Desperate times, desperate political parties By: Dan Lett Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022 Last Modified: 8:09 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022 Updates

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/02/2022 (1045 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

That stench coming out of Ottawa? It’s the politics of desperation.

On the one hand is a federal Liberal government demonstrating an insatiable need to portray the so-called “freedom convoy” protests as echoes of the January 2021 insurrection at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

So desperate is this need, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot discuss the protesters without portraying them as Nazi-loving, libertarian guerillas seeking to overthrow the government.

In a statement explaining the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act — which grants a broad range of special powers — the Trudeau government said the protests were serving as dog whistles for “ideologically motivated violent extremism adherents (who) may feel empowered by the level of disorder resulting from the protests.”

Has there ever been a more overwrought, desperate sentence in a government news release?

On the other hand, the federal Conservatives have forged their own special kind of desperation.

Tories want the Liberals to capitulate to the protesters and end all federal vaccine mandates. Members of the federal Tory caucus have been wandering freely amidst the protest in downtown Ottawa, posting selfies on social media and calling the protesters “champions of freedom.”

Interim party leader (and Manitoba MP) Candice Bergen has taken to calling the protesters “passionate, patriotic and peaceful.”

Partisans will howl at any attempt to pick a winner in this dangerous war of attrition between the Liberals and Conservatives. But when you line up all the rhetoric, you will see quickly the Liberals have one thing going for them the Tories do not: they are on the right side of public opinion.

Several polls released since the protests took root in Ottawa, Winnipeg and elsewhere show a clear and dramatic majority of Canadians do not support the “freedom convoy.” A Leger poll last week found six in 10 Canadians felt the protests were “offensive and inappropriate.”

An Angus Reid poll released this week showed 72 per cent of respondents want the protesters to “go home now.” The pollster concluded if “the goal (of the protests) was to build support for their demands to end-pandemic related restrictions — it has backfired utterly.”

In the context of these results, Trudeau’s decision to invoke a powerful tool such as the Emergencies Act is a political no-brainer. Although the use of this law may be an overreach, Trudeau is doing it at a time when the Canadian public wants government to overreach and move the protesters out.

Several polls released since the protests took root in Ottawa, Winnipeg and elsewhere show a clear and dramatic majority of Canadians do not support the “freedom convoy.” A Leger poll last week found six in 10 Canadians felt the protests were “offensive and inappropriate.”

It also helps the Liberal cause that, even though Trudeau and his ministers have been unable to fully substantiate their claims about the influence of extremists in the protests, there has been enough anecdotal evidence to raise concerns.

Several self-identified convoy organizers have long-standing associations with anti-immigration, antisemitic and white-supremacist organizations. Although it’s unclear whether those people represent the majority of protesters involved in the occupations and blockades, it’s enough to establish this is a movement designed by some pretty ugly people with ugly ideas.

It did not help their cause when police in Alberta seized an alarming stockpile of firearms and ammunition from a group residing within the border blockade at Coutts.

Put the poll results together with evidence of the existence of extremists and you have to wonder why the Conservatives are spending so much political capital to support the protests?

Bergen’s daily rants in the House of Commons show clearly, somehow, the Tories think the protests are a political wedge they can use to destabilize the Liberal minority government.

(That strategy was confirmed when the Globe and Mail obtained an internal Tory email showing Bergen was against asking the protesters to leave Ottawa. By not criticizing the protesters, Bergen suggested in her email the Tories can “turn this into the PM’s problem.”)

It may go down as one of the greatest miscalculations in recent Canadian political history.

Even if the “freedom convoy” is not the band of violent insurrectionists the Liberals claim it is, the Tory strategy is doomed. In a bid to turn this into Trudeau’s problem, they are estranging themselves from the strong majority of Canadians who find the protests offensive and inappropriate.

In a bid to bring down the Liberals, the Conservatives are putting their own political futures at risk.

A survey released by Maru Public Opinion showed nearly 70 per cent of respondents believe any politician who contributed to or supported the protests should be voted out office. (“If you have supported this, it will come to haunt you,” Maru spokesman John Wright told The National Post.)

In politics, all parties use desperation as a tactic to press their political causes. However, the trick is coming out of a debate looking less desperate than your opponents.

Right now, the Conservatives will easily go down as the most desperate of them all.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca