Trudeau’s personal masking protocol makes no sense
One set of rules in Canada, another abroad
Even as his government stubbornly ignores local and national trends toward lifting mask mandates, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is proving extremely willing to go maskless himself — provided it happens on foreign soil.
On May 8, the prime minister was in Ukraine, a country that saw only 45 per cent of its adult population fully vaccinated on the eve of the Russian invasion. There were hugs with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, handshakes with Ukrainian officials and tightly packed indoor press events. In not one image can Trudeau be seen wearing a mask.
Compare that to two days prior, when Trudeau visited Hamilton, Ont. for a photo op with recently arrived Afghan refugees.
Of Hamiltonians over the age of 12, 84.4 per cent are “fully vaccinated.” At the time Trudeau visited, everything from hospital admissions to case rates to waste water data showed that the city’s COVID rates were in steep decline. What’s more, Trudeau has himself received three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. He also has natural immunity from a COVID-19 infection in January.
Despite all this, Trudeau spent the entire visit wearing a mask. Not an N95 mask as per the latest Public Health Agency of Canada recommendations, but a loose-fitting surgical mask whose utility has been increasingly questioned ever since the rise of more transmissible COVID-19 variants such as Omicron.
It’s far from the first time that Trudeau has observed one set of masking rules for Canada, and another while abroad.
In October 2021 Trudeau was photographed at a maskless bar gathering in the Netherlands along with the country’s Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Later that month, Trudeau was sporting a face mask outdoors on the grounds of Rideau Hall in advance of a cabinet swearing-in ceremony. The disparity was despite comparable case and vaccination rates between Canada and the Netherlands at the time.
In March, Trudeau was maskless while meeting and shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II. A month later, during a trip to Kitchener, Ont. to promote his new federal budget, Trudeau could be seen wearing a mask during outdoor events.
On April 24, Trudeau posted an image to social media celebrating the birthday of his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Both of them were pictured wearing face masks while on swings together, although as a married couple who share the same household, they’ve presumably spent the entire pandemic in the same COVID-19 bubble.
This is all happening as Trudeau’s government stubbornly bucks both local and international trends toward abandoning extraordinary measures related to COVID-19.
While provincial governments have lifted almost all of their COVID-19 mandates, Ottawa hasn’t budged on strictures that even at the height of the pandemic were seen as among the world’s most stringent.
This includes a blanket ban on air and rail travel for any Canadian over the age of 12 not showing proof of vaccination, as well as a continuing vaccine mandate for federal public servants. ban on government employment for the unvaccinated. Airports and rail stations remain some of the only public venues in the country where masking and vaccination status is still subject to government order.
While Canadian public health officials justified the imposition of these measures as a key tool to curb transmission, epidemiologists are questioning their utility as more transmissible COVID variants are proving able to spread among the unvaccinated and in spite of masking.
“The justification behind vaccine mandates is that they help prevent transmission. But this does not seem to be the case any longer, with the Omicron variant,” reads a recent op-ed by Mcmaster University infectious diseases physician Zain Chagla published in the Globe and Mail. Chagla called for a complete dismantling of Canadian vaccination and quarantine mandates for travellers.
Continuing federal orders are also putting Canada increasingly out of step with the international community. Masks have been optional on U.S. flights for nearly a month after a similar federal mandate was struck down by a U.S. district judge. The U.K. began backing off on inflight masks in March. The European Union is dropping mask mandates in its airports next week.