Common sense in the Ottawa bubble

Alden Nowlan, the celebrated New Brunswick poet, got it right when he wrote about the nation’s capital: The first thing that you learn here Is that the country Bears the same relationship To the government That outer space Bears to the earth.

Nowlan, who died young (at 50 in 1983) understood that the governed and their governors are on different wave lengths, that voters do not see the government in Ottawa as their government, that the public lives with the challenges of the real world, while the politicians isolate themselves in an “Ottawa Bubble.”

This distance between the real world and the political world has seldom seemed as great as it does today. The belief that the leaders in the bubble don’t pay attention to the voices of the real world congeals into the indiscriminate anger that pervades the country this summer.

According to last week’s Nanos Research poll, the issue uppermost in Canadians’ minds is the state of the nation’s healthcare system, followed closely by inflation and the economy. But what was the big issue on Parliament Hill last week? It was an issue that doesn’t register in the polls: the Liberal government’s use of the Emergencies Act back in February to end the occupation of Ottawa and the blockades of border points by the so-called “Freedom Convoy” truckers.

Was this exercise of emergency authority premature? Was it unnecessary? Was it excessive? Was it, as the opposition Conservative party maintains, a Liberal power grab? Or was it, as conspiracy theorists on the right fringe insist, Justin Trudeau’s opening move to make Canada a one-party state with himself as dictator?

Setting aside conspiracy nonsense, a joint House-Senate review committee held meetings between March and June. It examined partially redacted classified material, including cabinet minutes, and heard testimony from officials involved in the decision to use the Emergencies Act.

The committee is meant to guard against government abuse of emergency powers — a protection that did not exist back in 1970 when Justin’s father, Pierre, invoked the old War Measures Act with its sweeping wartime powers to crush the terrorists of the Front de Libération du Québec. Although the committee has yet to present its report, it learned at least one thing — that the Liberals proceeded with as little transparency as possible when they took the steps leading to its decision to declare a national emergency. No one familiar with the ways of this government would be surprised by its disinclination to be transparent.

It is important that there be a watchdog committee, or some other means of oversight, when a statute like the Emergencies Act, which gives the party in office the power to override other statutes without the prior authorization of Parliament. The problem is that what the watchdog is really watching is the exercise of judgment by the folks who have been elected to do just that: to exercise their best judgment in the issues that matter to the country.

A fair assessment of political judgment is bound to be difficult in the best of times. It is impossible in these, the worst of times, when ugly partisanship reigns on Parliament Hill and common sense is in full retreat.

Common sense suggests that there was a serious policing problem last February. The government judged that the problem could be resolved by using the Emergencies Act. The police got the reinforcements they needed. The siege of the capital ended, and the government withdrew the Emergencies Act.

All’s well that ends well — except among people in the real world who persist in the belief that political energy would be better directed to real issues, like health care.