The Washington Post seems pretty insightful
Opinion: Canada is failing on vaccines — and the responsibility lies with Justin Trudeau
A consistent theme of the Justin Trudeau years has been wild swings in the Canadian prime minister’s public reputation. One moment he’s the world’s “
woke boyfriend,” glamorized in literal
pinup calendars, the next he’s getting busted for
repeatedly wearing blackface. On Monday, he’s celebrated as a paragon of clean and ethical government in contrast to Donald Trump’s Washington; on Tuesday, his political opponents are
running ads implying his ethics scandals are actually
worse than the former president’s.
And now we find ourselves rattled by yet another breakneck twist in the Trudeau joyride: An administration once celebrated as a global model for handling covid-19 now finds itself on the receiving end of growing global pity, as it becomes an example of a nation getting vaccines very wrong indeed.
To be fair, Canada’s reputation on covid-19 was always quite inflated and
stereotype-driven. When compliments were reaching their peak last summer, the country could at best be said to be handling the pandemic at about a C+ level, certainly nowhere near as impressively as places like Finland or Denmark — to say nothing of Taiwan or New Zealand.
Since then, Canada has seen an
autumn of sharp increases in both infections and deaths, and recent reporting has highlighted the degree that, for all the praise Trudeau received as a paragon of clear instruction to his naturally rule-following subjects, plenty of Canadians are still
refusing to
follow social distancing orders.
angusreid.org
