like gangrene and we have volume after volume of Covid deaths occuring within nursing homes and private long-term care (LTC) facilities.
The elderly are dying by the thousands across Canada.
Canadians are in various states of lockdown as a result.
The owners of these LTC facilities are raking it in.
WHILE TAKING PUBLIC MONEY TO DO SO.
FFS. This is beyond disgusting.
When the public spends money on any kind of enterprise, the public should demand part ownership.
If you object, then fuck off. Don’t take public money.
And if you’re trying to pretend you’re protecting jobs?
It’s time we cut out the middle person and kept funneling cash directly to individuals that need it most.
The Tyee Rips Alberta a New One
TOP MARKS for The Tyee and Mitchell Anderson for ripping off the band-aid with Alberta’s limp and pathetic approach to ‘economic management’ in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Summary: everything Jason Kenney and the UCP government is doing is wrong.
I wish we could get more writing like this in other publications. For now, consider supporting independent media like The Passage, The Tyee, Rabble.ca and Canadaland. We ALL need the truth more than ever.
Kenney’s approach to governing has been based on relentless conflict and confrontation to rile up its political base.
The government decided a pandemic was a good time to lay off 11,000 hospital support staff, and to tear up the compensation agreement with provincial doctors. Beleaguered nurses were accused by the UCP of padding their expenses. Now Kenney is accusing the South Asian community of being superspreaders, when over 80 per cent of recent Alberta cases are of unknown origin.
If the premier wants to confront a cohort dangerous to public health, how about the hundreds of anti-mask protesters over the weekend who thumbed their nose at provincial restrictions on gatherings of more than 10 people? Police apparently allowed the marches to proceed unimpeded and no tickets were issued. Likewise, there was no admonishment from a premier so well versed at dishing out public blame.
The reason for this special treatment is obvious. The bread and butter of the UCP is angry crowds, whether chanting “lock her up” or calling for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be tried for treason, or demanding billions in public money for now-unneeded pipelines. The ill-informed anger fostered by the UCP for political gain now undermines the ability to end the pandemic.
Awesome! Gotta love it when people call it like it is with Con politics.