It’s the stuff our grandparents and great-grandparents talked about — the sacrifices of the war. Rationing, converting factories over from making baby carriages to building bombs. People volunteering their time, sometimes risking their lives, to keep their neighbours safe.
The idea that we’re all in this together has not been invoked in this country in such a visceral way since the Second World War. Other eras have involved suffering and sacrifice, of course — but not to the extent where almost the entire country is in lockdown.
The language being used by the Liberal government, the opposition parties and even corporations to describe the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has, on occasion, summoned the ghosts of that long-ago time.
War of a different kind
There’s talk of us being at “war” with the novel coronavirus, of “mobilizing” medical equipment manufacturers. We’ve heard politicians and public health officials plead with Canadians to maintain physical distancing and keep to their homes — through appeals to civic duty.
For the most part, people have listened and are complying. The question facing political and institutional leaders in the coming weeks is whether this sense of national solidarity and sacrifice can be sustained.
During his daily media briefing on Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke again about how “very optimistic” he is that “we are going to get through this in the right way, because Canadians do what they need to do to be there for each other” in a time of crisis.
This is unprecedented in human history. We’re being asked to shut down everything for a very lengthy period of time. And we won’t know until after we’re done whether the policy itself had the desired effect.– Historian Mark Humphries
But he wasn’t able to say how long the lockdowns and physical distancing measures will last, or how bad this pandemic could get. Will we still be stuck in our homes in two weeks? Two months? The Canadian military is readying itself for up to a year of COVID-19 response operations.
“There are obviously many, many different projections of how long this could last, how serious this could be, how many cases we could be facing. But those projections all hinge on choices that Canadians are making today, choices they made over the past few days, choices they will be making over the coming few days,” Trudeau said.
Convincing people to live smaller lives
With the invocation of the Quarantine Act and the threat of fines and jail time for those who do not obey orders to isolate following travel, Trudeau and his ministers have, in some respects, put themselves on a tightrope that no Canadian government has had to walk on since the war.
The dilemma of convincing people to stick with a government plan involving personal sacrifice is not unlike the challenges that faced the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, the agency which oversaw price and inflation control, business activity and rationing during the Second World War.
A wartime poster urges Canadians to take part in scrap drives. (Library and Archives Canada, Acc)
Although its reach and powers under the old War Measures Act were much more sweeping than the measures now being deployed against the pandemic, the board grappled with the same fundamental challenge — of cajoling, hectoring and sanctioning people to get them to obey limits on how they lived. And it did so for almost eight years.
One of the lessons learned by the Liberal government of former prime minister MacKenzie King was that it had to be selective in how hard it came down on violators, said Christopher Waddell, a journalism professor at Carleton University who wrote a thesis in the early 1980s about the board.
‘Voluntary compliance’
Today, governments are threatening people who don’t follow physical distancing or self-isolation measures with fines and jail time. Back then, wartime leaders learned that the authorities can’t be everywhere all of the time.
“You don’t have the resources to enforce it. And if you did have the resources to enforce mandatory things, you’d probably be diverting those resources from something that is more important,” said Waddell. “Ultimately, you have to rely on voluntary compliance. You have to do as much exhortation as you can.”
A lone pedestrian steps off an escalator at a quiet mall in Ottawa, Wednesday March 18, 2020, after stores were closed in response to the virus’s spread. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
And when governments do crack down, they run the risk of making a public spectacle of people flouting the law — which ultimately undermines both their credibility and their authority.
The Wartime Prices and Trade Board imposed $1.7 million in fines and threw 253 people in jail for violations. But while the war was raging overseas, said Waddell, news of scofflaws being punished at home was more easy to keep under wraps due to limited media coverage. Things have changed.
“They had a much easier media environment to work in,” he said. “There was no social media showing people flouting the rules.”
How much? How long?
The fact that people don’t know how long the lockdowns will be in place, or what kind of collective and personal sacrifices they’ll be called upon to make, renders the current situation even more precarious, said Mark Humphries, a historian at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont.
“This is unprecedented in human history,” he said. “We’re being asked to shut down everything for a very lengthy period of time. And the reality is we won’t know until after we’re done whether the policy itself had the desired effect.”
One of the challenges wartime leaders faced was to explain the tradeoff to civilians: the cost of the sacrifices versus the promise of victory. Humphries said that challenge is even greater now because the pandemic brings with it so many intangibles.
“If Canadians are being asked to make significant personal sacrifices, which may well be necessary, I think we also have to have a very good understanding of what we’re being asked to do. And we’re going to have to understand the degree to which it is likely to have the effect that is hoped,” said Humphries, who is also the author of the book The Last Plague, which examined the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918.
What leaders say and don’t say will shape how Canadians respond.
The public needs a better understanding of the plan, Humphries said — particularly when it comes to whether the current lockdown strategy ignores larger ethical, economic, social and cultural questions.
That’s a debate that has to happen in public, he said, if the public is to remain fully onside.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
WINNIPEG – A backbencher with Manitoba’s NDP government has been removed from caucus over his link to convicted sex offender Peter Nygard.
Caucus chair Mike Moyes says it learned early Monday that a business partner of Mark Wasyliw is acting as Nygard’s criminal defence lawyer.
Moyes says Wasyliw was notified of the decision.
“Wasyliw’s failure to demonstrate good judgment does not align with our caucus principles of mutual respect and trust,” Moyes said in a statement.
“As such MLA Wasyliw can no longer continue his role in our caucus.”
Nygard, who founded a fashion empire in Winnipeg, was sentenced earlier this month to 11 years in prison for sexually assaulting four women at his company’s headquarters in Toronto.
The 83-year-old continues to face charges in Manitoba, Quebec and the United States.
Moyes declined to say whether Wasyliw would be sitting as an Independent.
The legislature member for Fort Garry was first elected in 2019. Before the NDP formed government in 2023, Wasyliw served as the party’s finance critic.
He previously came under fire from the Opposition Progressive Conservatives for continuing to work as a lawyer while serving in the legislature.
At the time, Wasyliw told the Winnipeg Free Press that he was disappointed he wasn’t named to cabinet and planned to continue working as a defence lawyer.
Premier Wab Kinew objected to Wasyliw’s decision, saying elected officials should focus on serving the public.
There were possible signs of tension between Wasyliw and Kinew last fall. Wasyliw didn’t shake hands with the new premier after being sworn into office. Other caucus members shook Kinew’s hand, hugged or offered a fist bump.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
