11 Comments
User's avatar
Martin Willms's avatar

Great article. Thanks for your ongoing work on this.

Expand full comment
OttawaGuy's avatar

Guess the question now is how do we proactively make sure this can't happen here in Canada? Especially as we tend to run a few years behind US trends.

Expand full comment
J. Rock's avatar

I'm sure it's not a coincidence that Poilievre is talking about prosecuting Trudeau and saying the RCMP are corrupt. He seems to try whatever is working for Trump in the USA. I am encouraged by the backlash to his wacky statements... even by Conservatives.

Expand full comment
Mike's avatar

They were already trying. Look at how the CPC were desperately trying to insinuate that the Government were complicit in nefarious partnerships with the Wuhan Lab.

If you want to prevent this nonsense in Canada, you need to:

a) fight any attempt to politicize and/or weaken our public education system. I believe that erosion over the years in the US set the stage for the currently credulous many.

b) unequivocally and vocally reject any political party that platforms insane conspiracies. It's poison and must not be consumed.

c) ditto any political party that attacks their perceived opponents (political, journalist, bureaucrat, or otherwise) as "enemies". This too is poison to our body politic.

So basically, treat the Reform Party version of the CPC as the existential threat they are. It's not fashionable among our chattering class to do so, but these guys seek to drive us over the same cliff our erstwhile friends to the South have careened off of.

Expand full comment
Karen Sawatzky's avatar

Now I’m really depressed.

Expand full comment
ABossy's avatar

Me too. I feel like a lone person with a hand up, trying to stop an oncoming locomotive.

Expand full comment
Erwin Dreessen's avatar

"...the successes of Viktor Orbán clearly showed how this process works. And it does work" ...until it doesn't. Péter Magyar now runs a good chance of beating him.

More generally: Resist, at every step. Never give up.

Expand full comment
Bernadette's avatar

Important piece, Justin. Thank you!

Expand full comment
The Mcgojoh's avatar

Great article Justin thanks for sliding all those tiles into the rubik that Trumps Admin is. I read Paul Offit's "Tell Me When it's Over" recently and highly suggest it to anyone interested in further reading from people who were making decisions about vaccines in the USA during that time. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/154540994-tell-me-when-it-s-over

Expand full comment
Neil P.'s avatar

Just for the record, of the 40,000+ wet markets in China, I think Covid-19 originated in the one located in a city with a virology institute conducting gain-of-function research in coronaviruses.

Expand full comment
Justin Ling's avatar

I know that always feels like the coincidence that can't be explained away, but it's not a coincidence at all! Wuhan has a BSL-3 lab specifically because a coronavirus had already traveled thousands of miles from Hunan province to make people sick. The WIV was located in Wuhan because they knew that threat was real and wanted to study, prepare, and hopefully prevent it.

And, in the end, they were right! If COVID-19 emerged from nature, it followed nearly the identical trajectory as SARS did 15 years prior — it just emerged in a different city.

Put another way: I think COVID-19 originated in the major city sitting right along agricultural trade routes with a rural community lousy with coronavirus-infested bats.

Expand full comment