Early in the corona era the historian David Starkey gave some thoughts on Covid. ‘We’ve got a Chinese virus,’ he said, ‘and we’ll finish up with a Chinese society.’ I remember at the time thinking the phrase neat, but doubtful. Fast forward a couple of years and the doubts have eroded. Although Britain seems to have avoided becoming a permanent Covid state (and is indeed one of the first societies to try leaping out of the Covid age), other parts of the West certainly do seem to be trying to meet the CCP more than halfway. Foremost among them is Justin Trudeau’s Canada.
There is no shortage of things going on in the world at the moment. But you know that the world is in an especially perilous place when even Canada has become interesting. The country that launched a thousand gags has never been known for its political earthquakes. But in recent weeks something has happened that deserves attention, however distracted we might otherwise be.
Over the past few months Trudeau has tried to bring in vaccine mandates for Canadian citizens. In a country where people have been deprived of free movement for the best part of two years, Trudeau did not see the arrival of the mildest variant to date as a way out of this misery. Rather, he thought it a moment to double-down and make all Canadians do 100 per cent of what he wanted.
Among those who did not take this well were thousands of Canadian truckers. Many of these people have spent the past two years working away to keep Canada’s supply chains running. For a good while they were among the nation’s heroes. But then Justin insisted that even people in this most isolated of professions had to get double-jabbed, and if they didn’t they would be out of a job.
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