On lockdowns

Richard Raycraft reports on the absurdity that the Libs' latest excuse for a pandemic support (the Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit) is available to precisely zero Canadians even as the Omicron wave crests. But let's note that the problem with it involves a common set of assumptions between the federal government and its provincial counterparts.

After all, the concept of a "Lockdown Benefit" naturally arises out of foundational assumptions about what government should do in the course of a pandemic. It involves a choice whether to focus on ensuring income supports are available for everybody who needs them, or to set narrow conditions to deny relief to the extent possible. And the Libs have obviously shifted their priorities from something closer to the first principle, to a fairly strict application of the second. 

But what makes the lockdown benefit all the more problematic is that it operates only where a province or region actually imposes one. 

By now, it should be absolutely clear that most of our provincial governments are themselves opposed to anything of the sort, relying instead on claims of "personal responsibility" and bending over backward to keep businesses open with little regard for the effect on public health. Indeed, the governments most aligned with anti-vaxxers and anti-science cranks are busy claiming that even the barest restriction on business operations should be treated as a "lockdown" to be avoided at all costs.

So that's where we're left: being admonished to make socially responsible decisions for ourselves, while also being told that the ostensible individual freedom to choose whether to limit the spread of the Omicron variant justifies depriving people of access to social supports. 

The result of governments with a reflexive aversion to government action or support at both the federal and provincial levels is thus to place the burden on individuals to absorb the cost of trying to stop the most dangerous variant yet. And whether people end up lacking the necessities of life through a pandemic winter or continuing to circulate for want of available income sources, we'll have a far less healthy society as a result.