In which other G7 country do you see people queuing with tents and sleeping bags to get a passport?
Posted yesterday at 6:00 a.m.
In fact, this “passport crisis” illustrates well what is currently happening in the government of Justin Trudeau. As if the entire state apparatus had gone on autopilot.
Passports are the most obvious illustration of this situation. Of course, issuing a passport requires a minimum of checks and it takes time. But the current crisis could be avoided with a little planning.
Everyone knew that, having been unable to travel during the pandemic, many Canadians saw their passports expire without taking care to renew them. You didn’t have to see a psychic to know that when the travel restrictions were lifted, they would show up at passport offices and that extra staff would be needed.
What did the government do? Nothing. And since then he can only give excuses.
When the government happens to act these days, it is because a situation has become downright intolerable, such as arrivals at airports, particularly in Toronto.
Even though the government had defeated a Conservative motion to scrap most health measures days earlier, that’s precisely what it announced – all “based on science”, of course – this week.
On the other hand, it will still be necessary to wait for the application ArriveCanwhich has become largely useless, ceases to be used even if it too causes unnecessary delays.
Recent events mean that we have to talk again about the interminable delays before ending the occupation of downtown Ottawa in February. These days, we see the Trudeau government unable to agree on a version of the facts that can hold water on the recourse – for the first time – to the Emergency Measures Act. The file has rebounded in the Commons in recent days and not to the advantage of the government.
The law provides, in fact, that after its use, one must examine the manner and the reasons for which the government decided to invoke it. Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino has repeatedly said the law was invoked at the request of police forces. But neither the Ottawa police nor the Royal Mounted Police claim to have made such a request.
Another tile, Canada sets great store by its support for Ukraine. But that didn’t stop Global Affairs from delegating a high-ranking official to the reception of the Russian Embassy on its national day. Hard to find worse timing and clearer contradiction in the messages.
Finally, this week the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, made a speech that was described in advance as important to a group of Toronto business people.
Since everyone is talking only about inflation and recession, we would have expected measures to reassure Canadians and help the less fortunate get through this difficult period. But all the Minister of Finance found to do was to repeat what was contained in her budget last April.
This once again gave the impression of a government which is on automatic pilot and which is content to react when the pressure becomes too great rather than taking the lead.
One would have thought that the government had taken the lead with its handgun bill, even though it was very much the government’s response to requests from, among others, the mayors of major Canadian cities.
But anyone following the file already knows that the bill will have little effect. All the police will tell you that the problem is not the weapons purchased legally and which would end up in the hands of criminals. These almost exclusively use weapons without serial numbers or other means of identifying them that arrive illegally from the United States. It is therefore a safe bet that the law will not change much on the streets of major Canadian cities.
However, the agreement with the New Democratic Party, which, in fact, allows the Trudeau government to work as if it had a majority, could have given it the impetus to carry out its reform program.
Quite the opposite is happening. The government seems paralyzed and can hardly look to its leader for inspiration. Mr. Trudeau is in his third term and we know that no prime minister has obtained a fourth for more than a century.
But while the Prime Minister doubtless ponders his exit, the entire government seems incapable of initiative. As if absolutely everything in Ottawa was on autopilot.