On the fourteenth day of the trucking convoy’s occupation of downtown Ottawa, the Conservative Party changed tack: interim leader Candice Bergen called on the agitators to leave of their own free will. However, this change of course did not seem to be endorsed by all of its deputies.
The Conservatives used their opposition day in the Commons on Thursday to force a debate on health measures in the country. Ms. Bergen began her speech by calling for an end to the occupation and the blockades that are now multiplying at border crossings in various provinces.
“To all those taking part in the demonstrations, I believe that the time has come for them to dismantle the barricades, to stop their disruptive gestures,” said the interim leader of the Conservatives, who took to the streets of Ottawa there. has two weeks to support these same demonstrators.
Since then, to the convoy of truckers paralyzing the downtown core of the capital have been added another blocking the border between Canada and the United States in Coutts, Alberta, a third doing the same in Emerson, Manitoba, and a fourth at the Ambassador Bridge which connects Windsor and Detroit (the most important commercial crossing between the two countries).
“The economy they want to see reopened is hurting,” Ms. Bergen argued of the protesters.
The chief, however, promised them to continue to listen to them and defend their demands. “We will not stop until the decrees are lifted,” she said to protesters who oppose vaccination and mandatory mask-wearing decrees and to all sanitary measures.
The Conservative Party has called on the Liberal government to present by February 28 “a plan for the lifting of all mandatory measures and federal restrictions”. The majority of the measures in place are the responsibility of the provincial governments. The federal government manages the border rules (vaccination proof, screening tests), the compulsory vaccination of cross-border truckers (also imposed by the United States) as well as the compulsory vaccination of its officials and subcontractors.
Invited to comment on their party’s new position, the majority of elected Conservatives who crossed paths on their arrival in Parliament declined.
Former leader Andrew Scheer — who also supported the Ottawa convoy and gave his participants a thumbs up just Wednesday — did not endorse his leader’s turn. “It is time that the constraints [sanitaires] come to an end”, he for his part decided.
MP Arnold Viersen called on the convoys to stop blocking the border crossings, but not the Ottawa one to leave.
Three elected officials, out of the dozen crossed at the entrance to Parliament, said they agreed with Ms. Bergen’s appeal.
A ridiculous turn
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed surprise at the Conservative position. “The Conservative Party has spent the last two weeks endorsing and encouraging these roadblocks across the country,” he quipped. “I hope the Leader of the Opposition will maintain her current position and continue to call for an end to these blockades. »
Bloc member Kristina Michaud said she suspected “a little political game at the start” on the part of the Conservatives who supported demonstrators who were part of their electoral base. “But now we are changing our tune because we see that it is degenerating. »
The exchanges between Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Bergen, in the Commons, did not impress Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet. “His behavior and the government’s responses suggest that we are in an election campaign against the Conservatives,” he criticized the Prime Minister. This is not the nature of the crisis. »
Ms. Bergen demands that the Prime Minister meet the leaders of the opposition parties to find a way out of the crisis. Mr. Blanchet endorsed this request on Thursday.
The leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, called on the prime minister to “stop debating jurisdiction and fix the problem”.