After sustained pressure by True North and its readers, the New Brunswick government has announced it is no longer allowing grocery stores to bar unvaccinated Canadians. The announcement came Friday in a government news release on interim COVID measures directed at slowing the Omicron variant.
“An option allowing stores that sell groceries to ask patrons 12 and over for proof of vaccination, instead of implementing distancing requirements, is being removed from the province’s mandatory order.”
The announcement goes on to state that “the original intention was to give stores a choice, and that those choosing the proof-of-vaccination option would offer delivery or curbside pickup; it was never the intention for anyone to believe they could not access groceries.”
— https://tnc.news/2021/12/17/new-brunswick-backtracks-on-vaccine-passports-for-grocery-stores
This is very good news. God knows we could all use some good news. True North takes credit for applying the pressure to make the New Brunswick government back off giving “the option” for grocery stores to deny shopping privileges to the Un-Vaxxed. I’m sure they deserve credit. I wrote an extremely nasty letter to my MP here in Vancouver accusing her Liberal government of wanting to push the denial of groceries on the whole country starting with NB as an experiment to see if Canadians would accept such an inhuman dictatorship. So I’d like to take some small part of the credit too. I figure that at least when it comes to the small provinces the political power brokers from Ottawa tell these little provinces what’s what. The polite fiction up here is that the Provincial governments have the sole authority in public health matters but this is one of those polite fictions I am far too sick and tired of to pretend to believe. All the provinces are marching to the same tune. If the federal government is not in charge of paying the piper and calling the tune somebody else must be. Tony Fauci maybe? So we either have a government that is trying to be an absolute dictator or we have no government but only flunkies for foreigners who aren’t even part of any government, let alone part of Canada.
And giving grocery stores the “option” to deny food to un-“vaccinated” people? What that is is giving huge corporate grocery companies, like Safeway and Loblaws and IGA, the excuse to order their employees and district managers to do it saying “the government says we should”. Now apparently the politicos have been scared by the backlash and are backing off for now.
I really needed some good news this morning. I was sent a picture by email from the new management of our concert hall that showed me that if I am true to my feelings I have no place there anymore. I have to cut the line for good. It’s so hard. I never did like goodbyes and now I hate goodbyes more than ever.
I am still nominally employed as I have been since 2000. But of course we were shut down completely since February 2020 and things have only started up again since September. I haven’t participated in any of the new shows because masks are mandated for all of us and so is a Covid test if you “decline to disclose” (your medical information the confidentiality of which the laws of this country protect!). The picture our new management sent me by email was of my colleagues on Saturday ushering for what was our annual Vivaldi Four Seasons concert we did every year in December, our Christmas tradition which was cancelled last December along with the whole year. I remember the times past when this concert was so warm and inviting and festive every year. This year all the patrons were apparently required to be in masks, and showing a “ Proof of Vaccination”. And the picture I got brought it home to me how creepy it was. I was so glad I didn’t participate. It’s creepy enough looking at all the people who walk outdoors in masks in my neighbourhood. That picture of what the job is like now and what it will be like at least until well into 2022 (or the whole year long? Why the hell not!?) is as creepy as a nightmare.
I’m not saying I blame my colleagues. They have to make a living. Me, I’m getting the old age pensions and subsidies so I can afford to be stubborn. I had to pay a big dentist bill that the pay would really have helped out with but it was my decision to forgo it and I’m a big boy and it’s my lookout. One thing that picture did for me is make me glad I didn’t accept the shifts I would certainly have gotten (we’re really short handed. Because of the Covid crap?). It is clarifying to know where you stand and acknowledge what you feel about it.
But oh how sad it makes me. Like Frodo in Lord of the Rings, I know what I must do, I’m just afraid to do it. I’m not anything like the Ring Bearer. I’m not going to bring down the Tower of Sauron whether I quit my job or not. I’m afraid because quitting my job is an acknowledgement that I will have no place in Canada as an active participant in society, at least for long enough that my declining years would have made such participation a thing of the past in any case. I must take an action which is also a confirmation that the country I grew up in and once loved so much is dead. I feel like one of those faithful old dogs who wait beside the graves of their former masters hoping that they will somehow return. It’s past time for me to accept that my country is dead, that this life is death. I’m now a stray dog whom nobody needs and I look out upon the darkness into which I must wander. “Nothing is certain,” said Elrond to his daughter Arwen. “Some things are certain, “ she replied.