Is it possible the Trudeau govt actually wants the blockades to continue?

Faced with the fact that the federal government has consciously chosen to not do a single thing to defuse the blockade, it's hard to arrive at any other conclusion.

Watching the unprecedented blockades of Canada’s parliamentary district, three ports of entry, and now the capital’s airport, (and listening to horns in the distance) I’ve tried to explain to myself why we have seen so little action from the federal government.

It is utterly bizarre. I cannot name another developed country that would do absolutely nothing in response to their citizens and their economy being held hostage like this.

My first theory was that we are simply seeing a common political phenomenon playing out in a very visible fashion – namely the universal instinct among politicians of all ideologies to avoid difficult problems.

As it happens, the three layers of government that preside over our nation’s capital are all led by men renown for passing the buck. One could even say that Mayor Jim Watson, Premier Doug Ford, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got to where they are because they know there are few problems that cannot be made someone else’s responsibility.

When you consider this political conjunction of the irresponsible, we should not be surprised that the blockade buck is being passed back and forth with dizzying speed and inevitable results.

However, a second, far more cynical theory keeps popping into my thoughts, one that I’ve tried to discard repeatedly. But it returns to my mind again and again. And last night the Prime Minister said something that convinced me what I once thought was an almost paranoid delusion, is in fact the truth. I believe the federal government actually wants these blockades to continue – or at the very least, is in no hurry to bring them to an end.

Would the Liberals have a motive to let the protests continue? Of course. They have always seen the misdeeds of Canada’s far right as an opportunity to smear the Conservatives. Every time a member of the CPC caucus even looks in the general direction of a protest peppered with swastikas and conspiracy theorists, LPC operatives quiver with pleasure. This blockade has provided them with a decade of attacks ads and talking points.

And, the opposite is also true. In fact, recently leaked emails from the interim CPC leader Candice Bergen explicitly stated her party should support the blockades in order to make it the Prime Minister’s problem. Where Conservatives see an opportunity to paint the Liberals as dangerously inept, the Liberals see an opportunity to paint the Conservatives as dangerously bigoted.

How else do we explain the otherwise bizarre remarks made by the Prime Minister last night? He called on the Conservatives “to ask for an end to the blockades”. Trudeau was once again taking the opportunity to convince Canadians they are being threatened and harassed because the CPC are (in some cases) supporting the protesters. I believe the Liberals see the blockade as the best club they’ve had for years, with which they can pummel the next leader of the Conservative Party.

Let’s consider whether the federal government has had the means to bring these blockades to an end. The answer is an obvious ‘yes’. Canada has one of the world’s best trained federal police forces, coincidentally headquartered within honking distance of Parliament Hill.

Canadian Forces have a long tradition of participating in complicated peacekeeping operations often with mandates that included defusing dangerous situations almost identical to this.

Our Department of Justice, is filled with hundreds of lawyers who could be drafting new regulations or interim measures to secure the center of our federal government, our federally managed border crossings, and Ottawa’s federally run airport.

Has the Trudeau government chosen to use any of these means? The answer to that is an obvious ‘no’. When it occurred to me this morning that I could not think of a single concrete step taken by Ottawa I assumed I missed something – there is simply no way the government of a G7 nation would allow their most economically important border crossing to shut for three days, and do nothing. So I spent the morning calling people smarter than me who pay attention to these things. None of them could point to a single action taken by the federal government.

At this point, some of you are going to yell “Jurisdiction!” and argue there is nothing Ottawa can do. This is simply false. All of these blockades are occurring (at least partially) on federally managed territory. And, in cases where the federal government clearly requires provincial jurisdiction, it could be obtained with a single phone call.

Even if Premier Ford wanted to block it, a 10 minute press conference on Parliament Hill would make that political suicide. And, in fact, the mayors of both Windsor and Ottawa have already asked for federal help.

The fact that two weeks into this national crisis Canada’s current government has chosen to sit on their hands and not do even one small thing to bring it to an end, is almost inescapable proof they want it to continue.

I say “almost” because I admit simple incompetence is often the most accurate explanation for most of a government’s misdeeds. In this case, if there was even one thing they had chosen to do, I would be willing to blame bureaucratic sloth and PMO ineptitude. But there are none.

Given this complete lack of action, we must apply Okham’s razor. The simplest explanation for what is happening is the most likely truth. The reason why the Trudeau government, which has had the means and the opportunity to step in at any point during the last two weeks, and which has actively chosen not to do so, is because they believe it is somehow in their interest to prolong it. They may not have welcomed these illegal blockades, but they are objectively in no hurry to see them go away.

That is the most cynical and astounding sentence I have ever written about this or any other Canadian government. And yet, I can come to no other conclusion.