Federal Politics

“’Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Today’s Conservative Party of Canada is a curious movement. Even curiouser are its leadership race and its upcoming pair of television debates – French on Wednesday, English on Thursday.

The debates, to be broadcast from Toronto, may be the only opportunities for national audiences to take the measure of the four candidates who are vying to take on Justin Trudeau in the next federal election. Voting by ranked preferential ballot is to take place in August.

“In Canada, we shouldn’t have soldiers taking care of seniors. In the weeks and months to come, we will all have to ask tough questions about how it came to this.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, April 23, 2020.

Questions are good. Answers would be better.

Some day the coronavirus crisis will play itself out – and when that day comes, the world will be not be same, or so we are told. There will be a “new normal.” Everything will change, presumably for the good.

As an optimist, I would love to believe these seers. As a skeptic, I wonder. Will the COVID-19 pandemic, horrible as it is, really change human nature or behaviour?

Canadian history is full of what historians like to call “defining moments” – events or decisions that put their stamp on the country and help to secure the legacy, for better or worse, of the government of the day.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his minority Liberal government face one of those defining moments as they, along with their provincial partners, struggle to keep Canadians safe from the COVID-19 pandemic. The outcome of the struggle, which no one can yet predict, will inevitably colour history’s verdict on this Trudeau government.

Canada is a favoured nation in many, many ways, not the least of them being the strength of our political institutions and the ability of our elected leaders to rise above partisanship and self-interest in times of crisis.

I can think of no better way to illustrate the point than by comparing the responses at the highest levels in Canada and the United States to the coronavirus pandemic. The response in Ottawa may not have been perfect, but the Trudeau administration clearly understands that the paramount responsibility of government is the protection of the public.