A Distorted Reality

I will readily admit to holding a long-time smugness about Canada and its citizens; a deep feeling of superiority seemed inevitable when comparing us with the United States, a country that has been unravelling before our eyes for a long, long time.

Unfortunately, some Canadians' response to the pandemic, and the truck convoy's illegal occupation of Ottawa, went a long way toward humbling my hubris. We are not as special as I thought we were.

That fact was much on full display last week when the aspirants for the Conservative Party's leadership had their first debate. Bruce Arthur writes about how the participants spoke of the convoy:

The truckers were heroes. The truckers were misrepresented. The CBC is Pravda, or worse.

 And perhaps worst of all, there was a brief competition over who was more loyal to the convoy. It was like watching two fans of the same band argue over who went to the earliest concerts and bought the first albums, before the band made it big. First, former Ontario MPP Roman Baber seemed to argue that public health restrictions were an attack on democracy and freedom, which taken to its logical policy conclusion would have meant a lot of Canadians dying in hospital parking lots. Then came the squabble.

The squabble was over who showed the most fealty to the insurrectionists' notion of freedom:

“Well, I did stand up for freedom during the pandemic from the very beginning,” said MP and leadership favourite Pierre Poilievre.

“That’s not true. You were not one of the loudest voices, Mr. Poilievre,” said MP Leslyn Lewis, who later took a reference from fellow leadership candidate Scott Aitchison about conspiracy theories to be a statement about her. “You did not even speak up until it was convenient for you. You did not even go to the trucker protests, you actually went and you took a picture in your neighbourhood at a local stop.”

“That’s not true,” said Poilievre. “I was there at the trucker protests. I was on the street. I was supporting those who are fighting for their freedoms.”

The implications of such stout defences are chilling.

And despite their previous support of the movement, even before it hit Ottawa, it was striking to see that the Conservative party could consider support of a lawless insurrection a purity test of sorts. Yes, Jean Charest called the convoy an illegal occupation — and was booed, as part of a rough ride — and the absent Patrick Brown has previously stated he didn’t support it. And Aitchison, too, appears to be an actual adult.

We all know, as Bruce Arthur writes, that the convoy consisted of an array of unsavoury elements, ranging from racists to homophobes to conspiracy theorists and anarchists, all fueled by 'dark money,' a Trumpian dream writ large.

And even if you remove all that and examine the ostensible motivations for the convoy as Poilievre describes them, it is a fundamental rejection of public health measures by a man who also rejected the very idea of government-delivered financial supports. 

 This is where the Conservative party appears to be going, unless someone can derail Poilievre. There was no talk of the nearly 40,000 Canadians who have died of COVID, which is just short of how many Canadians died in the Second World War. There was barely talk of the human toll of the virus at all. There was just a party whose dominant wing traffics in right-wing buzzwords and reflexive rejection of public health as a measure of partisan affiliation.

I am old enough to remember a time when there was no stigma attached to being a supporter of the Progressive Conservative Party. Those days are long gone, and that party, of course, no longer exists, either in name or spirit. 

All of us are the poorer for it.