A Liberal MP Defecting From The Pro-Mandate Side Puts Trudeau In Panic Mode

After over a week of hiding in an undisclosed location, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged to take part in an emergency parliamentary debate on the ongoing Ottawa trucker convoy protest. 

Many were surprised to see him show up to actually attempt to even argue his point, despite barely engaging in what anti-mandate voices were saying. In the context of what just happened this morning Trudeau’s appearance makes a lot more sense.

Trudeau is in panic mode.

Liberal MP for Louis-Hébert (a suburb of Quebec City) Joël Lightbound came out today and held a press conference about what he called the “politicization of the pandemic.”

At this press event, Lightbound explained that he would not engage in “these easy and absurd labels” to smear protesters and believes the truckers and their supporters have legitimate concerns.

Lightbound, much like the current Conservative Party leader Candice Bergen, called for there to be a realistic timeline for the government to lift mandates. Lightbound also added that he had felt uncomfortable with the way his party had been trying to divide Canadians based on medical status since the beginning of the last election campaign.

Lightbound, when asked by the media, said he had raised his concerns in caucus multiple times and evidently was not listened to, and that other Liberal MPs also agree with him that the government has gone too far.

This puts Justin Trudeau’s rush back to Ottawa into perspective. Trudeau was probably ok to just sit this whole situation out and let the Ottawa mayor and police try and disperse the protesters, but he was forced to come back to Parliament at the request of his caucus. They likely were wanting him to address protesters’ concerns, appear compassionate, while not caving to their demands just yet, but Trudeau instead tripled down on his smear tactics.

Lightbound was was clearly unimpressed with Trudeau showing back up simply to rhetorically batter the protesters more and not actually engage with their legitimate demands so he made the decision the next day to torpedo the Liberal Party’s unified image on this issue.

It is likely that Lightbound has ethical disagreements with what his party has been doing on the issue of mandates and other restrictions, but an undeniable angle of this is also the political risk Lightbound faces if he doesn’t speak up. 

Lightbound may have won the riding of Louis-Hébert three times in a row, but in the 2021 election it was a competitive three-way race, and having to be the guy when the next election rolls around that stood against life returning to normal will put him in an uncomfortable position. 

Trudeau is not exactly a dynamic leader, and in trying to end the protest in Ottawa, as well as the ongoing blockades of various Canadian border crossings, he simply put himself in a deeper hole by demonstrating he has not at all tried to understand the demands of convoy supporters.

54 percent of Canadians want all the restrictions to be dropped based on the latest polling so continuing to call protesters “racist” or “extreme” is not a strategy that is going to suddenly start paying dividends.

Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party are in panic mode and Lightbound just exposed the Liberal pro-mandate position as not a unified front.