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Rulebreakers not interested in listening

glethbridge@herald.ca @giftedtypist Gail Lethbridge is a freelance journalist in Halifax.

Nova Scotia’s Third Wave premier had his “Stay the Blazes Home” moment this week.

Sort of.

“I have a serious question: What is wrong with you?” Premier Iain Rankin asked in a COVID-19 update this week.

He was scolding the partiers and rule-breakers for flouting the safety protocols.

His delivery didn’t exactly come across with the thundering intonations of an Angry Dad Stephen Mcneil.

Rankin is more of a readfrom-the-script kind of guy. He keeps his tone flat and facial expressions unchanging.

But that’s OK. Rankin and Mcneil are different people with different leadership styles. He is still new in his role and has managed to land in one heck of a mess.

That said, Rankin’s words did seem to capture the attention of Nova Scotians in the same way Mcneil’s “Blazes” rally cry did in the first wave.

Rankin was expressing the exasperation that many feel about the “flouters.” Hearing a leader say out loud the things many having been thinking makes us feel good and validated.

The “What is wrong with you?” sentiment might also apply to anti-maskers, antivaxxers and the merchants of the Covid-is-a-hoax theory.

Whether or not Rankin’s Third Wave cri de coeur sticks, I doubt it’s going to change hearts and minds.

The problem is that when

Rankin issues a public scolding during a media conference or virtual update, he is basically preaching to the choir.

People who tune in tend to be the rule-followers. They are already on board with the public health restrictions and messages. Nova Scotians have been, for the most part, obedient to public health directives.

I’m going to guess that the Refuseniks aren’t tuning in for the premier’s updates and scoldings. And if they are, they are probably laughing at the premier, Dr. Strang and the rest of us rule-followers.

Despite our pleading and hand wringing, there are people out there who just don’t care. They don’t subscribe to the idea that an unmasked, unvaccinated human mixing it up with others is basically a COVID hand grenade with its pin pulled.

(If a virus were capable of love, it would be sending these people chocolates and flowers for helping it reproduce and thrive. But alas, the virus doesn’t love, or care. It just looks for hosts.)

If these people don’t feel like quarantining for two weeks, they won’t. If they want to have a party with 25 or 30 close friends, they will. They are so done with this virus.

Then there are the people who think that we are the fools, just a bunch of dumb sheep allowing government to shepherd us right off the cliff of democracy. COVID, they think, is fake. And, by gum, they have their rights.

They are certainly correct that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects rights such as freedom of movement, religion, expression and peaceful assembly.

But the Charter also has a clever little section (1) which allows government to impose reasonable limits on those rights and freedoms when it comes to things like hate speech or public safety.

Most of us accept these limitations as justifiable in a pandemic.

Some don’t. Physicians, public health officials and leaders can tell us about record-breaking case numbers, reveal the number of people in hospital and report the death counts. They can educate, scold, point fingers, fine and beg until they are blue in the face. And yet.

Some people will continue to flout the rules, refuse to be masked or vaccinated.

We may not like this, but it’s true. And it behooves us to understand the mindset and motivations.

Because their casual refusals, acts of rebellion, attention-seeking, sense of alienation, rights-hugging, suspicion, fear and self-important superiority complex are fuel to the virus.

And Premier Rankin, they probably aren’t going to tell us what is wrong with them because they think there is something wrong with us.

OPINION

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2021-05-08T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-08T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/282200833794376

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