Once again the Ruler of the Right has punctuated his rant in Question Period with his favourite meme, “There is no Plan B for distributing the vaccines, because there never was a Plan A.” His supporters will say he’s using a bit of allowable hyperbole to make a point.
What’s the Message?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. It isn’t the words he says, it’s the message his followers receive that influences their behaviour, to the detriment of all of us.
Who is Listening?
If you have been watching the last five years of American politics, you will have noted that when a political leader takes an anti-establishment position, a large number of his followers, especially the crazy ones, take this as a call to arms that allows them to perform any number of anti-social acts that they have been dying to perpetrate but didn’t have the nerve to because of the consequences.
It’s difficult enough to get some segments of the general public to buy into such draconian regulations. Their leader doesn’t have to come out and say, “Don’t wear masks.” All he has to say is, “The government’s plans are useless.” Immediately all the selfish people who don’t want to wear masks will stop feeling the social pressure to wear them. They don’t like the government to start with, and they don’t like being told what to do. Now somebody in power is telling them they don’t have to. So they don’t.
Fair Game in an Election
That’s the whole idea of an election campaign. “The government’s not doing a good job, so replace them with our party.”
But There Is No Election
The present aim of the government’s policy is to get us through a dire situation with as few lives lost as possible. Undermining those efforts for the purpose of making political points is pretty lame. I know the Opposition’s job is to hold the governing party to account, but there is a line where proper caretaking stops and irresponsible self-interest takes over.
Erin O’Toole has stepped, no, jumped with both feet, over that line from the moment he first opened his mouth in the House of Commons. This is about the lives of Canadians, and the political games must stop. If Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition has any ideas how to solve the problem of reduced serum shipments, let’s hear them. If they don’t, the least way they could serve the people of Canada is by supporting the government in its efforts to save our lives.
(Actually, this sort of empty rhetoric makes the intelligent observer suspect that the government is doing the best possible under the circumstances, and the Opposition couldn’t come up with a better plan themselves.)
Get it Together, Folks
Wouldn’t it be nice if Trudeau said, “Okay, you support me, not just in Parliament but on the public relations front, and I won’t call an election.”
Yeah, sure.
The Bottom Line
A political leader who stands up in public and sounds off like an idiot gives the real idiots encouragement to act like idiots. And they do. And we all suffer.