Justin Trudeau believes his strong campaigning skills will kick into high gear when people finally have a chance to compare and contrast him with Pierre Poilievre, but Poilievre has a head of steam going which gets people excited. The winds of change have not bypassed Canada.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 4, 2024.

OTTAWA—The winds of political change are blowing everywhere.

Instead of interpreting that as a renaissance of the right, we have to assume that voter fatigue in multiple countries is fuelling this desire for change.

In the case of the United Kingdom, that wind led to a majority Labour government win on July 4.

British Conservatives have been in power for 14 years.

But unlike Canadian Liberals, the British Tories have motored through five leaders during the same period.

The revolving door on British leadership is prompted by a rule similar to that of Canadian Conservatives. If the majority of caucus votes against the leader, they are dismissed from power.

In the British Parliament, the dumping of leaders by caucus springs from rules written into party constitutions.

In Canada, only the Conservatives can trigger a leadership review. That process stems from a private member’s bill adopted unanimously in the House of Commons on condition that implementation is up to each caucus to be voted on privately at the beginning of a new Parliament.

Because of this rule, even if Pierre Poilievre were to secure a majority government in the next election, if his popularity flagged, he could be quickly replaced.

In the case of the United Kingdom, the revolving door leads to internal party divisions that are hard to heal.

In the dying dies of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s campaign, former prime minister Boris Johnson was brought in to rally the troops. He rallied hard, but did little to support his leader.

Instead, he used his time on stage in London’s Chelsea neighbourhood to praise his own initiatives, and trash the left.

He simply ignored Sunak, who was part of the group that dumped him. With such Tory in-fighting, the Labour Party has doubled its lead heading into a vote predicted to be a washout for the governing party.

From France to Canada, from the United Kingdom to the United States, multiple western leaders are suffering from voter fatigue.

Some may also be suffering from personal fatigue.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s performance in the June 27 debate against Donald Trump was palpably painful to watch. He struggled to keep his train of thought, and spoke in a gravelly, weakened voice. There were moments when he appeared to be confused about what the issue was. His wife, Jill, went up to the podium at the end to usher Biden away, as one would do for an elderly relative with balance problems.

All in all, it reinforced the narrative that Biden should not be the Democratic Party’s choice in the next election if they intend to defeat Trump.

Americans are also suffering from price fatigue and inflation, but there does not seem to be the obvious stampede to the right that one witnessed in the first round of the French elections last week.

Instead, the American race is a sparring match between relatively equal political movements, with the two-party system almost split down the middle.

But with the mental and physical feebleness Biden displayed on debate night, his party will be ceding the election to the Trump Republicans unless he is encouraged to step aside.

In the French coalition system with multiple parties, the group led by President Emmanuel Macron is running a poor third in the vote he himself triggered early.

Like the U.K’s Sunak, Macron called a surprise election. Both seem to be facing imminent defeat because of their own bad judgement.

In Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s case, he is hoping that time will heal all wounds. But it may also be that time is running out because the governance agreement with Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats will expire early next year.

The shocking Liberal loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s, Ont., left the party with a sense of foreboding that will fester when they hear negative feedback on the summer barbecue circuit.

Unlike Sunak, Trudeau cannot simply be dumped by a vote of his caucus.

Like Biden, Trudeau must reflect on whether his presence in the next election will be a plus or a minus.

The prime minister believes his strong campaigning skills will kick into high gear when people finally have a chance to compare and contrast him with Poilievre.

But the prime minister also needs boots on the ground, though with many Liberals both privately and publicly expressing their reservations, the volunteer base of the party will be shrinking.

Poilievre has a head of steam going which gets people excited.

The winds of change have not bypassed Canada.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Armed with today’s knowledge and technology, it only makes sense to issue an international vaccine for anyone who plans to travel.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 26, 2021.

When does personal freedom blind us to professional responsibility?

When the health-care system permits unvaccinated workers in facilities housing vulnerable people.

It is the state’s job, first and foremost, to protect those who are under its care in public hospitals or long-term communal living arrangements.

The Quebec government understands that. Last April, it became the first jurisdiction in Canada to require health-care workers to either vaccinate or provide thrice-weekly COVID tests to their employers.

Alberta, on the other hand, is clinging to the notion that a vaccination requirement is a violation of civil liberties. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is even considering amending a 100-year-old Alberta law that gives the government the right to mandate vaccines in certain circumstances.

Why would any government assume it is okay to allow employees who have not been vaccinated to come to work?

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters last week that he thinks it is a constitutional right that, “no one should be forced to do anything.” With that perspective, we should all stop paying taxes.

Someone should ask the premier what happened to the constitutional rights of the frail and elderly in long-term care facilities who depend on us to protect them. Many other countries have already decided it is not a personal freedom issue but a health responsibility for those who work in facilities that look after the vulnerable and hospitalized.

Several European countries have already mandated vaccinations for all health-care employees. France, a country which has some of the strongest worker protection laws in the world, has imposed a deadline of Sept. 15 for health-care workers to be vaccinated or lose their jobs.

Throughout the pandemic, politicians have repeatedly stated that it is their job to listen to the science.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal has been calling on provincial governments to make sure they bring in vaccination rules that cover all facilities, not just those in the public sector. The CMAJ also believes that mandatory vaccinations in those facilities would pass a Charter challenge even though a previous call for mandatory flu vaccines was disallowed.

In this case, the disease transmission and death rate from failing to vaccinate is much higher than for a flu vaccine, and there are already a number of vaccination requirements mandated for hospital employment that have passed Charter scrutiny.

Health-care associations in Canada have been calling on premiers to act quickly and save lives.

Voiceless patients in long-term care facilities, many of whom died during this pandemic, have every right to be fully protected.

On-site testing is not enough.

What is even more egregious is that the cost of refusing the vaccination is not even being borne by the anti-vaxer, but by the rest of us.

In many instances, health-care professionals are required to have tests to prove they are COVID-free. In New Brunswick, unvaccinated workers in long-term care facilities must be tested every second day. If the test is molecular, the cost is approximately $200 each, so in the course of a single week, $800 could be spent to guarantee the employment rights of anti-vaxxers.

A simpler solution would be to make the vaccine mandatory and deliver it quickly.

British Columbia’s chief medical officer of health stated last month that mandatory vaccination was one of the options being considered in their long-term care facilities.

According to the Ontario Medical Association and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, mandatory vaccines in the health care system could help prevent a third wave of infection caused by the delta variant of the Coronavirus.

On the science side, the verdict is unanimous: a health care vaccination program would have a significant impact in reducing the possibility or severity of a third wave of variant Covid infection.

There is zero reason for politicians to play the civil liberty card on this one.

I still carry a federal vaccination card that was co-issued by Health Canada and the World Health Organization as a requirement to comply with international health regulations when entering various countries. The vaccines were administered and signed off by Health Canada and you could not enter certain countries without this vaccination certificate.

In those days, we were not dealing with a virus that morphed into a pandemic.

Armed with today’s knowledge and technology, it only makes sense to issue an international vaccine for anyone who plans to travel.

And it is about time the Canadian government and the provinces got their act together and realized that saving lives trumps vaccine liberty.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published in The Hill Times on Monday, March 13, 2017.

OTTAWA—The Trump effect is sweeping across Europe, with all eyes on the first round of the French elections next month.

National polls have the anti-immigration party of Marine Le Pen hovering around 30 per cent, with some even suggesting her numbers might climb as high as 40.

Few are predicting a Le Pen win, with opponents working in tandem to undermine her momentum.

But no one is taking anything for granted.
 
Travelling in Paris last week, I got an earful about how the American phenom was moving east.

Everywhere I went, people were talking about Le Pen’s anti-globalization message and platform planks mirroring those of U.S. President Donald Trump.

It is not the first time the Le Pen family has caught the attention of the French political class.

Marine’s father led the National Front for almost 40 years, before Marine assumed his mantle six years ago, becoming only the second president of the party her family founded. In 2012, she placed third, behind François Hollande and Nicholas Sarkozy, in the presidential election.

Her second presidential bid for the election culminating on May 7 was launched in February.

The Le Pen brand has been around for almost a half-century, but never managed to garner support from more than one in five French voters.

But the winds of change that carried Brexit and Trump seem to be leaving their mark in France too.

Le Pen herself has campaigned to soften the image of the National Front. She went so far as to expel her father-founder from the party almost two years ago for characterizing the Holocaust as a “mere detail” of history.

Le Pen’s political manifesto is eerily similar to Trump’s. Much of her political fire has been reserved for immigrants and Islam. She has also promised to put an end to a financial system that she says is wreaking havoc with blue-collar workers.

Le Pen, a member of the European Parliament since 2004, is promising to put France first by exiting the Union. She also vows to end the twin tyrannies of Islamic fundamentalism and globalization, with a vow to replace the euro with the franc.

If that sounds familiar, there is another surprising similarity shared by the two campaigns.

Washington is abuzz about multiple Trump insiders who, having previously denied it, are now admitting to multiple meetings with Russians during the campaign.

Congress is vowing to get to the bottom of potential Russian election interference, and the investigation may uncover other Muscovite meddling beyond the United States.

Le Pen has publicly sought loans from banks close to Russian President Vladimir Putin to fund her campaign, complaining that traditional French financiers are lukewarm to her efforts.

Le Pen’s initial adversary, Francois Fillon, dropped like a stone in January following allegations of financial impropriety involving political payments to family members for work that was never done.

Last week, new information surfaced involving a secret 50,000-euro loan from a French billionaire, that Fillon “forgot” to report, in violation of French law. Fillon, considered unbeatable last fall, is now in third place behind LePen and independent candidate Emmanuel Macron.

Le Pen was in top spot until late last week, when for the first time, Macron edged ahead by one point.

The first round vote in the French election does not occur until April 23, so there is plenty of time for the see-saw to start.

But with the dramatic descent of Fillon, it appears as though Macron will the beneficiary of the anybody-but-LePen movement.

Just last Wednesday, Macron won the backing of Socialist and former Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë who called him “a reformist, a European, and a realist.”

Macron, former economy minister under outgoing French President François Hollande, quit the Socialist Party last year, hoping to cash in on anti-politician sentiment by running as an independent.

Macron refused to participate in the party primary but benefitted from reports that he would have been the Socialist president’s choice. On International Women’s Day, Macron suggested he would like to name a woman prime minister as part of his team. In France, the presidents selects the PM.

If the current numbers hold, the first-round winner is a toss-up. But in a runoff, Macron is expected to win handily.

Macron has been called politically naive by some because, despite sitting in cabinet, he has never held elected office.

However, that didn’t stop Donald Trump from getting the American nod.

Whatever the outcome, it is certainly not business as usual in France.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.