Trudeau is ignoring the cracks inside his own Liberal party on COVID
Brian Lilley
Publishing date:
Feb 10, 2022 • Last Updated 1 hour
When Liberal MP Joel Lightbound said on Tuesday that, “we’ve never been so divided,” he was talking about Canada as a whole but could have easily been talking about the Liberal caucus. Since Lightbound broke ranks another MP has stepped forward and others are said to feel the same way, right up into Trudeau’s cabinet.
These cracks in Trudeau’s caucus can’t be minimized.
If Joel Lightbound were an American or British politician breaking ranks with their leader then it would barely be news. In both the U.S. and U.K., elected officials are free to have their own opinions and not march in lockstep with their leader. In Canada, we’ve developed a different system where, in all parties, obedience to the leader is demanded and expected.
So having Lightbound suddenly come out against his own boss on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is no small issue. His discomfort in how the Liberals dealt with this issue during the election is probably why Lightbound wasn’t named a Parliamentary Secretary again or moved into cabinet as others were.
“I can’t help but notice with regret that both the tone and the policies of my government changed drastically on the eve and during the last election campaign,” Lightbound said on Tuesday. “From a positive and unifying approach, a decision was made to wedge to divide and to stigmatize.”
Shortly after his news conference, Lightbound was out as chair of the Quebec Liberal caucus. The official word is he resigned but we’ve all seen people who were voluntold to resign in politics.
Lightbound had said there were others in the Liberal caucus who feel the same way but he didn’t name names. It didn’t take long for three-time MP from Laval, Yves Robillard to step forward.
“He said exactly what a lot of us think,” Robillard told The Hill Times. “I agree with everything that Lightbound said.”
Two MPs have now questioned Trudeau’s handling of the pandemic, specifically using it as a wedge issue to divide Canadians and yet they remain in the Liberal caucus. That might be because, as both Lightbound and Robillard have said, there are many more like them.
Even apparently, right upinto Trudeau’s cabinet.
Sources speaking to the Toronto Sun say that cabinet members and advisors have called for a more cautious and less aggressive tone but that Trudeau won’t back down from this fight….. In the face of the trucker protest arriving in Ottawa, Trudeau turned up the rhetoric and inflamed the situation. Now he’s got border crossings blocked in Windsor, Coutts and Emerson with more on the way.
Turning up the heat doesn’t look like the right move to anyone but Trudeau.
Not that it matters to him, he’s insulated from all of this. He’s spent the time since the protests arrived at the cottage on Harrington Lake, Que., far from the honking, the flag-waving and diesel fumes. If the nation’s capital is under siege, facing an insurrection as some Liberals have claimed, their boss wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy frolicking in the Gatineau Hills.
He’s also apparently been too busy to notice that many across the country and withinhis own party and caucus are turning against him.