After the family waited five years to make a trip to Hawaii sponsored by a charity, it was postponed indefinitely due to the restrictions of Canada’s Covid-19.
Her mother, Lia Louiser, says the disgust at this was bad enough. Then, an Alberta government minister, Tracy Allard, confessed to taking a trip to Hawaii for her Christmas vacation with her family because it was a “family tradition”.
“It is a big blow to the face that this would be our year,” Lousier said in an interview with CNN. “We were finally going to go. We were going to make it, with luck before we lost it, and see that other people were, you know, traveling around because they had … a long year or something. Painful.”
Canadians who have suffered a travel ban, 14-day quarantines and week-long blocks are angry at politicians and government officials who are violating the very health guidelines they helped to establish.
After telling Canadians to calm down and cancel their vacation plans, more than a dozen high-profile politicians, public health leaders and even a hospital CEO were caught on vacation. What followed were confessions, demotion, resignations and a fierce, though unusual, cry from Canadians.
The social media reaction was intense
In Alberta, where Covid-19’s number of cases is among the highest in the country, eight politicians admitted to having traveled abroad.
Allard was welcomed home after her Christmas vacation in Hawaii to find “Aloha Allard” signs on buildings in the province, a petition demanding his resignation and a furious reaction from social media.
Allard apologized and resigned her position in the Alberta office. In a statement, she noted that threats were made against her children.
“I am taking this learning opportunity for myself, while trying to gain forgiveness and rebuild the confidence of my constituents,” she said in a statement. “And I hope that people will also consider their actions in response.”
‘It really looks like an insult’, says the doctor
The consequences for her and others are a measure of the outrage that is now building among Canadians who are often difficult to irritate, especially exhausted health workers.
“Canadians don’t tend to be outraged quickly, we are pretty calm, you know, but I think that was an inflection point for us to say: OK, we did our part. What does that mean about your respect for our sacrifices?” , said Dr. Alan Drummond in an interview with CNN from his medical practice in Perth, Ontario.
Drummond worked directly with the pandemic and only left home to treat patients. He has not traveled to see his own children in over 10 months.
Drummond has caused a storm on Twitter and his message is gaining support from angry Canadians.
“For politicians who have been preaching to us to restrict our activities, to restrict our social gatherings, to see our elderly loved ones through iPad and glass windows, so that they then ignore the sacrifice of others for their personal pleasure, (this) it’s hard to articulate how deeply disturbing it is, “he said. “It really looks like an insult.”
Many Canadians were also outraged by what appears to be a deliberate plan by some to hide their vacation plans.
Ontario’s finance minister, Rod Phillips, lost his job after a video message posted on Christmas Eve thanking his voters for complying with the blockade was previously recorded.
The moving video – complete with gingerbread decor and a cozy fireplace – was shown while he was on vacation on the Caribbean island of St Barts.
He later returned, apologized and resigned.
“I know I disappointed a lot of people. I hope you appreciate the fact that I don’t disappoint anyone more than myself,” he told the media, waiting for his arrival at Toronto’s Pearson airport.
The boy’s mother is angry, disappointed
Braeden is unlikely to see Hawaiian beaches this year. Nor are most Canadians who have seen their vacation to any destination canceled.
Louiser says doctors did not expect Braeden, who suffers from an extremely rare genetic disease, Hajdu-Cheney syndrome, to survive childhood. She says she is trying to give him “so much joy” and as many experiences as possible “because he has so little time on earth”.
This makes his anger and disappointment at privileged and accommodating leaders even more palpable.
“Why didn’t you stop and think that you were the one in front of the camera saying, ‘Hey, guys, you have to stay home,'” said Lousier, adding that she and her family still hope that Braeden will soon feel sand between your toes and the sensory pleasure of undulating waves.