Newfoundland and Labrador has withdrawn from the Atlantic Bubble, which allowed residents of the Atlantic provinces to travel through the region without having to self-isolate, and I feel like it’s my fault.
This came just days after I’d bought my plane ticket to go home for Christmas, so I must have jinxed it. My bad.
Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island announced Monday that they are backing out of the Atlantic bubble for at least two weeks.
Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island first opened the Atlantic bubble on July 3. The bubble allowed residents of the four provinces to travel freely within the Atlantic region, without having to self-isolate.
However, with COVID-19 cases on the rise across Canada, and within the bubble itself -- particularly in parts of New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia’s Central Zone -- P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador have decided to pull out of the bubble temporarily.
As of Monday, Newfoundland and Labrador was reporting 21 active cases of COVID-19 while P.E.I. was reporting only two active cases.
Nova Scotia reported 51 active cases on Monday and New Brunswick while New Brunswick reported 89.
The situation is so ominous here in Nova Scotia - which reported 37 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday - that some people on Cape Breton Island want to seal themselves off from the rest of the province:
With COVID cases rising on the mainland, shutting down the Canso Causeway to non-essential travel is growing in popularity.
Meanwhile, Halifax is going back into semi-lockdown today:
Atlantic Canada's largest city will be subject to sweeping restrictions that stop just short of a full lockdown for the next two weeks as the province moves to head off a continuing surge in COVID-19 infections.
Health officials reported 37 new cases Tuesday — 35 in the greater Halifax area — prompting the closure of in-person dining at restaurants and of public libraries, museums, gyms, yoga studios and casinos in the city, effective Thursday.
[…]
The premier said the public gathering limit in Halifax will be reduced to five people, while mask-wearing will be mandatory, he said, in multi-unit residential buildings. Retail stores, meanwhile, will be required to limit shoppers and staff to 25 per cent or less of allowable capacity.
We knew a second wave was coming, but it’s still looking like a dreary winter in which the Christmas events we always took for granted, like the “Parade of Lights” in Halifax, won’t be happening. And it’s especially disappointing for we expat Newfoundlanders who will likely have to cancel our travel plans. I haven’t cancelled my tickets yet, with the off chance that travel restrictions may be lifted in a couple of weeks, plus my general rule about not dealing with Air Canada “customer service” unless it is absolutely necessary. But the writing is on the wall.
As the late John Crosbie famously noted: you can tell the Newfoundlanders in Heaven, because they want to go home.
But if that’s what it takes to beat back this virus, it’s a sacrifice I’ll make. It sure beats being on a respirator - or even worse, seeing one of your loved ones on a respirator. Canada’s second wave spread in no small part because of Thanksgiving travel last month, and Christmas travel would probably make that orders of magnitude worse. (I don’t even want to think about what the already bad American situation will look like in a few weeks, especially considering how Americans make a much bigger deal about their weird November Thanksgiving much more seriously than we take ours.)
At least we’re in an age where I can freely video-call my friends and relatives back home, so it’s not like I’m completely cut off from everyone. We’ll make the best of it in this misbegotten year, and hopefully have an extra-long visit back home in 2021.
(I just jinxed the whole year of 2021 didn’t I)
“Cancel culture” isn’t real, young people entering the workforce aren’t fragile “snowflakes,” and you’re just a bigoted reactionary for thinking so. Also, my employer is threatening my safety by publishing a book I don’t like:
Several Penguin Random House Canada employees confronted management about the company’s decision to publish a new book by controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson at an emotional town hall Monday, and dozens more have filed anonymous complaints, according to four workers who spoke to VICE World News.
On Monday, Penguin Random House Canada, Canada’s largest book publisher and a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, announced it will be publishing Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Peterson, to be released in March 2021. The book will be published by Portfolio in the U.S. and Penguin Press in the U.K., both part of the Penguin Random House empire.
Four Penguin Random House Canada employees, who did not want to be named due to concerns over their employment, said the company held a town hall about the book Monday, during which executives defended the decision to publish Peterson while employees cited their concerns about platforming someone who is popular in far-right circles.
“He is an icon of hate speech and transphobia and the fact that he’s an icon of white supremacy, regardless of the content of his book, I’m not proud to work for a company that publishes him,” a junior employee who is a member of the LGBTQ community and who attended the town hall told VICE World News.
Another employee said “people were crying in the meeting about how Jordan Peterson has affected their lives.” They said one co-worker discussed how Peterson had radicalized their father and another talked about how publishing the book will negatively affect their non-binary friend.
Rod Dreher, whose own books probably upset some of the people working at the companies that published them, is breathing fire:
The company should not indulge this bullsh*t for one second. It should tell these people that either they grow up and do their jobs, or they go find another line of work. Publishers publish books. Period. The end. I guarantee you that there are thousands of young men and women who would love to break into publishing, who don’t have thin skins and an enormous sense of entitlement.
Neither publishing, nor journalism, nor universities can do what they are supposed to do if they cater to these wretched whiners. I am sick to death of the veto power they exercise over freedom of thought and expression. What is it going to take for the adults who run these institutions to assert authority, and protect writers from these piss-ant Robespierres?
If you are crying in a meeting at the office because of how you think Jordan Peterson affected your life, then you are not mature enough to work in publishing, and you ought to be sent away. Honest to God, I would be ashamed of myself if that’s how I behaved. What the hell is wrong with these people?! Who failed them?
Excuse me for getting so emotional about this, but I see my own future as a writer at stake here. If they can do this to Jordan Peterson, and get away with it, who can’t they do it to?
We seem to be heading for a world where every book publisher has to take a side and become a Verso publishing only left-wing books, or a Regnery releasing only right-wing ones.
Actually, that’s probably the best-case scenario. As I’ve written before, if you believe that some books are harmful and destructive by their very nature, it surely follows that the should be removed from bookstores and libraries and burned before they can give anyone else doubleplusungood ideas.
Useful idiots never die, they just find a new nominally Communist utopia for which to make excuses:
Ken Stone, treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War, an advocacy group helping to organize the Zoom panel and which began in 2002 as an anti-Iraq war group, rejected the notion that the “Free Meng Wanzhou” event was promoting Chinese propaganda.
“We regard the arrest of Meng Wanzhou as an attempt by the USA to drag Canada, against its national interest, into a new cold war with China,” he said Monday.
Stone said the blame for the detention of the two Michaels lay squarely at Trudeau’s feet, and called the decision to accept the American request for extradition “a colossal blunder.”
Stone advocated for a closer economic relationship with China, saying that “we should diversify” away from the U.S., which is Canada’s largest trading partner.
[…]
Stone balked when asked about the allegations of a genocide being carried out in China and issues around human rights more broadly.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “There is (no evidence of genocide) at all.”
“I respect people’s opinions, but much of the time, they are based on no evidence or false evidence or propaganda that’s created in order to create wedges between countries and provoke wars.”
Stone was right to oppose the Iraq War. My support for it is probably the wrongest I’ve ever been about anything. But, to paraphrase Instapundit, there’s a fine line between being anti-war and being actively on the other side.
It is an increasing problem that folks join and support causes without first informing themselves in-depth what it’s really about. It’s endemic in our society. I’ve largely stepped back from Facebook, for example, because it turned out that people merely give one’s posts a split-second glance and hit ‘like’. This leads to some interesting erroneous assumptions. Recently, half my family thought I was moving after I posted a poorly written ad for a house with “5 baths, 1 bed” (?!?).......2 hours out of town. Clearly they didn’t read past the first line. Good thing they didn’t try to visit or it would have been a long ride into the sticks for nothing! :;) :D
Might as well stick to the illusion of having a social life by clicking on the same shallow memes for 30 minutes a day. ;=}>
Hey, it’s something...in its own way.
I hate to tell you, since obviously you miss your family and it’s hard to be away from them so long, but you have it good. You have family who clearly love you and people to spend time with.
My relatives are in Europe and I largely don’t know them. I was raised with no friends, school or neighbors in an abusive family 90 minutes from the nearest town from age 9 to adulthood and then lost my university friends due to the isolation of repeated abusive relationships. When I turned 50 this January, there was no one except my father and my kids who would give two figs about what was happening in my life. That’s “alone” at a whole different level.
Yet tonight, I’m attending the first family Thanksgiving celebration of my life, with around 20 people who are from a side of the family I knew nothing about...and live close enough to potentially visit. I joined a theatre group and am contemplating an online yoga class as a way of treating old (spousally induced) injuries that affect my ability to speak and walk, while also making some friends. People reach out more in isolation, and I for one am willing to reach back and make that connection.
After covid, I’m adding a couples dance class to that list. It’s too early for martial arts - some physio will be required first - but that’s a very motivating goal.
My point is, look back only to understand how you got here. Look forward for places to go and things to do. This isn’t so bad and we’ll all get through it... and quite possibly learn something worthwhile along the way. You never know what’s around the corner, or what you can build from it.