The Liberal federal MP for the Quebec region, Joël Lightbound, has made a formal outing against the management of COVID-19 by his own government, and is asking in particular for a plan to put an end to health measures and to “put an end to the division” between vaccinated and unvaccinated.
“Definitely, there are several colleagues who feel a certain discomfort with the style of politics that we are doing on the pandemic,” said the federal MP for Louis-Hébert on Tuesday, in a press briefing in Ottawa that he called. the same morning.
Joël Lightbound proposes to learn to “live with the virus”, and in passing to break radically with the approach put forward by the liberal government of which he is a part. He wants a “quantifiable” roadmap to be published for the lifting of health measures, urgently renegotiated health transfers to the provinces and an end to the “division of the population” according to vaccination status.
Although he was elected this fall under the Liberal banner with an explicit promise to impose COVID-19 vaccinations on public servants and international travellers, Mr. Lightbound maintains that these measures “need to be re-evaluated” in light of the scientific advice and recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO). He also criticizes the Liberal strategy of having “politicized” the pandemic during the campaign.
The politician says he could not shed light on the costs and benefits of compulsory vaccination of truckers crossing the border, despite weeks of research. He argues that this generates significant costs passed on to consumers, and therefore an increase in inflation. This theme has been hammered home in recent weeks by the Conservative opposition, in particular.
The member for the Quebec region does not consider joining another party since he has “too much respect for his constituents” to act in this way. He says he is still comfortable with the Liberal Party of Canada, ready to “accept the consequences” of his exit, but otherwise optimistic that his government can still modify its approach.
Is there a problem with the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau? After a moment of silence, Joël Lightbound recalled that Justin Trudeau had convinced him to go into politics, and said he “confided that Mr. Trudeau can reconnect with the more unifying style of politics that he is capable of embodying. »