After the embarrassment of the Freedom Convoy, Canada’s Justin Trudeau is facing a new challenge to his authority. This time, it’s coming from within his own party.
For the last two weeks, more than 1,000 truck drivers have converged on Canada’s capital, Ottawa, to protest the country’s coronavirus restrictions. Their movement, dubbed the Freedom Convoy, is demanding an end to the country’s strict vaccine and mask mandates for travel across the U.S.-Canada Border, or Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister.
Initially, Trudeau dismissed the group as a “fringe minority” that didn’t represent the views of Canadians. Since it began, however, the protest has attracted more than 10,000 participants and gained global attention as a flashpoint in the civil divide over pandemic restrictions.
It has inspired another planned truck convoy in the United States, from California to Washington D.C., as well as other protests in solidarity around the world. Another group of truckers have blocked traffic on the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan with Windsor, Canada — the largest port of cross-border trade — costing Canada’s economy more than $300 million per day.
Opinions of the protest have been sharply divided along political lines, especially in the United States. While corporate media outlets have been quick to side with the Canadian government, calling it a “cult” and “insurrection,” conservative politicians and commentators have endorsed the protest. Four GOP state attorneys-general – in Florida, Texas, West Virginia, and Louisiana – have vowed to investigate crowdfunding website GoFundMe for shutting down a fundraiser for the truckers that raised $7.5 Million.
It now seems that Trudeau is losing the left, as well. In the last two days, members of Canada’s parliament in Trudeau’s Liberal Party caucus have criticized his mask and vaccine mandates.
Joel Lightbound, an MP from the politically important province of Quebec, slammed the government for “politicization of the pandemic” and “normalizing [Covid measures] with no end in sight.” In a speech on the Freedom Convoy implicitly challenging Trudeau, he claimed “no epidemiological evidence” had been provided in support of the measures and demanded a timeline to end all mask and vaccine mandates.
The next day, another Liberal MP, Yves Robillard, endorsed the speech, claiming “He said exactly what a lot of us [in the caucus] think,” and saying Canada’s Covid mandates had affected his mental health.
These comments are a political earthquake for Trudeau. While in the United States members of Congress often dissent from their leadership, Canada’s parliamentary government means party discipline is rigid. Backbench MPs usually never break with the prime minister on any issue, and risk expulsion from the party (and loss of their seats next election) if they do. That even two MPs from Trudeau’s party would criticize him openly is unprecedented, revealing that opinion is souring on his leadership during Covid-19 and response to the protests.
Moreover, if Robillard’s comments are to be believed, several other Liberal MPs may share these views. In Canada’s parliament, where Trudeau has a minority, this could set the stage for a challenge to his premiership if more support is forthcoming, with the Liberal caucus or parliament as a whole, voting to reject confidence in Trudeau’s government.
Success of either measure would remove Trudeau as prime minister, one of the Freedom Convoy’s objectives. It would also likely plunge Canada into a general election, the second within five months after the last one in 2021.
All this comes as the opposition Conservative Party faces its own leadership race after former leader Erin O’Toole was ousted from his job because of the Freedom Convoy. O’Toole, a center-right politician with liberal positions on vaccines and masks, had been reluctant to support the protests, which angered his caucus and led to his swift removal by a vote of MPs last week.
Ottawa-area Conservative Pierre Poilievre – known for his social media clips of verbal jousting with Trudeau in parliament – is the frontrunner in the race to replace him, and has openly embraced the protesters. These events demonstrate that the Freedom Convoy is beginning to impact mainstream politics across North America.
More than one dozen U.S. states, and four of Canada’s ten provinces, this week announced timelines to end most Covid regulations within the next month. Meanwhile, the Freedom Convoy continues to garner donations. After its removal from GoFundMe, it has raised nearly $9 million on the Christian crowdfunding website GiveSendGo.
