https://twitter.com/cityofhamilton/status/1386030892007706629
I caught that. I know that in other provinces, they have given some preference to certain groups. In Alberta, they have allowed the native population to get the vaccine earlier than others. I'm semi-OK with this. As a population, their general health is much worse than others. Their risks are higher (100 people to a house) and it did not really bother me too much.
But when you open it up to "blacks and other racialized people" (read anybody BUT whites) it is an issue. We are going back down a road that never existed in Canada like it did in the US (segregation and division based on race). I say that knowing that there was and is some degree of discrimination (I know a native fellow who was not allowed in a mall just last year because he was native. The guard told the white guy he was with that he was free to enter- but that the minimum wage rent a cop did not want the native fellow in.) But that is outside of the norm. We never had Jim Crow.
My grandfather actually knew "nigger John". The first black cowboy in Alberta. He had coffee and sandwiches with the man and farmed in the same general area (his father was, apparently, quite close to him.) This is a man who had the largest funeral that Calgary had hosted to that point. With people from all across western Canada making what was at the time, a difficult journey for the funeral. White people who cared for the man enough to take days away from home to pay their respects.
Yes, there were laws put in after his time that discouraged black settlers. I am under no illusions that it was perfect. But to drive this racial wedge where none exists is dangerous. To move from the progress that had been made to now making whites second class citizens is not going to end well. And yes, I recognize that it is politicians wanting power who are responsible. Don't allow people to see their true enemy. Keep them hating one another. But it is working.
