Thread: Parents are worried. They’re worried about their kids. They’re worried about teachers. They’re worried about older relatives that kids might infect. Worried parents are not politics as usual. #ableg

And they have cause to be worried! Schools will be operating in crowded conditions that are effectively banned for anyone or anywhere else. There are, effectively, exceptions to safety precautions for schools.

And that decision seems to be based on early scientific understanding, which has since evolved. Kids get Covid. They spread Covid. And we don’t even really know what it can do to them long-term yet.

A dogged insistence on the part of the government that everything is fine and that the worry is false or was created by the opposition is demeaning and condescending to parents who are just trying to figure out how to keep themselves and their families safe.

Not only that, but the tone and tactics of the UCP and its million issues managers give the impression of an “own the libs” mentality.

By that I mean that the party takes such an aggressive line on any pushback that it paints itself into a corner in which it can’t make adjustments without “losing face”. Sticking to its guns becomes the goal, rather than the best policy.

This is a bad approach anyway - see for example the war on doctors - but in a pandemic with rapidly evolving science and shifting numbers, it’s irresponsible.

Take the NDP shadow plan for return to school. Capping classes at 15 province-wide on short notice probably isn’t practical. But what about 20? What about 20 under grade 6? There were elements of that plan that could work.

And the UCP don’t even seem to think it’s a bad plan - all the criticism was about impracticality. So why not adopt parts? Why not make adjustments? Because that would require accepting that the opposition isn’t always entirely wrong.

I am deeply uncomfortable with the idea that children, teachers, grandparents may become very sick and that some may die because the cabinet’s ego demands it. You should be too.

Albertan parents are out here doing our best. All we want is to feel like the government is too. So show some flexibility. Make it clear that you care more about our kids and lives than about being right. #ableg