Trudeau insists religiously that the crisis that shook the capital “is not the story of the pandemic”.
It’s comforting, but nothing more… One more slogan in the light of the blinders that progressive politicians prefer to wear.
Two realities
The dedication of healthcare personnel, the sustained efforts of essential workers, the resilience of children and elders cultivate a romantic myth of COVID-19. But they will not be enough to make us forget the surge of hatred and anger of the last few weeks.
The extraordinary powers given to police forces may be enough to avoid other barricades like those in Ottawa, but they will not be enough to de-radicalize that part of the population that has honked its anger or the thousands of others who support them.
Whatever Justin Trudeau says, the siege in Ottawa is part of the real story of the pandemic in Canada.
This crisis has brought to light all the hidden forces unleashed by 22 months of public debate stifled by a narrow, too strictly health reading of socio-economic issues. These are forces that Canada will no longer have the luxury of ignoring.
The most radical of the convoy of truckers are already promising a second wave.
Now that they have tasted the power to monopolize public debate, they are unlikely to retreat. Their action, the effectiveness of their propaganda in attracting new followers, the strength of their supply chain have revealed that this is a sophisticated movement.
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Vulnerable
It is fashionable these days to invoke Trumpism to explain the forces driving this ultra-right populist movement.
However, for years, Canada has thought itself immune to it thanks to our substantial social safety net.
The pandemic will have shown us that this is false. The billions in financial aid from governments will not have been enough.
The marginalization that leads to radicalization is not just financial. It can also be ideological.
Condemned to silence in the face of draconian sanitary measures, for fear of being called covidiots and morons, “these people”, as Justin Trudeau called them, have forged a parallel community sheltered from public condemnation.
But what got them there were also years of repression of public debate by the well-meaning and pseudo-universalism of the elites.
The fruit was ripe for the polarization of the debate on vaccination to overflow the proverbial vase.
In all its naivety, Canada has proven ill-prepared to confront the forces thus unleashed, the wildfire of disinformation and the occult networks that finance these movements from abroad.
This is also the real story of the pandemic in Canada.
Never again
Justin Trudeau was right on Monday to say that we don’t want to see the unsightly scenes of the Ottawa occupation repeat themselves.
But how does he intend to get there, beyond the police repression permitted by the Emergency Measures Act ?
There is the question.