Criticizing Alberta's response is not "Alberta Bashing"

 In what is probably the oddest sentiment ever, Jason Kenney has "defended" his Province's approach by calling criticism of the their response "Alberta bashing". And while I'm sure some people are bashing Alberta, criticizing the Province's response to the pandemic is not among the actions I would put in that category.

This is not some partisan attack or baseless attack on people because of where they are from. This is a legitimate response to a predictable (and tragically preventable) outcome.

I pointed out MONTHS ago, even while Alberta was still bragging about their numbers, that they were in fact ALREADY among the worst in Canada. News outlets were buying into the hype and focusing on overall numbers. But, as I pointed out at the time; Alberta has half the population density and a little more than a quarter the population of Ontario. And, when you factor in population alone Alberta was already in spitting distance of Ontario which was #1 overall and #2 per capita.

When you add in the fact that they got there in a shorter period of time (first recorded case was months after Ontario) and their population density and you get stats which tell you that Alberta is going to become the poster child for what not to do.

And lo-and-behold. We are there.

Furthermore, the Province's health minister has, for weeks now, been saying that businesses aren't where transmission is occurring. And yet, they haven't been able to contact trace properly for months. So, that amounts to a lie. You can't say where outbreaks are happening when you can't contact trace. 

Also, there is a MASSIVE body of evidence that lock downs work. AND a mountain of evidence which would indicate that what Alberta was doing prior DOES NOT WORK. 

So why is it "Alberta bashing" to question to moves of a government, which science and statistics said would lead it to where it arrived? Furthermore, what has changed? The new measures target places which they claim are not the source of transmission. If they believe they actually have some evidence to back this up, then imposing further restrictions makes no sense. So, either this is an admission of their lies or if they truly believe that they have enough information, then they are acting against it. In either cases, questioning the government is the natural response.

Ignoring what, on the surface, seems like gross incompetence and/or negligence would be the real "Alberta bashing". It would be akin to saying "you made your bed, now sleep in it". Questioning the government provides the opportunity to provoke change and hopefully improvements.

The government should be open and willing to answer these questions rather than deflect. They could address the questions by providing the evidence they speak of which says where community transmission is happening along with the date it was collected and confidence statistics in that data. They could provide the data which indicated why new lock down measures make sense.

Their current response is outright refusal to accept responsibility for their actions.