Bell: NDP blow a gasket over Kenney and his COVID-19 fightback

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The NDP fire their artillery of outrage.

More ferocious than ever.

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Premier Jason Kenney is not doing what they want.

All their self-styled smart people say Kenney should do what they want.

Their potty-mouthed social media foot soldiers say Kenney should do what they want.

Their highbrow wordsmiths in the press say Kenney should do what they want.

But he doesn’t.

And that’s because Kenney is bad. The people who support him are either stupid dupes of the demon or willing accomplices of the one who is killing Albertans.

This is not politics where people of opposing views joust, armed with their political arguments. No, this is a world where there is no legitimate difference of opinion. This is a place where there is no conversation, only condemnation, only cancelling.

This is good versus evil and if you’re not with them, you ain’t good.

So let me get this straight.

Under Kenney’s new COVID-19 rules, you can’t have anybody over to your place and you can’t go to their place.

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You can’t go with your friends to the bar or a restaurant or a coffee shop and you can’t hang out with them if you see them there.

And laws like this, with hefty fines to match, are sticking around until the middle of December and they could last longer or get even stricter, right into Christmas.

But the NDP and their always pissed-off supporters see Kenney as an individual of low character surrendering to the virus and not caring about those who die.

On Wednesday, NDP Leader Rachel Notley appears to be freaking out.

It is a day where those who did not get what they want are on the warpath.

You might read a union boss compare Kenney to President Donald Trump.

You might scroll through social media and read the threads spitting venom.

You might see the folks you voted for cast as dangerous extremists lurking in the dark reaches of the United Conservative backbench.

Kenney doesn’t shut down restaurants. Notley wants them closed down now and Notley is always right and Kenney is always wrong.

The premier says four-in-10 eateries may not survive a lockdown. He says there have been 18 COVID-19 outbreaks out of 13,000 establishments.

“But she wants to punish 13,000 businesses and 175,000 workers,” says the premier, who seems to think facts somehow mean something.

For Notley, the premier is a colossal screwup, captive to crazies in his own ranks with no handle on this virus-fighting file, a heartless leader leading us nowhere good.

His plans are clearly doomed.

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Kenney has clearly had enough.

He sees the NDP looking at the virus “as a political opportunity to do the only thing they know how to do which is attack, divide and deceive. They are panic mongers. All they seem to do is inflame panic.”

“They want the government to essentially create a quasi-police state,” says Kenney of the NDP to the sound of heckling in the legislature, adding they want to destroy owner-operated businesses, throw workers into unemployment and “do all of this because they’re socialist.”

“They are addicted to command and control of people’s lives.”

Notley says Kenney is taking “a discredited libertarian approach.”

Kenney says he’s made it illegal to visit other people’s homes. That’s not … er … libertarian.

“Their first resort is to totally demolish constitutionally protected rights and freedoms.”

The premier speaks forcefully but sounds like someone trying to score points at a university debate where, afterward, the combatants retire to a snug wood-panelled pub to chinwag the night away over glasses of good Irish whiskey.

In Calgary, Mayor Naheed Nenshi and the city’s point man on emergencies Tom Sampson take the high road.

They are not exactly on the same page as Kenney but they’re willing to give the premier’s plan the old college try.

“The province is headed down a path to drive the COVID numbers down. Our job is to make that path as smooth as possible,” says Sampson.

Nenshi says the city’s job is to back the province on the restrictions.

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Well done. gentlemen. Let’s give it a shot. WARNING: You may be slimed as traitors to the cause.

Meanwhile, newshounds ask Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s top public health doc, about which of her recommendations Kenney punted, an NDP talking point.

Hinshaw says she presented options with the pros and cons. They were “respectfully considered” and the elected leaders made their decisions.

The only question. Is Hinshaw now in the doghouse with the rest of us?

rbell@postmedia.com

Twitter: @sunrickbell