Canadians showing disapproval of federal government have forgotten the lives saved

In May of 1945 you probably couldn’t find a man in the United Kingdom who was more popular, more loved, than Winston Churchill. He was the prime minister who had stiffened the British backbone and inspired victory over the Nazis who threatened to annihilate his country. Yet, two months later, he was trounced in an election and bounced from No. 10 Downing Street.

It seemed as if the entire nation was saying, “Yes, good job on that nasty war, but what have you done for us lately?”

It isn’t an exact parallel, but something like that is now happening in Canada. The latest Abacus Data poll says 51 per cent of the country disapproves of the job being done by the federal government.

Have we forgotten COVID-19 already?

Our neighbours to the south, the richest, most technologically sophisticated country on earth, has so far recorded about 1,040,000 deaths from COVID-19. Since our population is about a tenth the size, it’s reasonable to expect Canada would have about 104,000 deaths by now. In fact, we have had about 44,000. That’s 60,000 Canadians who are alive because someone did something right. Perhaps the federal government?

You could argue that Canadians aren’t quite as — what’s the word? — nuts, about treating a pandemic like the common cold, so maybe any Canadian government could have done better than the Americans. But the former Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole wanted to accommodate those who refused to be vaccinated. And he looked approvingly at the United States, where he said, “businesses are opening, restaurant patios are busy, and fans are returning to watching in-person NHL, NBA, and MLB games.” That doesn’t sound like a man who would have saved 60,000 lives.

Pierre Poilievre, who may be the next man up as leader of the Opposition, has introduced a bill in Parliament to forbid federal vaccine mandates. He travels Canada saying, “End mandates. Remove restrictions. Reopen our country.” He says we now have a prime minister, “who disrupted the lives of tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands.” Nothing there about saving lives.

When modern science came up with COVID vaccines at the end of 2020, critics of the government instantly whined that Canada was way behind in securing doses. There was even an emergency debate in the House of Commons about why we were such laggards. No one seemed to notice that Canada was the first country to come to an agreement with Moderna, and the fourth with Pfizer.

In a country that couldn’t produce even a single dose domestically, we quickly surged to the top ranks of vaccinated countries. To date, more than 100 million doses of vaccine have been delivered, not just to warehouses, but into the arms of Canadians.

People vote the way they do for many reasons. They may dislike a government for many reasons. But it’s only fair to give credit where credit is due, and in the life-saving business, this government has done the job. Do the math.

Mark Bulgutch is the former senior executive producer of CBC News. His latest book is “Inspiring Canadians.”

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