What Were They Thinking?

In the midst of the COVID crisis, some of our political leaders have disgraced themselves. Robin Sears writes:

In today’s crisis, some of our political leaders thought they should be on a Caribbean beach, instead of building morale and confidence as the COVID bombs drop more and more frequently across the country. The outrage at their stupidity and hypocrisy is well-earned, and will leave lasting scars on personal and political party brands. As someone who has advised political leaders for much of my career, my question is: What were these fools thinking?

This has been as testing a year on the social solidarity of Canadians as any in our history. We are fed up with the excuses, prevarications and unbelievable explanations for the failures in testing — and now, vaccinating — Canadians. The trust most leaders generated early in the pandemic now hangs by a thread. Canadians have been willing to endure all the sacrifices, because we believed that the rich, the powerful and the elites would not get to jump any queues, get any special treatment or be allowed to cheerfully violate onerous rules.

As the last two weeks have revealed, that faith sat on a shaky foundation of concealment, hypocrisy and lies by too many politicians and staffers of every party. Some even whined that they thought they were entitled to cheat because they had “worked so hard all year.” Really? Worked harder than an ICU nurse who has been pulling twelve-hour shifts for nearly a year? Staggering. Unforgivably, these selfish fools have undermined Canadians’ willingness to abide by tough pandemic rules.

It's clear that some of us think they're beyond the rules. Leading that parade are Doug Ford and Jason Kenney:

Each took a serious blunder and then made it worse. In their public performance they behaved with the arrogance and insensitivity that each built their career on attacking in others.

Ford expressed outrage at his finance minister’s St. Barts lollapalooza of a holiday — three weeks on one of the world’s most expensive resort islands, while his province was being locked down. His rage was less convincing when he admitted he had known where Rod Phillips was for two weeks, but had not chosen to tell Ontarians or fire Phillips until the story broke.

This week Kenney changed his story again. He said he was told of Huckabay’s trip when his chief was on the way to the airport. He admitted he did not order him to return. Why? He still refuses to release the names of his MLAs who have yet to admit that they too were members of the gang of fools. At least he admitted how badly he had damaged Albertans faith in their government.

Kenney's and Ford's failure will follow them into the future.

Image: Press Progress