Why is the Trudeau government not supporting sensible policy to help vaccinate millions of people living in the poorest continent in the Global South? This is likely because Ottawa is in thrall to big business and the interests of the already wealthy. Surely, ending the COVID-19 pandemic must be a top priority. The faster the entire world’s population is vaccinated, the better off we all will be.

The City of Winnipeg’s preliminary budget for 2021 was tabled on November 27. It is the latest confirmation that council is not interested in listening to community demands to defund the police and reallocate resources to life-sustaining services. We take this opportunity now to not only hold our elected civic officials accountable for their actions, but also to restate our vision for a future without police.

Under the cover of COVID, Christmas came early this year for the friends of Doug Ford. And what did Santa Doug do to make all this happen? He stuffed the stockings hung by the chimney with care. Every one of these treats was snuck into omnibus bills designed to deal with the pandemic. Mr. Grinch didn’t steal Christmas. He gave it to his friends.

For the past several years, worker organizing and strike action in the cultural sector have been on the rise. While cultural workers with greater strategic leverage have carried out successful strike actions, those working in precarious situations have faced greater obstacles. This is particularly true for freelance and other arts workers with less stable forms of employment.

What better lesson can we learn from the COVID vaccine experience than that the multinational pharma companies should be publicly owned so that research and development can be directed to meet the health and medical needs of people rather than to the profits of these companies. Then the necessary vaccines can get to the billions in the poorest countries and circumstances rather than to just the wealthiest.

As long as we pledge our support for a global power hierarchy in which poorer nations are asked to “take the leftovers,” the international community will be less prepared for future pandemics. In a perfect world, rapid inoculation would be available to all nations, and free at the point of delivery. Yet, nothing about this virus, nor the dictates of global capital, is fair or equitable—even the cure.

Prisoners are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19, and the response to this risk within correctional facilities across Canada has only created an alternate outbreak of health problems. For prisoner advocates like Michelle Gushue of the Elizabeth Fry Society, the most compassionate and effective response to this problem is removing people from these institutions and returning them to their communities.

Institutionalized people in Manitoba are experiencing the brunt of COVID-19—from jails, to long-term care homes to hospitals. Our demands for a just recovery must centre those most impacted by the virus, and this requires a movement away from neoliberalism towards a system of rapid decarceration and deinstitutionalization. Only then can we begin to reckon with the legacy of austerity and adopt more ethical models of care.

The failure to contain multiple preventable COVID-19 outbreaks at Winnipeg’s Saint Boniface Hospital (which is currently experiencing the worst of three hospital outbreaks in the city) is attributable not only to mismanagement by the hospital’s executive staff, but also to years of austerity under Premier Brian Pallister’s Conservative government. The effects are—and will continue to be—devastating. 

As of Monday, November 2, there are over 3,400 active cases in Manitoba, which has an astounding test positivity rate of nine percent. Instead of doing the job we elected him to do—that is, supporting teachers, nurses, small businesses, and minimum-wage workers who are directly impacted by the move to code red—Premier Brian Pallister has chosen to shirk responsibility and download it onto the people.