Chris Selley,

In an interview with CBC News on Wednesday evening, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath put an end — briefly — to weeks of waffling and unambiguously opposed mandatory vaccination for education workers: “Unlike (Liberal Leader Steven) Del Duca, I don’t take lightly people’s charter rights,” she said — Del Duca having recently come out in favour of mandatory vaccination for front-line health-care and education workers, and vaccine passports for “non-essential” activities.

Howls of protest ensued, not least from Northern Ontario NDP MP Charlie Angus, who called her comments “idiocy.” The howlers won. Not only did Horwath apologize on Thursday (“I regret the comment. I was wrong”), and about-face (“I fully support mandatory vaccination in health care and education”), she apologized for not changing her mind earlier.

Judging by comments on social media, many are sure they know how Horwath came a cropper: She was pandering to the teachers’ and nurses’ unions, which generally oppose imposing just about anything on their members. That could be part of it. The Canadian Teachers Federation has explicitly opposed mandatory vaccination, for example. But the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario has actually come out in favour, as did the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association this week.

Many detractors of premiers Doug Ford, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe are equally sure they know exactly why they oppose mandatory vaccinations for key workers and domestic vaccine passports: They’re trying to appease the anti-vaxxers and extremist libertarians inhabiting their parties’ base.

Again, there might be something to that. There’s no question public opinion is sharply divided. Léger’s latest poll for the Association for Canadian Studies found 72 per cent of Ontarians and British Columbians supported requiring “vaccine passports” to board an airplane, and 75 per cent of Atlantic Canadians, but just 50 per cent of Albertans.

From a higher-level view, however, it’s not nearly so simple. B.C.’S NDP government “hasn’t ruled out” mandatory vaccination for health-care workers, but nor has it ruled it in. You need proof of vaccination to travel to Tory-governed Prince Edward Island and Manitoba, or to Liberal-governed Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. But none of those provinces yet requires it in restaurants, for example. With an election forthcoming on Aug. 17, all three parties in Nova Scotia have ruled out mandatory vaccinations for any workers, Global News reported this week.

On Thursday, Quebec Premier François Legault announced the province’s vaccine passport system would soon be activated. But vaccination still isn’t mandatory for health-care workers, despite the opposition Liberals’ demands.

“There has to be an ethical consideration with this. People have the right to get vaccinated or not,” Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Iain Rankin told Global News, echoing Horwath.

“The idea of certificates of vaccination for domestic use to decide who can go to a concert or who can go to a particular restaurant … does bring in questions of equity, questions of fairness,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said way back in March.

Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley deplores just about everything about Kenney’s performance, but she hasn’t proposed mandatory vaccination or vaccine passports as an alternative.

It’s almost like something is going on here that transcends partisan affiliation and bog-standard pandering, and I think I know what it is: Like it or not — some refuse even to believe it — English Canada’s conception of the most basic civil liberties has more in common with the United States than with Europe, and even with our anglospheric cousins.

Among the provinces, only Quebec implemented a blanket curfew. Even the U.S. can beat that: statewide curfews of varying severity existed in Ohio, North Carolina, California and Arizona. Most if not all countries in Western and Eastern Europe had nationwide lockdowns, the Scandinavian countries, Finland and Britain being rare exceptions.

Last week, the Australian army mobilized in Sydney’s poorer, immigrant-rich western suburbs — enforcing quarantine orders door-todoor and demanding people out-and-about prove they’re no further than five kilometres from home. That’s literally inconceivable in Canada. At a guess, 95 per cent of Canadians who breezily suggested “doing what Australia did” would have been outraged had it happened.

Police in Britain announced this week they had arrested 11 people in connection with the vile racist abuse aimed at England soccer players Bukayo Saka and Marcus Rashford after they missed penalty kicks in the European Cup final. It’s not clear what the accused are alleged to have said, but the law under which they are charged bans “grossly offensive” messages. The bar for criminal speech in Canada is so much higher, the Brits would need binoculars to see it.

I would choose vaccine passports over further blanket restrictions in a heartbeat. But for at least 98 years out of every hundred, this default to individual liberty is a very healthy instinct. If it hampered Canada’s pandemic response, we can nevertheless say we suffered fewer cases than any comparable non-island nation save Norway and Finland, and fewer deaths than the same countries plus Denmark.

In terms of government, it has been far from a parade-worthy performance. Parts of the country (hello from Ontario!) have been locked down longer than just about anywhere in the world. But it could have been so, so much worse: at least we could go for a walk after 6 p.m. We should recognize why it wasn’t worse, and be at least somewhat thankful for it.