Be forewarned. This outrage is real
We live in an era of permanent performative outrage. It’s the background noise, the muzak, to everything, especially to politics. There is no statement bland enough, no sentiment palatable enough, that a politician can say on video or tweet or post to Facebook without being mercilessly attacked. You can understand why any politician, and any political staffer, learns to tune it out. You have to. You’d go mad otherwise.
But sometimes the anger is real. It’s bigger than a 15-minute social media anger cycle. It makes the jump into the real world. And a politician who fails to notice when that happens can get themselves into trouble. And Canadian politicians, most particularly Premier Jason Kenney of Alberta, have got themselves in trouble of late.
I’ve been writing about politics for 12 years. I’m well aware of how the outrage machine works, and try to avoid feeding it. Over the years, I’ve developed a way of telling when a story is breaking through, escaping the confines of the usual social- media echo chambers and the relatively small percentage of the population that actively consumes news on a daily basis. Just a few days ago, on Twitter, I noted that I thought the story of Canadian politicians vacationing abroad was breaking through into the mainstream. My wife is almost entirely apolitical; she thinks what I do is weird ( I do not really contest that point). But when she’s suddenly aware of a story, I know it’s popped. She’s not my only indicator, but she’s a damned reliable one.
Last week, she’d heard about Rod Phillips, Ontario’s now former finance minister, a man who pre- recorded some jolly Christmas greetings just as his government ordered Ontario into lockdown, flew to an island resort, and trickled his seasonal greetings out via social media so it looked like he was at home in his suburban Toronto riding. Once his deception was discovered, Premier Doug Ford ordered him home and fired him from his ministerial role. I suspect there’s more going on there than meets the eye, but in any event, however convenient the premier might have found the opportunity to purge his finance minister, he moved swiftly. Phillips’ head was promptly put onto a proverbial pike for all the voters to see.
Over in Alberta, though, Kenney took a gentler approach. When it emerged that a cabinet minister, and a heap of other elected United Conservatives, had left the country over the holidays, Alberta’s premier said he’d failed to impress upon his people that he’d really prefer them not to travel, and that since none had actually broken any rules, there’d be no consequences beyond them being asked to return home. He agreed that the trips were a bad idea, but also said, “I don’t think it’s reasonable for me as a leader to sanction people who very carefully followed the public health orders and the legal requirements.”
That was in the long- ago era of Friday. At some point over the weekend, the premier realized that, in fact, it was extremely reasonable for him to sanction those people. A cabinet minister and a parliamentary secretary have lost their gigs, a series of other MLAS have lost committee postings. As my colleague Don Braid noted in the Calgary Herald, these aren’t firings, per se, as they’ll all continue drawing their base salaries and perks. One exception was the premier’s chief of staff, Jamie Huckabay, who travelled during the holidays to the United Kingdom, a COVID-19 hot spot and home to what’s believed to be a more contagious strain. Huckabay got outright sacked.
Such incidents haven’t been limited to provincial politics, nor to Conservatives. As more officials are found to have travelled while Canadians were told to avoid their families, parties have been swift to mete out punishments, usually demotions. It’s clear that most political bosses got the message that Kenney missed last week: Travelling during COVID-19, while asking Canadians to avoid visiting their family over Christmas, is the new $16 orange juice. There doesn’t seem to be any leeway granted even for those politicians who probably are behaving reasonably and responsibly, as best they can given difficult family circumstances. The current political moment simply doesn’t allow it.
Ford seemed to get this first and fastest. The federal parties weren’t far behind. Kenney was the anomaly, and he’s now snapped entirely in line with the others. It’s too soon to speculate whether any lasting damage has been done to him and his government; if 2021 is anything like the year before it, we might be 47 horrifying news developments beyond the wayward holiday merrymakers by the time this column hits print.
But maybe not. It’s funny what sticks to politicians and what doesn’t. Canadians are dying by the thousands in our long- termcare homes. The economy is flattened. The second wave is going to be worse than the first, and the virus is mutating. Quebec seems set to announce a hard lockdown, and Ontario could well be heading down that same road in a matter of days.
And it’s the holiday trips that people got angry about. Politics can be funny like that. And there’s no arguing with the public once they’ve made up their mind that someone, or a group of someones, has gone further than they’ll dare permit and must be punished, and no hope for any politician who dares try stand in the path of such waves of anger.
It’s funny what sticks to politicians and what doesn’t.