Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is really good at apologizing. That is, apologizing for the actions of other people, most of whom are long dead. His record on fessing up to his own errors is a bit more suspect, but that's human nature. .Much as Trudeau and the upper crust of Canadian elite opinion may claim otherwise, Canada is not a dark, genocidal state born in sin redeemable only by ideological conversion therapy. But there were of course sins. No state in humanity's short history is without it, but in any reasonable comparison to almost any other polity on earth, Canada is a choir boy. .That said, apologies for historic wrongdoing has its place. It need not take the form of Trudeau's national self-flagellation and the wearing of a hair shirt, but a straightforward owning-up of wrongdoing, and compensation are sometimes warranted. .The wrongdoing (in hindsight) committed by the Canadian state (and its provinces) is normally applauded at the time. When Canada locked up Ukrainians during the First World War, and Japanese during the Second, Canadians in overwhelming numbers, cheered. These were "others." They were a minority of the population that did not deserve our understanding..Only in hindsight — after the crises passed — did cooler heads allow Canadians to self-reflect at the injustices done. .Trudeau and the premiers should undergo a similar self-reflection right now, as the COVID-19 crises fades into history. .The unvaccinated weren't locked up into concentration camps, but they were locked down in their homes, and locked up in mandatory quarantine "hotels.".Prior to the September 2021 federal election, few beyond the most wild-eyed COVID-cultists were demanding vaccine passports. But lagging in the polls and desperate to restore his majority government, Trudeau recognized it as a solid voter wedge issue. With the support of the NDP and Bloc — and only tepid resistance from the O'Toole Tories — Trudeau introduced the most openly discriminatory government policy since the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by his father in 1982. .Canadians who made a healthcare choice that did not conform with the state's desire were to be shunned, discriminated against, and overtly "othered.".People lost their jobs. People were prevented from flying back to Canada for weddings and funerals. People were prevented from crossing provincial borders in anything but their personal automobiles or on foot. There was no Berlin Wall with armed guards shooting at fleeing citizens, but it constituted a massive curtailing of the Charter "guaranteed" mobility rights of Canadian citizens. .Trudeau himself said, “They [the unvaccinated] don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space. This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?".It was a shockingly authoritarian and sinister statement to be coming from the leader of a civilized country. .In short order, every single provincial government followed Trudeau's lead. From Quebec, to Ontario, to Saskatchewan, BC and Alberta, every premier in Canada imposed wildly discriminatory vaccine passports that made the unvaccinated second class citizens in their own country. .The unvaccinated were barred from attending weddings, funerals, restaurants, bars, concerts, and indoor gatherings of almost any kind. .One Alberta government employee I know was put on mandatory unpaid leave because she chose not to comply. .It made many of us who were voluntarily and enthusiastically vaccinated before it became mandatory feel ashamed. And ashamed we should be. I was given back my freedom to live much of my life as I pleased, while my unvaccinated friends and colleagues were forced to live like chained up animals. I alleviated my guilt as much as could by assisting them in "finding" certain government documentation that would allow them participate in society. .So far, only Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has had to pay the political price for the actions of his government. Arguably, Erin O'Toole also lost his job for failing to take a firm stand against Trudeau. But Trudeau himself and every premier that has faced voters since have been rewarded with re-election. .Doug Ford was re-elected last night in Ontario despite his grievous record of hard lockdowns, mask mandates and mandatory vaccinations. Ontario's conservatives — upset as many of them were — held their collective noses or stayed home. Ford would not be so lucky if he governed Alberta, where conservatives and libertarians launched a veritable insurrection to oust Kenney without electing the NDP. .Provincial mandatory vaccination may be gone thanks to grassroots pressure from events like the Freedom Convoy, but Trudeau refuses to remove them at the federal level. He knows there is no science backing his position. Vaccines do provide some level of protection against severe COVID-19 outcomes, but they do nothing whatsoever to prevent transmission. The sole thread that vaccine passports hung by was as a means of preventing said transmission. .But the data and science be damned. Trudeau will not end federal mandatory vaccination because it is a matter of politics, pride and vindictiveness for him. For much of his voter coalition, vaccines are not just about healthcare, but a marker of tribal political allegiance. His pride was severely hurt when a bunch of rednecks set up hot tubs outside of Parliament Hill and refused to leave until he invoked martial law enforced by mounted police with clubs. This episode left him deeply embarrassed on the international stage of which he cares so much, leaving him to exact vengeance on the rebels of the Trucker Spring. .Canada's Apologist in Chief is unlikely to see the error of his actions, and even less likely to apologize for them. But even Canada's premiers who have rolled back their discriminatory policies have uniformly refused to admit wrong doing..Like panics of the past, Canadians will likely one day look back on this era as a dark chapter in our history, when we allowed hysteria and charlatans to "other" a minority for their political and ideological gain. .The prime minister and the premiers owe the unvaccinated an apology, but we'll almost certainly have to wait until they are history themselves.
