Canadian morale in need of boost

If the pandemic does not savage Canada, then surely the economic ravages that are the consequence of the attempt to halt it, will. Those who are sick or mortally threatened are absolutely our first concern. Lives count before all things else.

But this illness, this pandemic, is a double trauma. Upon the best advice of those who are in a position to offer the best advice, the medical professionals, and epidemiologists in particular, most of the countries of the industrial world have turned off their economies. Certainly here in Canada we have. I believe the consensus view of this extreme response is that, if it halts, or even measurably slows the rage of the pandemic, it is acceptable policy.

Which does not mean that people are comfortable with it.

There is the second trauma. Outside of the direct threat of COVID-19 itself, every single day the economy is on shutdown adds to the stockpile of worry, tensions and anxiety of hundreds of thousands of Canadians facing conditions they have not faced before, who are now given over to some very gloomy anticipation of — when the pandemic is defeated — how, or if, they can pick up their work or business as it was before.

The combination is not a minor affair. Our whole country is shut down and we are enduring the advance of a pandemic. In such a circumstance, sustaining the morale of the country constitutes an imperious priority.

The necessary self-isolation and social-distancing Canadians are experiencing comes with a limbo of empty hours during which the minds of many almost unavoidably are given over to worry and anxiety. (One can only watch so many reruns of The Bachelor or Foyle’s War — pick your placebo — for distraction, before even the most powerful mind says, “Sorry, I would much rather worry, than watch another episode.”)

The nation’s morale needs better caretaking than it is receiving. We are not looking for a Churchill here (which is a good thing, for his like is not — in Canada or elsewhere today — to be found). But we are looking for a voice to rally the collective spirit of the country, to strengthen our morale during a unique crisis.

Let me pause here to note, what quite literally almost everyone in Canada has noted, that at the non-political level Canadians are seeing morale-building exemplars. Doctors, nurses, the staff and volunteers at all our hospitals and clinics are just now enjoying a near-unprecedented gust of popular approval and admiration. Truckers are the new knights of our day. Then there are the people who grow or make the food and goods the truckers carry — the farmers, manufacturers of necessities, companies stepping in to fill the need for masks and other PPE.

And everyone offers more than a smile and a kind word to the supermarket clerks, the employees of gas stations, those who staff buildings and condos. (After this is over, as I have written before, these workers “on the lower end” should get full tax forgiveness on their earnings for this year. Let’s put some yeast in our applause.)

These are inspirational people, and their inspiration is all the more powerful because it is issuing from what we conventionally call (I do not like the term, but can think of none better) “ordinary Canadians.”

But Canada is a country. A nation is an organism, a community. And the top voice belongs to the nation’s leader. The Prime Minister’s Office is the highest pulpit, particularly in a time of deep crisis. I offer more in a spirit of observation than criticism that PM Trudeau seriously needs to improve his performance.

The country needs more than these pre-noon bulletins. They are ineffectual and tepid. It needs more than the daily images of him coming out, reciting the script of the day, and then going back into self-isolation. They give the impression — it is not a true one, we know he’s working the rest of the day — that he’s absent, that he’s not in the thick of things. Personal presence is the strongest element of every communication, particularly so in a time of national crisis.

Just as one counter-example, and it is not a partisan pointscore, Doug Ford in Ontario seems more “present,” more “with” the people he leads. Whether his government is performing better than the Ottawa government in handling the logistics of the crisis is not the point. Mr. Ford, by how he speaks, and by being out-front, strengthens the morale of Ontarians.

If the Liberals aren’t up to the moment, what about their rivals?

The Conservative Opposition in Ottawa deserves to be horsewhipped. The Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition holds the second highest pulpit. In crises past it has been sometimes the Opposition leader who emerged as a symbol of hope and comfort.

But the Conservatives, or a cabal of them, effectively disembowelled their own leader, with a precipitous fury, while the ballots from the general election were still warm from the counting. They followed that with a startstop leadership race.

In the midst of this recklessness, Scheer has performed admirably in spite of his opponents. But his status is untenable. It is not to his fault — no one can be a leader and not-a-leader simultaneously.

In sum let all leaders, national and provincial and the territories, seek as much by their words and presence, as by their policies, to reassure and inspire Canadians. And add the benefit of real leadership to the example that our medical professionals and everyday workers have so admirably set.