David Staples: Sanity breaks out, as politicians end COVID restrictions and disavow wedge politics – Edmonton Journal

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Sanity just broke out across Canada.

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The leading light of this most welcome, non-partisan and common-sense moment came in the form of an unlikely individual, Joel Lightbound, a Trudeau Liberal MP from Quebec City.

It’s apt that a political leader with the name of Lightbound is the one dragging his own party  out of the darkness of divisive COVID politics and painful restrictions.

Such was the unlikelihood and the force of Lightbound’s critique of Liberal policy that he not only stole the show in Canadian politics on Tuesday, he might also have made the most lasting impact on us, even as his statement came on the same day as a number of provinces, including Alberta, did the inevitable and irresistible, announcing they would drop most or all COVID restrictions now or in coming weeks, at least if the Omicron wave continues to crash.

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Until now, Trudeau Liberals have been united in their support for ongoing COVID restrictions and in their disdain for the unvaccinated and for the world-famous — or infamous (depending on your point of view) — trucker protests in Ottawa.

But Lightbound — who before speaking out was chair of the Quebec Liberal caucus — ended all that in one spell-breaking press conference.

Lightbound called for the trucker protest to end in Ottawa and condemned individuals at the protest who waved racist flags.

But then he did something extraordinary and memorable in refusing to characterize all the truckers as wrong-doers and white supremacists. “I will abstain from the kind of generalizations that we’ve heard these last few days.”

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He mentioned the variety of people of all ages and races he’d seen at the protest. “I have enough respect for my fellow Canadians, not to engage in these easy and absurd labels.”

In rejecting the Liberal attack line that the protesters are racists and white supremacists, Lightbound set an example for all of us. It’s time to think twice about making quick and unkind-to-vile characterizations of our political opponents, even if their ideas and interests clash significantly with our own.

The Canadian people owe him a standing ovation.

He both illuminated and savaged Liberal wedge politics against the unvaccinated.

“I think it’s time to stop dividing Canadians, to stop pitting one part of the population against another,” he said. “I can’t help but notice with regret that both tone and the policies of my government changed drastically on the eve and during the last election campaign. From a positive and unifying approach, a decision was made to wedge, to divide and to stigmatize.”

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In speaking out against ongoing restrictions, he talked about parents worried about the horrendous impact of COVID on the mental health of children and about everyone from artists to business owners fearful about their livelihoods.

And then he dropped a small rhetorical bomb on all restrictions-pushing politicians who act as if they care about vulnerable Canadians first and foremost: “I’ve heard from people worried that those making the decisions seem at times to have been blind to the fact that we’re not all equal for lockdowns, that not everyone can earn a living on a MacBook at the cottage.”

Provincial leaders like Quebec’s Francois Legault and Alberta’s Jason Kenney echoed many of Lightbound’s talking points about the harm and lack of necessity of restrictions in announcing their own plans to end such measures.

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The province is lifting mask mandates for K-12 students in school on Feb. 14, with restrictions targeted at the unvaccinated ending at midnight Feb. 8.

If things go well, Kenney said the full indoor mask mandate will end March 1, with no limits on indoor gatherings then. Notable in Kenney’s own rhetoric was his repeated insistence that Alberta’s plan be “careful and prudent,” a clear departure from his overly optimistic rhetoric of last summer’s failed reopening.

There will be some who argue Kenney is giving in to the truckers protesting at Coutts, as well as to anti-vaxx sentiment in the UCP base. This is fair comment. It would be naive to think that wasn’t part of Kenney’s calculations.

But this doesn’t invalidate the decision to end COVID restrictions in Alberta and in other places.

From the start our public health officials, such as Dr. Deena Hinshaw, have stressed that for public health restrictions to work, there has to be mass public buy-in and consent.

Most folks no longer greatly fear the virus so that buy-in is fading fast. Consent for restrictions is also evaporating.

Polls tell us this change in public mood happened fast, but Canadians are now keen to move on.

Government after government is simply recognizing this fact, with Joel Lightbound giving his own Liberals the strongest of nudges to do the same.