Front Burner - What led to Alberta’s enormous COVID-19 surge?

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

Alberta leads Canada with a COVID-19 case rate nearly twice that of Ontario, and doctors warn Alberta is headed for a similar crisis in its ICUs. Today, what’s keeping Premier Jason Kenney from imposing tougher restrictions.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I know that those who are advocates of hard lockdowns would like to have basically shut down our society indiscriminately for much of the past year. It has the highest rate of COVID infections

anywhere in the country, almost double any other province. Some 60% of its active cases are variants. Yet when Alberta tuned in to Premier Jason Kenney on Monday to see if he'd impose new restrictions for the first time in three weeks, Kenney instead said he wasn't surprised by the numbers. We predicted about three weeks back that we would be reaching about 20,000 active cases in this last week of April. We continue to be very concerned about the high numbers. That's why we urge Albertans to buckle down in these next few weeks until the vaccines can catch up with the variants. Those active cases are about to surpass the peak of Alberta's second wave and there are fears this surge could

overwhelm its ICUs. As someone from Toronto, I know better than to compare Alberta to Ontario. But some doctors say the hospitals are headed for the same kind of crisis here. I have friends that are working in Ontario. That's going to happen here. With just incredible numbers of patients needing critical care support. So are we doing enough? It looks like we're not. I'm Jamie Poisson. Today I'm joined by McLean's Alberta correspondent, Jason Markasoff. He'll explain what Alberta's precarious third wave means for the future of the province and for the future of the Premier.

Hi, Jason. Hello. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's great to have you back. So we're seeing huge numbers of cases per capita in Alberta right now, roughly 450 cases per 100,000 people. And that's actually nearly twice the amount of the next leading province, which is about 275 in Ontario, which was really surprising to me, because we're not hearing the same conversations about overflowing ICUs and triage in Alberta, quite like we are in Ontario. And why do you think that is? Luck. Alberta is lucky. Typically, in the past, the hospitalization rates have tracked with the active case rates. In fact, when we had a very

similar high wave last November, last fall, we had much higher hospitalization rates. Things have become very different with this variant. By some fluke, the variant is hitting people harder in Ontario, it seems, and there's more of the variant in Ontario than there is in Alberta. So by all things being equal, it's kind of surprising, it seems, that Alberta doesn't have a worse hospitalization situation. What I am hearing is that the hospitalization cases are much younger, and I'm hearing that ICU rates continue to climb, especially in Calgary. A new analysis by Alberta Health is showing that Albertans in their 20s to 50s are now ending up in the ICUs faster than ever before. How close is Alberta, you think, to that breaking point, though? Because I know that there are a lot of doctors who are concerned.

This wave of impact on our health care system is coming. It's unavoidable at this point. We're on that trajectory, it seems. We're on that trajectory, it seems. You know, our exponential rate of growth has slowed a bit, but we're still getting 9%, 10% positivity rate, which matches some of the worst levels in other provinces. We could very well end up in a worse place, and we're on track for that. We know that hospitalizations are a lagging indicator. They rise a few weeks after our cases rise. So we're still climbing in active cases.

Even if our cases start going down now, our hospitalizations are still going to go up. And I believe that Jason Kenney is basically willing to accept that. This is also tragic because these are people whose lives are going to be impacted by this that have been done needlessly if leaders had followed the advice that they've been given. I know that some 70% of cases are in Edmonton and Calgary, but on Sunday, Alberta's Wood Buffalo region declared a state of emergency. This is far north from those cities. It's the region that's home to Fort McMurray and is really the heart of oil sands production. And what does the surge of cases in Wood Buffalo tell us about the way that COVID is spreading in Alberta? It has to do with younger people and congregate settings. The oil sands camps are there, all these work camps where Fort McMurrayites and people who fly in from other provinces and other areas gather.

And a lot of the cases have been coming there. I was briefed by our public health folks that there had been some outbreaks and some camps where it appears that there was after hours socializing without masks and without following the basic public health guidelines. And also Fort McMurray is a much younger population. It's one of the youngest major regions in the country. You know, the older people have been vaccinated, but there are not a lot of older people in Fort McMurray. So we have the mayor of the region, Don Scott, begging the province to give more people more access to vaccines because, as it stands, a far lower rate of people in the Fort McMurray region have been vaccinated than in the rest of the province.

I think it's something like 15, 17 percent in Fort McMurray compared to 25 percent in the rest of the region. Right. Who would be eligible at this time? What you're saying? It's not necessarily, you know, hesitancy or low uptake. We're also seeing big outbreaks in Banff, right? A ski town west of Calgary. Is it fair for me to assume a similar thing is going on there with young people? Absolutely. There, a lot of people live in apartment buildings, a lot of young workers, people who've come in from other parts of the country or Australia or other parts of the world to work winters or to work year round. And at the ski hills, people live in dormitory style settings, much like Fort McMurray oil sands camps.

And the ski hills have stayed open. I know that they've closed Whistler down in BC, but Banff Sunshine Resort remains open. So on that note, what else is open in Alberta right now? You know, despite this huge case rate, what would I be allowed to go out and do? You could go to the mall. You can get a haircut. You can get a haircut at the mall. There are capacity limits at malls and in church services, but you can still do those things. In-restaurant dining has closed. Gyms have closed, but there are exceptions, such as patio dining is still open.

One-on-one personal training is still open. Jason Kenney has made a lot of concessions to businesses in this province. He's been very proud to say we have the fewest restrictions. Compared to other provinces, there's a lot you can do. What kind of criticisms has Kenny been facing around these restrictions being too light? There's a lot of alarm from medical experts, from doctor advocates. There was one doctor's group up in Edmonton, the Edmonton Medical Zone Association, who was recommending that people get into voluntary lockdown,

pretend there is a lockdown, even if the provincial government won't impose anything because the rates are getting that close to boiling over in our hospitals. But certainly advocates, civic leaders, the opposition are saying we are heading towards another crisis. We've had this problem before.

We were on the brink of having to open up our field hospitals. We're not there yet, but it could be a matter of weeks or months. I'm curious, is there any polling from the public? Is there an acceptance or a desire for more lockdowns from the majority of people in Alberta? Do we know what the majority of people actually want? Typically, there's been a plurality of people in the province who want more. It breaks down into three groups. The biggest group of those, about 40% it's been in the past, wants more tough measures. And then there's a middle

size group that says that restrictions are good, they're striking the right balance. And then there is another group, which is about the same size as that middle group, saying their restrictions are too hard, too tough, too much. Jason, tell me more about what's happening inside Kenny's own party. Tell me more about what's happening inside Kenny's own party. Kenny's own party is where this one quarter or so of Albertans who really oppose lockdowns and restrictions, it's where they live and where they're most noisy. Listen to what 16 of us that represent an average of 40 or 45,000 people each are saying. We're into the 14th month of this. The restrictions and the lockdowns, you know, we're geared for this length of time. And it's where they expected

Jason Kenney not to be the person they're pushing gains. They were expecting to push gains, the NDP and doctors and the health establishment and Trudeau, but not Jason Kenney, who was their own leader. So they are pushing him to support the business community, support freedom, the freedom that he himself has espoused, and restrictions, lift restrictions, be more lenient, let people dine indoors, let people go to the gym, support businesses. They talk about mental health as though mental health is only on the side of people who are frustrated by restrictions, not those who are anxious about getting sick, about going to work. Barnes and 15 other UCP caucus members, including Speaker Nathan Cooper

and former Cabinet Minister Tracey Allard, signed a letter stating, while they are concerned about the health and safety of vulnerable Albertans, after 13 painstaking months of health restrictions, we do not support the additional restrictions being imposed on Albertans. Depending on who you talk to, 16 or 17 members of his own 62-member caucus who've signed this and the lockdown letter, publicly urging their own party leader to lift his lockdowns. Of the people who are small-town backbenchers, the ones not in Edmonton or Calgary, that's two-thirds of those members who are loudly talking. It's none of his cabinet yet, at least not publicly.

Nobody in the cities. But in the countryside of Alberta, they are perhaps representing their constituents or representing their noisy conservative constituents who don't want these lockdowns. One of the remarkable things about this is that one of these MLAs is Miranda Rosen. She's the member for Banff. And the Banff Council is saying, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? We need, this is the worst thing you can do for our public health here. We just felt that MLA Rosen should reconsider her comments based on the entirety of the constituency. I don't know who she spoke to,

but we did not have that conversation. Conservatism is pushing Jason Kenney very hard to go lighter than he is on restrictions, not harder. And there are calls for him to resign, right? Yeah, there is this letter going around conservative circles calling on him to not just hold a leadership review, but to resign immediately. And that has a few dozen signatures. Right now, that's mostly people in the shadows, not a lot of people wanting to get behind that. But it's clear between these MLAs publicly opposing the level of restrictions

Alberta has now to these people in various parts of Alberta in conservative land calling for him to resign now that he is facing a lot of unrest in his own party. And that's certainly putting a brake on any measures he might be willing to put in to protect public health further. So he thinks he's striking the perfect balance. But it seems given the case counts that Alberta has and given what the other provinces are doing with lesser case counts that Jason Kenney is not striking a very fine balance here. Okay. I actually also saw some pretty angry Albertans on TikTok of all places talking about the premier. This is the message for Jason Kenney. Where the f*** is your backbone? The s*** you just pulled by shutting down restaurants, shutting down the gyms. People need to work, you know. People need to work, you know.

Jason Kenney has forced this province to stay open while he plays roulette with our lives and then denies half the essential workers the essential workers grant. You know, it was a sad day that we voted you in as a conservative leader for this province because we thought you were going to do something good for us. You never did nothing. All you did was bend over to Trudeau. You're nothing but a frigging liberal. You are losing support of the people that are backing you. Just remember, we are the ones that got you there. We are the ones that supported you.

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Of course, we've talked about this on the show, you know, just how widespread the COVID cases have been at these plants. And generally, how is the vaccine rollout going? It's been good and bad. The best thing about Alberta's vaccine rollout is that they have a pretty good centralized system. Most of the vaccines are being given out through Alberta Health Services, the central medical system. We have one big super authority for the whole province, and they have an excellent registration system that I've been able to use to get my Gen X AstraZeneca vaccine that I was able to use for my parents. It's great. The issue that's clearly emerged now, though,

is that Jason Kenney and the government has been reluctant to change up their plan. They developed this plan to go age group by age group before the variants struck, before we knew that younger people were getting sicker and the virus was spreading faster. And we've seen a lot of other provinces shift to prioritize frontline workers, get the virus into hotspots ahead of those where the virus isn't hitting as hard. Jason Kenney has been very reluctant and unwilling to do that. There has been this carve-out made for meatpacking workers. They're the first non-health frontline group to get access to it. But there's still no priority for teachers, for grocery workers, for areas like Banff or for McMurray that are on fire with COVID right now. And there seems to be a reluctant to

let any of those groups jump the queue, as it were. I wanted to ask you about a new Angus Reid poll that says 28% of Albertans won't get the shot or are non-committal, which seems like a very high number to me. And what is the discussion around vaccine hesitancy? It doesn't seem like there's a lot. I think what's crowding a lot of those voices at this point is we Gen Xers excited to get the vaccine. It was interesting, Jason Kenney, who's also in Generation X, posted a picture of himself getting the AstraZeneca vaccine on Thursday. And you would not believe, I could not believe, the level of vitriol and anti-vaxxer rhetoric coming out of people who were cluster bombing his Facebook comments.

Although I have to say it seems right now Albertans are getting vaccinated at a fairly steady clip. It could be that as we get further into the latter phases in late spring, if Alberta's net wire on vaccine hesitancy, if there are more people reluctant to get it, then we might start to see it like we are in some of the states down south. You know, thinking about getting to the other side of this, which, you know, I know is very hard to think about right now, but the word recovery means a lot of different things to Albertans now, I would imagine. You reminded me in a recent column that Kenny campaigned on the idea of, quote, hope is on the horizon, that he'd bring prosperity back to a battered oil economy.

What hope remains in Alberta that it can make a recovery after the pandemic, not just from COVID, but from the slumping economy Kenny promised to beat, which has only been further battered by this pandemic? to beat, which has only been further battered by this pandemic. There's a big group of Albertans who still think that the oil patch is going to make a big recovery, that Alberta's next boom is just around the corner as long as we get pipelines and oil prices rise. And, you know, we don't have overly stringent climate and oil, you know, anti-carbon measures. That group is dwindling. It seems like the pandemic has furthered this trend toward people accepting the fact that the oil patch is not coming back, that Alberta is not going to be this roaring economic engine of Canada that it used to

be. That is a very big challenge for Jason Kenney and this government that basically campaigned on a back to the old times kind of message. They are making steps towards diversification. And Jason Kenney is still going with optimism. He's been talking about, you know, once we get the vaccines, we'll have the best summer ever. In other words, I believe we're going to have a Calgary stampede. We're going to have outdoor events. We're going to have most of these restrictions lifted gradually through May and June. He's hopeful, and he's probably right, that come the election in 2023 and come the fall, maybe come next year, these bitter memories his Conservative backers have of closed restaurants and gyms is going to be a rear view memory.

of closed restaurants and gyms is going to be a rear view memory. Although it strikes me that he has like a whole new set of problems to deal with coming out of this. Two weeks ago, the CBC commissioned a poll that suggested if an election was held, the NDP would win in a majority today. When Rachel Notley was elected premier in 2015, it was the first time the NDP had formed government in Alberta. Kenney's election with the UCP in 2019 was really a return to form. If Albertans turn towards the NDP after this crisis in the next election, what do you think it means for Alberta's identity as a province?

I think it may speak in large part to Jason Kenney having misread who Albertans are. He'd been representing Alberta for decades in Parliament, but he didn't really live here. He seems to have harbored these classic notions of Alberta as this conservative bastion. Albertans, in reality, in most polls, when they really dig deep, show that Albertans are pretty centrist. We don't like taxes, but we really like our services. And, you know, there is a reckoning for that. He's been slowly petering back some of the services, not trying to replace that revenue. And there's just been beyond the pandemic, beyond the pandemic response that has made neither side left or right

happy. He's done a lot to piss off a lot of mainstream Albertans, radically overhauling the education curriculum with a conservative bent to proposing to open up the eastern slopes of the Rockies for more coal mining, for closing down some provincial parks, and a number of other things he's done with a very conservative bent that push an Alberta that really isn't that conservative. And if Rachel Notley can position herself as the moderate safe choice to not play with some ideological experiments, then she's going to do very well. On Friday, fundraising numbers came out. The NDP didn't only raise more money than the United Conservative Party of Jason Kenney. It doubled their haul.

Wow. They're two years on. Like I said, restrictions will be a memory, hopefully, by spring 2023 when Albertans go to the polls. But, you know, it is entirely possible that he doesn't make it all the way to that election, given the furor within his own party. So weird to think the NDP could be the safe choice in Alberta. Jason, thank you so much for this. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. All right, so before we go today, an update on the situation in Wood Buffalo, where the local council has declared a state of emergency.

Yesterday, Indigenous groups in the region jointly condemned Jason Kenney's COVID response. Eleven First Nations and Métis Nations accused Kenny of choosing profits over lives. They also sent a letter to Kenny with a list of recommendations and requests, including a stay-at-home order, checkpoints, and a curfew in the community. To quote Chief Alan Adam, literally anything would be better than what he has been doing. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to Front

Burner. We'll talk to you tomorrow.