COVID is exacerbating regional, provincial, and inter-personal tensions

'Shaming and blaming people does not prevent the spread of COVID. It creates stigma. It drives people underground,' says Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health, and ain't that the truth.

While some politicians exacerbate these divisions—Ontario Premier Doug Ford warning of 'hordes' of Quebecers, flooding into Ottawa; Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, and Quebec’s François Legault, criticizing the federal government for slow vaccine roll-outs—there are rare, and welcome, voices of compassion and unity, writes Susan Riley. The Hill Times photographs by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY SUSAN RILEY

January 11, 2021

CHELSEA, QUE.—The most insidious thing about this pandemic is the way it turns strangers into threats and everyone into a stranger. This is most obvious, perhaps, in border cities like Ottawa-Gatineau, where interprovincial bridges were closed during the first wave. As cases in the National Capit...

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