In the 1980s, US hospitals began to transform from institutions providing comprehensive care, no matter how long it took, to healthcare factories intent on shuffling patients in and out as quickly as possible. While this was meant to save money, shortages of basic equipment during the coronavirus outbreak have revealed the high price of these cost-cutting measures.
B.C. First Nations leaders are urging the provincial and federal governments to shut down construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern B.C. during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and provincial Health Minister Adrian Dix, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs says continued construction on the controversial project is increasing the risk of transmission
Trans Mountain says it’s adhering to social-distancing protocols, even as photos emerge appearing to show workers on site within two metres of one another.
In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-09 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities.
The catastrophe demonstrates the results when public health is subordinate to private profit and to a governmental apparatus that adulates the superiority of private over public administration. The catastrophe we are living through was caused by a capitalist system that could not anticipate, plan for, or cope with the coronavirus. To “get through” this catastrophe yet leave the system intact will guarantee the next catastrophe.
With BC Hydro reporting 12 workers with flu-like symptoms, city councillors, First Nations chiefs and local community members are calling for an immediate suspension of work on the project
BC Hydro has continued to fly people to Fort St. John from across B.C. and Alberta to work on the Site C dam project, despite mounting concern in the local community about potential COVID-19 contagion as most Canadians are told to stay home and practise social distancing.
