TRUDEAU PAVED THE WAY FOR LEGAULT'S PUNISHMENT TAX

   Rex Murphy:  It is not, nor ever will be, rightly called a health tax. It’s a punishment tax. A punishment tax for exercising adult judgment on your own health. Who owns universal health care? Is it the citizens who fund it, or the politicians and bureaucrats who think they are in charge of it? Who, in Quebec and elsewhere, are now using as a bludgeon what was supposed to be a universal solace.
   COVID-19 is not our biggest problem. It is that COVID is supplying our politicians with a lever, a plausible cover, for the abridgement or outright override of our country’s most fundamental understandings and principles.
   Politicians are using COVID to gut the fundamentals of universal health care, drawing exceptions to its applications, naming who should receive its ministrations without barrier and who should not, and as a kite-tail to that vast and pernicious overreach, acting as amnesiacs as to the existence of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

RCMP: REPORT ANTI-AUTHORITY INTERNET OPINIONS

RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki urged Canadians to report suspicious Internet behaviour, including comments by people who express “anti-government, anti-law enforcement” opinions.

The RCMP added that law enforcement “has no role in policing the thoughts of Canadians.”

Despite this position, the federal police force openly endorsed Bill C-36, which would have brought in $70,000 fines or house arrest for Internet users suspected of making legal but offensive posts “that involve detestation or vilification” of identifiable groups. Bill C-36 was introduced in June but died in Parliament with the calling of 2021 federal election.

MAX BERNIER MARCHES WITH MONTREAL PROTESTORS

People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier was among thousands of people who attended a protest in Montreal against mandatory COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine passports on Saturday.

Bernier said in a video posted to Twitter that while the temperature in Montreal was cold, it would not stop the crowd from protesting. He said people are ready to fight for their rights.

“We are saying no to these draconian measures, no to more lockdowns, no to vaccine passports and no to the delusion and segregation that our establishment leaders are imposing on us right now,” he said.

CANADIAN OILSANDS PROSPECTS SURGE

 Just over a year ago, Canadian oilsands companies were struggling to keep their heads above water as pipeline cancellations and delays, environmental pressures and low crude-oil prices sent stock prices plunging and investors heading for the exits. While some of the challenges remain, especially on the environmental front, the oilsands appeared to have come out stronger from the ordeal even as some of its competitors face their own set of challenges and production declines.

Now, the decimation of crude exports from rival heavy oil producers has made the Canadian oilsands the last exporting blend standing in the Americas.

Mexican exports of crude oil and products to the U.S. hit a decade low of 226,000 barrels per day in the last week of December, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In contrast, Canadian oil exports to the U.S. were trending near record highs to 3.8 million bpd during the same period.

QUEBECKERS SUPPORTING PREMIER'S PUNITIVE REGIME

Quebec Premier François Legault’s announcement Tuesday that his province will very soon start levying a “significant” special tax on willfully unvaccinated Quebecers may sound to some of us like common sense. The choice to forego vaccination has “consequences” that radiate through the health-care system, Legault argued. “It’s not up to all Quebecers to pay for that,” he suggested . To make the point, he said he would call the tax a “health contribution.”

Many Canadians will likely applaud. But in fact this sets a horrible precedent that undermines the central tenets of a universal public health-care system; that could lead Quebec and the Rest of Canada down some very dark alleys; and that highlights just how critical it is to fix this country’s seat-of-the-pants health-care systems.

Legault has been rolling out the most punitive regime for the unvaccinated in Canada, and Quebecers can’t seem to get enough of it. Last week the government announced proof-of-vaccination would soon be required to enter provincially run liquor and cannabis stores. A Léger poll released Tuesday found 73 per cent of Quebecers supported the move, and 72 per cent would support expanding the requirement to all retail environments save grocery stores. (A majority of respondents in every region except Manitoba and Saskatchewan also supported the latter idea.) That seemed to be having the desired effect: demand for vaccination appointments quadrupled overnight , according to Health Minister Christian Dubé.

QUEBEC DOCTORS DECRY LEGAULT'S ANTI-VAX TAX

An organization composed of physicians dedicated to maintaining Quebec’s public health care system has voiced its opposition to the Legault government’s proposed “health contribution” that would be imposed on those who remain unvaccinated for non-medical reasons .

Médecins québécois pour le régime public on Wednesday described the idea as “discriminatory and unfair” and a “slippery slope” toward the commodification of health care.

Dr. Mathieu Isabel, spokesperson for the 500-member group, said that behind the common image of the unvaccinated lies the reality of the homeless, those with mental health issues and immigrants who speak neither French nor English.

The group also worries that the proposed “contribution” could open the door to a breach in the public consensus that everyone should benefit from the same medical treatment regardless of whatever individual risk they may present.

OPEN THE DAMN COUNTRY BACK UP

   Jordan Peterson:  We are pushing the complex systems upon which we depend and which are miraculously effective and efficient in their often thankless operation to their breaking point. Can you think of anything more unlikely than the fact that we can get instant trouble-free access to our money online, using systems that are virtually graft- and corruption-free? Just imagine how much work, trust and efficiency was and is necessary to make that a reality. Can you think of anything more unlikely than fast, reliable and inexpensive jet air travel, nationally and internationally, in absolute safety? Or the constant provision of almost every consumer good imaginable, in the midst of plentiful, varied and inexpensive food?

 These systems are now shaking. We’re compromising them seriously with this unending and unpredictable stream of restrictions, lockdowns, regulations and curfews. We’re also undermining our entire monetary system, with the provision of unending largesse from government coffers, to ease the stress of the COVID response. We’re playing with fire. We’ve demolished two Christmas seasons in a row. Life is short. These are rare occasions. We’re stopping kids from attending school. We’re sowing mistrust in our institutions in a seriously dangerous manner. We’re frightening people to make them comply. We’re producing bureaucratic institutions that hypothetically hold public health in the highest regard, but subordinating all our properly political institutions to that end, because we lack leadership, and rely on ultimately unreliable opinion polls to govern broadscale political policy. I’ve never seen breakdown in institutional trust on this scale before in my lifetime.