Businesses say “No More! We are all essential!” The Revolution has begun

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Small businesses have been obliterated by the pandemic shutdowns, and many are struggling to survive. Businesses have had to lay off employees, and if they haven’t closed their doors yet, the next six to twelve months will be a real challenge.

I will tell you this; people are FED UP! All over North America, and especially here in Canada, small business owners are saying ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! They are standing up to by-law officers who come into their establishments to issue tickets. They are not being rude about it, they are just ensuring that these bylaw officers understand that they know their rights and are not going to roll over and play dead. I am going to provide you with a recent example, but let us first take a look at how this pandemic has slowly disseminated our economy.

In the middle of March last year, Canadian provinces and territories declared their State of Emergencies, one right after another. This started around March 14^th, 2020 until around March 27^th, 2020, and in about fourteen days, the entire country was locked down.

Since the beginning, there have been some glaring discrepancies when it came to numbers, and the need for such a stringent lockdown. At first, I believe that people were really concerned, so they followed our political leadership and did what they said. Ontario made its declaration of emergency on March 17^th, 2020, when there was only one COVID-19 “related” death in Ontario, and two in all of Canada.

On March 9^th, 2020, Global News reported Canada’s first COVID-19 related death. It was an 80-year-old man from British Columbia who had also reported having underlying health conditions. This was when talks of a lockdown began to arise.

Readers; did you know that in order to make a Declaration of Emergency in any province or territory that certain conditions must be met first? Another interesting fact is that even back then, not one of the Canadian provinces and territories met any of the conditions to make a Declaration of Emergency. Our government had based their decision for us off a predictive model from the UK that outrageously over predicted the number of deaths in Canada.

What I have observed when watching mainstream media is that they tend to use numbers to push their message. Like colours, numbers have their own psychology surrounding them. Naturally, we gravitate to some and shy away from others. There is a concept called numerosity, and it refers to people’s tendency to infer larger sizes, or more of something from larger numbers. Another interesting psychological trick that has been capitalized on is that when people find it hard to do the math, they rely on heuristics, shortcuts, or they will just rely on an expert to clarify.

This is dangerous because it is the NUMBERS that have been the reason for the rolling lockdowns we have experienced. The latest data on Statistics Canada is only for 2018, which reports that 8,511 people died from influenza and pneumonia. This number goes up on average about 1,200 deaths per year based on their previous years records. Based on this average, 10,911 deaths would have been estimated to occur in 2020. As of February 10^th, 2021, the number of COVID-19 deaths is at 21,004.

We have to take into consideration that it has also been reported that some of these deaths include drug overdoses and suicides. Some reports even say that anyone who died from a primary cause of death like: heart attacks, Alzheimer’s, or cancer, their deaths were recorded as COVID-19 if they had tested positive or showed symptoms.

Armed with this information, businesses that are fed up have started to open up, one such business is Blessed Barber Shop, located at 1113 Cobden Rd in Ottawa, Ontario. I received a video showing the entire interaction between the owner and the bylaw officer. What I appreciated about his approach is that he was respectful, and he knew the laws.

I had a brief discussion with him, and he shared with me that his neighbour had just been fined $1,000.00 for opening her store. He finds it ridiculous, but he did tell me that they intend to fight the fine.

There is no doubt that Canada will be affected by the lockdowns for years to come. The government needs to allow, not restrict the entrepreneurial spirit of the Canadian people. Society must be reopened (safely). That is the best, most enduring CERB possible for our economy. Small businesses will not survive if lockdowns remain in place.

Toronto Caribbean Newspaper is committed to featuring businesses who choose to stay open or reopen. We have been doing this for years, and now we find it even more important to support our local businesses. Feel free to reach out to me personally if you are a business who needs media support.