Not much time to write today, so here's a picture of my dog and a recap of the week
Look, I've been cleaning out the garage, OK?
Happy weekend, Code 47 readers. I have to apologize in advance for being terse. It's a warmish weekend in Toronto so I've spent the last two days gettin' stuff done, ahead of the arrival of the bad weather. I won't have time for any value-add today, just straight up a recap of what I was up to this week. But, luckily, there's quite a lot of that.
A lot of what I was doing this week was actually on Twitter. I'm going to basically take a Twitter vacation for December — an early gift to myself! I did this last year for two weeks and it was great. I'm going to go for a full month this time. I will still tweet out my work and I'll check it for messages, but no whiling away the hours with idle thoughts. I've recently made big changes in my career, as you all know, and that has freed up some time. I'm going to make sure I'm investing it well. And then I'm going to take some time off around Christmas.
Anyway, that being said, I did have a thread this week that's worth sharing. I wrote about what I think the real failures in this pandemic have been. If you think they're political, I warn, you're missing the point. Please read and enjoy the thread — share it, too, if you'd like.
I was busy at the Post, too. I wrote this column about Grimes, the Canadian artist, receiving funds through her company via a grant program that's partially funded by the public. It's more complicated than that — the funds go to the company, not her, and she didn't even apply, her company did. But it's her name on the paperwork (which is public). The issue, I think, raises interesting questions about how we prioritize arts spending, which is itself controversial. Check it out.
Also in the Post, I wrote about our effort to secure vaccines for the population. The issue has become politically loaded, for obvious reasons, but it was hard to sort out the truth amid all the partisan shouting. I'm not sure I was able to answer all the questions, but I was able to answer at least some of them, and hopefully leave people a bit better informed. The takeaway? It's too soon to say if the federal government has badly botched the vaccine program, as is being alleged. Maybe they have! We don't know until other countries start getting vaccine. If we are way behind, well, that'll tell us something. But I did note that there was one area where the government definitely did fall behind: retrofitting an existing facility to give us at least some production capacity. Not a ton, but enough to get started on the most vulnerable groups. That facility was supposed to go online this month. It didn't. And that may come to haunt the prime minister, I wrote.
Also, I couldn't quite squeeze everything into the column. There was some material left on the cutting-room floor, as it were. So I did a full Twitter thread in support of the column. Check that out below.
And of course, my usual basement tapes video, this time, on China running the table against Canada.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/matt-gurney-for-china-grabbing-the-two-michaels-worked?video_autoplay=true
I was up to my usual no-good at TVO.org this week, too. On Monday, I interviewed an expert in cold-chain logistics, to find out what our vaccine program is likely to look like. The upshot? There's a decent chance it'll be a soldier putting a needle into your arm, not a hospital nurse. That'll blow a few tinfoil-encased minds, I suspect. Check out that interview here — I promise, it's really interesting. I learned a lot.
Also at TVO, another interview with an expert, in this case, Zain Chagla, a doctor and expert in infectious diseases. He's been my go-to guy for months whenever I have questions I need answered about the pandemic. This week, I asked him, if people keep calling rapid-testing kits "game changers," is that true? If so, how will they change the game? And also, like, how do the damn things work? Do you lick a strip? Pee on a stick? Check out the interview for answers to all those questions, and more.
This week also marked my debut column at The Line, which was exciting. I wrote about the federal Liberals' gun-control proposal, specifically their ridiculous proposal to ban military style assault weapons. The ban doesn't actually ban anything, nor does it target military style assault weapons. It gets even worse. It's a piss-poor showing from the self-styled champions of evidence-based policy, I wrote. THen again, maybe they only think that applies when they like what the evidence is saying.
Anyway, folks, like I said. Apologies for the brevity. I'm losing the light and there's still lots to do, plus an increasingly hyper dog who needs a walk. So enjoy this, stay safe, stay warm, and I'll check in with you all soon.
mgurney.responses@gmail.com
Twitter.com/MattGurney