How Bad Are Things In Canada?

This story that I found this morning gives an indication of how strict the COVID regime has been in Canada -- and in spite of that, Quebec's premier, whose regime has been one of the strictest, is against Trudeau's invocation of emergency powers:

Quebec stepped up its “deconfinement plan” this week and began lifting coronavirus restrictions, while Premier Francois Legault rejected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s effort to crush the Freedom Convoy protest movement by invoking emergency powers.

“I think that I was very clear with the prime minister that the federal Emergencies Act should not, must not apply in Quebec,” Legault said on Monday. “We don’t have any problems in Quebec so far. The Sureté du Québec has everything under control.”

. . . CTV News reported that size restrictions on private gatherings have been lifted in Quebec, restaurants can seat more customers, four visitors a day are now permitted at old age homes if they have vaccine passports, and seniors are permitted limited outings.

Gyms and spas are now allowed to operate at half capacity, while outdoor events will be allowed with up to five thousand attendees.

Beginning on February 21, capacity limits will be removed on retail outlets, places of worship will be allowed to operate at half capacity, and amusement parks will be allowed to reopen with attendance limits. A week later, the capacity limits are due to be removed from houses of worship and all but the largest arenas, while bars and casinos will be allowed to reopen at half capacity. Most of the capacity limits are supposed to be phased out by the middle of March.

On Tuesday, Quebec announced the beginning of the end for vaccine passports, amusingly beginning with liquor and cannabis stores on Wednesday. The passports will be gone almost entirely by March 14, which is also when Health Minister Christian Dube is expected to begin distributing antiviral treatments for the Wuhan coronavirus.

“Proof of vaccination will still be required for domestic rail and air travel, as mandated by the federal government. Masks will also still be required in all public indoor spaces in the province,” CBC News noted.

In comparison, even in California, restrictions on retail and restaurant capacity pretty much ended in the middle of 2021, while the US Supreme Court effectively ended specific restrictions on houses of worship earlier in that year. The Supreme Court has also made most government efforts to enforce vaccine mandates moot. The debate in the US is now almost exclusively over masking, with most states no longer requiring masks in any environment except schools, where efforts to lift those mandates in certain specific jurisdictions are likely eventually to succeed.

Los Angeles County is one of the few holdouts anywhere for mask mandates outside schools, but the county rule was widely disregarded at the Super Bowl on Sunday, and no effort was made to enforce it.

The extreme differences between Canadian provinces and US states suggest the actual level of frustration with COVID restrictions in Canada and provides some background for the trucker protests.

But I've seen remarkably little analysis of the actual status of Trudeau's emergency powers. As far as I can tell, they don't have legal effect until Parliament approves them.

Less than 24-hours after declaring wide-ranging powers, including terror finance laws to defund the trucker, Trudeau came to parliament to persuade them to support his move.

Conservative Party interim Leader Candice Bergen [confronted Trudeau] over his invocation of the Emergencies Act.

“The Prime Minister invoked the Emergencies Act and 24 hours in, there are more questions than answers,” Bergen said. “Questions about whether this is justified, questions around if the criteria is met, questions around what this means to Canadians’ rights and freedoms.”

“Parliamentary approval is required in order for the prime minister to use this unprecedented sledgehammer,” she noted. “So can the prime minister tell us when will parliament be debating this? Will it be coming to us on Friday? And does he expect that we will look at it Friday, but then rise, take a week off, and not actually deal with this until March?”

. . . Interim Conservative Party leader Bergen made one exceptional point: What if what Trudeau is doing makes things worse?

If the existing restrictiinos in Canada are as bad as they are -- and even the provinces that are relaxing them are taking their time to do it -- I wonder if Trudeau, his supporters, and legacy media are badly misreading the national mood.