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    • Tom Mulcair: Trudeau's unfathomable disappearing act made a really bad situation worse

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    The weeks of madness on Parliament Hill were perhaps best summed-up during last weekend’s court hearing of Dwayne Lich, husband of protest organizer Tamara Lich. Tipping his hand about the source of inspiration for the illegal activities that shut down our nation’s capital, he started haranguing the judge about his First Amendment rights. He was of course referring to the U.S. constitution. When you're not even clear about what country you’re from, you’ve been watching too much Fox News!

    Dwayne also cheerily told the court that a nice guy named Joseph had paid for his flight to Ottawa…on a private jet! That will be an interesting lead for police to follow as Dwayne, of course, now faces criminal charges. “Joseph†may have a bit of ‘splaining to do if it turns out he knew what Dwayne was up to and he aided and abetted him.

    And so it went. During the weeks when our attention - as an original signatory of NATO - should’ve been turned to Putin’s designs against Ukraine, we were trying to figure out how to clear the streets of Ottawa. When you can’t even handle 18 wheelers in your own capital, you’re not likely to be of much help halfway around the world dealing with Russian tanks.

    Canadian symbols took a hit during the "occupation". It was saddening that this horde of hornblowers made our flag a conduit for alt-right rage. Those attacks on our nation’s proudest symbols have taken on a life of their own. In the countryside I’ve recently seen pickups flying the Canadian flag upside down.

    We had several gold medal ceremonies during the Olympics with the maple leaf proudly lifted high but it was hard not to feel that something had been taken away. Not from our athletes' performances, of course, but from the whole event.

    Meanwhile, south of the border, the gold medal for freestyle rhetoric went to Canadian-born Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for calling our police "jackbooted thugs."

    Thanks to the powers granted under the Emergencies Act, top notch police units from several provinces, and all levels of government, jointly executed a detailed plan to professionally put an end to the mayhem. Tow trucks that had refused to help were now brought in. Sources of foreign funding for insurrectionists were removed. Bank accounts were frozen. It worked.

    That’s no doubt that’s what bugs the alt-right the most: it worked. There was no overkill. No glorious moment for the lawless crowd to retell. The police did their jobs brilliantly and largely without incident. Bravo.

    "Mad Max" Bernier took his fifteen minutes of fame into overtime. Emoting for the ages about liberty at every opportunity, it was mind-blowing to think that the Conservatives almost made this guy their leader.

    Trying not to be outdone, interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen brought ridicule upon herself and her Party. Not only had she supported the truckers, she insisted that Prime Minister Trudeau should meet with the insurrectionists. It didn’t seem to occur to Ms. Bergen that when people claim to be above the law and have decided that they will topple the government, there might be a bit of a problem for the head of government to sit down to parlay.

    Trudeau’s unfathomable disappearing act made a really bad situation worse. There’s a basic rule in crisis management: be there. Whether it’s wildfires or an ice storm, having leaders front and centre explaining, reassuring and…leading, is absolutely essential. Trudeau is a gifted communicator and an experienced politician. His decision to go into hiding will be one of the great political mysteries of his time in office.

    When he finally appeared to announce that he’d be invoking the Emergencies Act, he projected Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland under the spotlights. She delivered the core message. At week’s end she once again had the lead role as Trudeau didn’t even show up.

    When Trudeau did finally move in, it was disastrous as he inveighed against a Conservative MP for standing with the swastikas seen with a few protesters. Problem for Trudeau was that the object of his lecturing was the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Trudeau looked cheap as he refused to give an apology. It became a major distraction from his messaging and it provided him with zero gain. As with his insults against the truckers (misogynists, who think they’re going to be injected with microchips and who wear aluminum foil hats) this type of ad hominem attack did nothing but move the goal line further away, at a time when he desperately needed a win.

    With the Emergencies Act finally approved by the House and now going to the Senate, all that Canadians were left with was a sense of loss. How did we get here? What, and who, can stitch back together our sense of common purpose? How could the truck drivers who deliver everything, everywhere in this vast country become an eerie symbol of creeping gloom? Spring, and the end of the pandemic, cannot come fast enough!

    There will be a compulsory commission of inquiry into the events that led to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. One thing that has to be included in that overview is a deepening of our understanding as to how otherwise law-abiding citizens can become radicalized and get duped to the point that they brazenly break the law.

    Social media are bringing us into a whole new world of disinformation that becomes the only reality for many. People who feel that their voice has never counted have replaced our difficult world with the simple, artificial one they inhabit on social media. They’re in on it. They count.

    The world of alternate facts may be comforting to many, but when it collides with the real world, they’ll quickly learn that truth and norms actually exist and that the common good must prevail.

    We have to understand the phenomenon, if our democratic society and its institutions are going to be able to deal with it successfully. So far, there’s no hint we have that sort of ability. As the digital world begins to violently clash with the real one, some politicians will try to take advantage. Real leaders will try to repair the damage.

    Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017.

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