The country changed in less than a week and will never be quite the same again.
What began as a fairly tame and predictable protest against vaccine mandates by a small group of transborder truckers mushroomed into something much, much more. The “Freedom Convoy” demonstration on Parliament Hill became a confrontation, an uprising against the authority of the federal government. Call it an insurrection, because that’s what it is – an attempt to force the resignation of the prime minister and to overthrow his government.
As the demonstration turned into an occupation of the capital by thugs who would be treated as terrorists in most countries, we – all Canadians – experienced a national awakening. Our democracy is under siege by the same dark forces as stormed the U.S. Capitol – criminals, White-supremacists, conspiracy theorists, far-right zealots, religious nutcases, and everyday thrill seekers too stupid to understand what they are doing. Democracy may not be in as imminent danger of collapse in Canada as it is in the United States, but it is at risk. It is being undermined. It needs to be repaired, reinforced and given the respect it deserves.
The national awakening extends, one hopes, to the prime minister. Last week showed Justin Trudeau that he needs a new approach to vaccine mandates. Canadians are fed up with them. They have lost their majority support. People who had supported them, now question their effectiveness. They want to be rid of them. Trudeau needs to lecture less and empathize more, to show his sympathetic side, to demonstrate that he shares the public’s yearning to get life back to normal.
Whether the national awakening extends to the Conservative Party of Canada is problematic. It was ironic, as many observed, that protesters who descended on Ottawa to demand the head of the prime minister came away with the opposition leader’s instead. The irony is fleeting; the damage to the political system could be long lasting.
The country needs and deserves a strong official opposition, a party that offers a real alternative to the Liberals in policy and approach. Voters aren’t getting that from the Conservatives. Under Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer before him, the party has stood for one clear objective – defeating the Liberals – and not much else.
Most Conservatives will not mourn the euthanizing of poor O’Toole, but many will worry about the future of their party. It has been broken back into the two pieces that Stephen Harper brought together in 2003 when he merged his rightwing coalition of ex-Reformers with Peter MacKay’s progressives.
It is hard to see a new leader being able to stitch the two pieces together, as O’Toole tried in his inept fashion to do. It seems more likely that the party will move further to the right and try build on its base on the Prairies by stealing support from the People’s Party, and leaving the moderates who went down with O’Toole to drift to more congenial political homes.
A hard-right opposition party is no alternative to the Liberals, not for centrist voters, not when the right features the prominent MPs – including Pierre Poilievre, the apparent leading candidate for the leadership, and Candice Bergen, the interim leader – who cheered on the extremists of the Freedom Convoy, declaring them to be hardworking Canadians defending their right to be free. They were no such thing. They were the radicals, the outliers who were busy pumping out hate on social media, issuing threats of death and dismemberment to politicians, journalists and anyone else who disagreed with them. No respectable political party would have anything to do with them.
If the Conservatives need supporters like these, the country doesn’t need the Conservatives.
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is a former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail. He is the co-author of Flora! A Woman in a Man’s World. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com