NP View: The border should not be used as a campaign tool.

It’s a bit of good fortune for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that he finally found someone able to take on the role of governor general full time.

It’s been more than six months since Julie Payette was pressured into resigning from the job, and it would have been embarrassing for the Trudeau government to find itself barrelling towards an expected fall election without someone at Rideau Hall who would be able to perform the required formalities.

Chief Justice Richard Wagner has been filling in since Payette’s departure, but a government hoping to regain office on a presumed basis of competence really should be able to recruit someone to represent the Queen on more than a parttime basis.

Mary Simon may not yet be well known to Canadians, but her career and history suggest that she’s well suited to the position.

Her status as the first Indigenous person to serve as governor general is also a plus for the prime minister, as it will enable him to boast of making a historic decision, rather than answering inconvenient questions about how he managed to bungle his previous choice so badly.

With that item on the re-election agenda out of the way, Liberal strategists will be able move on to finding other ways of enhancing their campaign hopes.

High on the list should be the status of the border with the United States, and the curious — to put it politely — rules governing passage in and out of Canada’s southern neighbour. While Liberals like to claim they’ve done a superlative job of controlling the border throughout the pandemic, at the moment, as National Post columnist Sabrina Maddeaux noted this week, “the border isn’t closed and has never been, so long as one can afford a plane ticket.”

It’s easy enough to travel to and from U.S. destinations with little more than a quick COVID check on return, as long as it’s by air. Crossing the same border in a car or other vehicle for “non-essential” travel remains forbidden, other than for a confusing array of exceptions, exemptions, workarounds or special cases.

To skip the barriers, it helps if you have the resources to exploit one of gaps in the government’s policy: the large number of people deemed “essential” is more a testament to the ability of large corporations and smart bosses to find loopholes for their employees, than the actual number of positions society requires for continued survival.

Yet, despite their skill at poking holes in the border ban, business leaders continue pleading for a clear plan to reopen the border that will allow them to make decisions over the longer term. “All anyone is asking for — whether you are an individual Canadian, a couple, a family or a business of any size — is some sense of a plan that’s predictable and clear,” said Goldy Hyder, president of the Business Council of Canada. Instead, like so much else related to the pandemic, what Ottawa has delivered is a continually moving target.

At one point, the Trudeau government indicated that restrictions could be relaxed when 75 per cent of Canadians had at least one dose of vaccine, and 20 per cent had both doses. But we met that target in June, and Ottawa extended the closure for another 30 days anyway. Last week, Trudeau upped the target again, suggesting that, “We have to get up over 75 per cent fully vaccinated, up into the 80 per cent range fully vaccinated perhaps … if we’re going to be safe.”

Anyone familiar with Joseph Heller’s classic war novel, Catch-22, recalls how its hero, Capt. John Yossarian, was regularly told he could go home after completing a set number of bombing missions, only to have the number raised again each time he met the target. The Trudeau government seems to have adopted a similar approach: strenuously urge people to get their vaccines, promise relief when a certain level is achieved, then change the requirements when the goal has been reached.

Indeed, as the number of vaccinated Canadians rises, federal officials have started warning about new strains of the virus and the danger they might represent, as a means of justifying their refusal to stick to the schedule. Any time an outbreak occurs anywhere in the world, it’s another opportunity for Canadian officials to disavow the existing target and set a new one.

If there’s light at the end of this tunnel, it may be the same one that led the Trudeau government to finally fill the vacant position at Rideau Hall: it’s inconceivable that Liberals would want to seek re-election while the border remains closed, as the millions of inconvenienced Canadians may punish them for it at the polls.

It seems likely, therefore, that existing restrictions will be lifted just in time for Liberal candidates to celebrate the opening as they go knocking on doors, turning their dismal handling of the matter into an opportunity to congratulate themselves on their wisdom and prowess.

If that suggests the Trudeau government places its own well-being ahead of that of ordinary Canadians, and is willing to use its position to improve its electoral chances at the expense of hard-pressed businesses and individuals … well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

EASY ENOUGH TO TRAVEL TO AND FROM U.S. DESTINATIONS.