Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is reportedly contemplating invoking Canada’s never-used Emergency Act, which would allow the government to “take special temporary measures that may not be appropriate in normal times.” Essentially this is a national-security provision, and it is subject to review by the parliament after a week.
Trudeau has been blamed for not taking stronger action to end the disruption of trade and normal business in Ottawa caused by the truckers. And I have no doubt that a significant portion of Canadians find the demonstration a nuisance. I think Trudeau’s hope was that public opinion would turn so decisively against the truckers that they would become demoralized, allowing him to take stronger measures. Their esteem in the public could decline.
But I think the problem for Trudeau is that his esteem among the public can decline faster.
Cities like Washington, D.C., are presently announcing the end of their indoor mask mandates and their vaccine mandates. New York will follow at some point. And my guess is that after a maskless Super Bowl, Joe Biden will use the State of the Union to urge a return to normalcy.
The dangers against which Trudeau’s mandate are aimed are rapidly declining. And more to the point, they’re rapidly declining in salience among voters. Trudeau is left defending a position on Covid-19 that is bound to get less popular over time, to seem less urgent. The public, itself tired with pandemic life and newly emboldened to say what they think, may conclude that the best option for ending the trucker protest is to just give up on the vaccine mandate for them.