ALBERTA HAS A DOUBLE PROBLEM. First, COVID-19 is close to out of control. Second, premier Jason Kenney refuses to face up to that reality. Dr. Neeja Bakshi calls it “the big disconnect”—the difference between what life is like on the frontlines for healthcare providers and what life is like out in the world beyond the ICUs.

HE HAD THE LAW ON HIS SIDE but it didn’t help. The FDM Group still says a temp worker in Mississauga, Ontario owes them $30,000 because he quit a job they had placed him in. The OLRB (Ontario Labour Relations Board) has ruled he doesn’t. But the board refuses to do anything to enforce their own ruling directing FDM to stop billing him and others.

THE PANDEMIC WAS NO MATCH FOR OUR CEOS. They managed to keep paying themselves fat bonuses to increase their annual income by an average of $171,000 (17 per cent) compared to 2019—even when their businesses and workers took heavy hits.

IT’S LIKELY ILLEGAL BUT SO WHAT?. Halifax landlords are busy compiling and sharing secret lists of “bad tenants.” The landlords call it good business practice. Many others call it unfair in a city where affordable housing is next to impossible to find—never mind the fact that the practice is a gross—and probably illegal—violation of privacy rights.

CHRISTINA GOWER CALLS IT “MORAL DESPAIR”: the feeling she gets from the deluge of insult and vitriol she has to endure from anti-vaxxers, just because she wants to help sick people get well.

DO GOODERS JUST CAN’T FIGURE IT OUT. Why are those they want to help often so goddamn difficult? Why can’t they just accept that do gooders always know what’s best for them? Bert Wolding knows why.

GET VACCINATED OR ELSE. Or else what?  That’s the question that hangs over the heads of workers as more and more employers require their workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. There is no clear answer.

BEING RIGHT DIDN’T HELP MUCH. Workers who got their jobs through temp placement agencies have suffered from a higher rate of covid infection than other workers. Dr. Gayane Hovhannisyan warned they likely would. No one cared much.

IT’S RISKY AND ENVIRONMENTALLY UNETHICAL but so what. The cryptocurrency craze holds millions of us in its grip. Losing almost half its value since April hasn’t killed it. Any more than the fact its energy demands make our super-heated world even hotter.

IT HAD TO BE A CONSPIRACY. Maritime blueberry growers were certain of it. Why else would a buyer from Maine not try to outbid the dominant Canadian buyer? Why would they pay no more in Canada than the 22 cents a pound offered by Oxford Frozen Food and yet be happy to pay 45 cents a pound—more than twice as much—to growers in Maine? The growers asked the Canadian Competition Bureau to investigate. The bureau did. Then nothing.