On the Covid Lockdown in Toronto

 On The Covid Lockdown

Okay, I’m going to try weighing in on this one. As someone who has worked in both the fitness and bar industry this lockdown is a gut punch. As someone who fell into a deep dark hole of depression and overeating and only came out of that hole when the gyms opened and I could work out, I am personally floored by this latest lockdown in Toronto and the surrounding regions. But, as much as I don’t like Doug Ford’s politics in general, I have to remind myself that this isn’t his fault. It’s ours. I personally made every effort to follow protocols, but I didn’t like doing it, and many, too many people just decided to ignore them. On Hallowe’en night, while walking Benji, I counted at least 5 house parties going on where driveways were crowded with cars and you could tell by the noise that there was way too many people crowded into houses and apartments. Did I report them? No I didn’t. I feel a personal repulsion from growing up in the neighbourhoods I did against ‘ratting’ out other people. But I complained about them to my friends and I complained about the police not doing anything, knowing full well that this was going to lead to a spike in numbers and that there are not nearly enough police to enforce regulations, particularly when people like me refuse to report what we see. I don’t know if it would have helped if more of us had turned ‘rat’. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to report violations if I see more. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find my discipline again and find ways to exercise without the gyms and I don’t know if I’ll fall into another black hole if I don’t. But I know I wouldn’t want to be Doug Ford or John Tory right now. No decision they can make is going to please everyone. And I know that this is not their fault. It’s not. If we, and I mean all us, we as a society, we as a city, can’t or won’t change our behaviour to protect not just ourselves but each other, we as a society have only ourselves to blame. Yes. I am very upset about the lockdown. Yes. The next 4 weeks, maybe even more than that, are going to be very difficult. Businesses will fail. People will suffer. We will almost certainly see a financial depression. But what options did we give our leaders? What did I, or you, or anyone else do to make this situation better? We are very good at finding someone to blame when our world goes wrong. We are very quick to anger and outrage at everyone but ourselves. Like I said, I don’t know what I’m going to do or how I’m going to fare during this lockdown. I don’t have solutions other than the ones our government is taking. I’m personally devastated right now. But I know this one thing: The situation we find ourselves is not Doug Ford’s fault, as much as I’d like it to be. It’s not John Tory’s fault. It’s not my neighbour’s fault or some stranger’s fault. Maybe it’s not anybody’s fault at all. But, if we, as a society, as a city, want to come out of this, we need to start adjusting our behaviour. And we need to start looking for somebody to blame. We can’t do that and fix this at the same time. That is all that I know right now.

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