Canadian Politics Today

A house party is not the same as gay sex or addiction, which is a medical condition.  Your analogies are terrible.

The principle is the same. Alcohol prohibition, marijuana prohibition, speeding, jaywalking, using mobile devices while driving... some portion of the population simply won't obey laws that they don't believe in if they don't think the police can enforce them.

You can't get infected with AIDS or become an addict simply by breathing the same air as someone who is.

AIDS was a lot more dangerous than COVID-19, and a lot easier to avoid.  And yet some people continued to pursue high risk situations. And trying to apply criminal penalties didn't do anything to change their minds.


You guys seem to be under the impression that if we just ask people to be reasonable, and apply penalties that reasonable people would not want to face, then people would change their behavior.  You've failed to consider that reasonable people are already following the rules and avoiding risky behavior.  It's the unreasonable who need to be dealt with, and asking unreasonable people to be reasonable is pointless.

Reasons why people would continue to disregard guidelines:
"Nobody can tell me what to do!"
"It's not serious. It's like the flu. The death rate for people my age is tiny."
"I won't catch it, there aren't any sick people here."
"The police won't find out."
"It's fake."

And probably many more.  You can try to provide people with better information. You can try to catch people in the act, and maybe sometimes you will. Most times you won't, because the police simply don't have the time or manpower.


And again, the potential for harm is greater than the potential for a good outcome, because the threat of fines will make people avoid getting tested and hurt contact tracing efforts.  Testing and contact tracing is more important than the possibility that a few people might be deterred from risky behavior by fines.  People won't go down to get their nose swabbed if they think there's a chance they'll get fined for being stupid.  They won't tell you the truth about how they got sick if telling the truth means they face a punishment.


 -k