Trust The ‘Wisdom Of The Crowd’? I Don’t Think So
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the editor of Huddle and the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting.
I don’t want to get Covid19. I don’t want my family members, friends, or other people in my community to get it. I wear a mask and I’m double vaccinated with a booster shot. I respect government-mandated safety measures even when I think they’re overly rigid or too lax.
At the same time, I worry about the impact of restrictions on people’s mental and physical health. I worry about how they affect small businesses that must go through cycles of shutdowns and restrictions that make it hard for them to operate.
In other words, I’m like most reasonable Canadians who think our elected leaders and chief medical officers are doing their best to assess the risks as they ease and tighten restrictions depending on the levels of caseloads and hospitalizations.
I may disagree with their decisions at times, but I trust they’re making decisions with public health concerns top of mind.
That is critically important, but this is the first time since the beginning of the pandemic I need some reassurance that trust is well-placed.
Reasonable politicians have condemned the border blockades and the unruly, disruptive protests in Ottawa that have left residents, workers, and businesses feeling harassed and threatened for two weeks now. Even Conservative Party leaders who had supported the protests are now telling them to bring down the barricades and go home.
At the same time, premiers across the country started to signal that the time for restrictions is coming to end soon–how quickly, of course, would vary from province to province.
In conversations I had with people this week, and in news stories and social media posts I read online, some wondered, quite understandably, whether the protests were having an impact on politicians and policymakers, making them all rush to microphones to tell us all the end is in sight.
I sincerely hope not.
Earlier this week, New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs said he hoped to “take the steam out of” the planned protests that are now taking place in Fredericton this weekend with an announcement that more restrictions will be lifted.
On Thursday, he made good on that promise, announcing that the province would move to level one of its winter plan on February 18, which would allow businesses like restaurants to operate at full capacity, though masks and proof of vaccination would still be required.
He also said the province hoped to lift all pandemic restrictions by the end of March if there’s a significant decrease in hospitalizations that would ensure the health care system is not under strain.
“We’re looking at the end of winter to remove the measures that are part of the winter plan, meaning the end of all Covid-19 restrictions on businesses and the public, he said.
“The end of the mandates is certainly in sight.”
The premier says the protests had no bearing on the announcement this week to further lift restrictions and potentially lift all restrictions by the end of winter.
“That isn’t the way to make decisions,” he said.
He hoped the optimistic indicators would discourage reasonable people from showing up at the Fredericton protest.
“Public Health throughout the entire pandemic have based their … recommendations to cabinet based on the science,” he said during a press conference on February 9. “The rationale behind my optimistic viewpoint is I was trying to [encourage] those fully vaccinated that hope is on the way.”
“If I can discourage 100 people from showing up who are likely fully vaccinated but wanted to protest [because] they’re tired of Covid and the restrictions that went with it, I want them to say, ‘I don’t really want to go because … life is going to be better.”
Of course, politicians and health officials must disregard protestors trying to hector and bully them into making decisions that put the health and safety and their fellow Canadians at risk.
But they also must discount public opinion canvassed in more civil ways. At the end of January, Angus Reid released a survey that showed that 54 percent of Canadians say it’s time to end Covid restrictions and “leave responsibility for isolation to those at risk.”
If I think policymakers are lifting restrictions in response to someone answering a pollster’s survey questions, or a protestor holding a sign and screaming on a street corner, I’m not going into grocery stores or restaurants unmasked or comfortably returning to the office.
Trust the “wisdom of the crowd” in this case? I don’t think so.
Feedback? E-mail Mark Leger: [email protected]
Banner photo: Protestors gather in downtown Fredericton on February 11. Image: Tyler Maclean/Huddle.