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By James Peters

Two & Out

PETERS: Naked MP distracts from Trudeau’s failures on vaccines, safe opioid supply

Apr 16, 2021 | 10:37 AM

WHEN A LIBERAL MP appeared completely stark naked in a virtual parliament session this week, it was maybe the least embarrassing happening of the week for Canada’s governing party.

In fact, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should probably be thanking Pontiac MP William Amos for nearly accidentally showing all his colleagues his honorable member.

It has distracted everyone from what has been a very bad week for the government.

First, the Liberals’ fumbling and bumbling of the vaccine rollout has us drowning in the third wave of COVID-19.

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As of the end of Thursday, Canada has vaccinated 24 per cent of its eligible population, lagging behind the United States, yes, but also such world powers as Uruguay, Lithuania and Bhutan.

Certainly Trudeau can’t blame the absence of domestic vaccine production forever.

The provinces are crying out for more vaccine and still it comes in at a relative trickle.

The situation caught the attention of CNN’s Jake Tapper this week, who turned the U.S. media’s typical fawning over our prime minister’s boyish good looks into a stinging indictment of his failure on this account.

More damning, though, is the Trudeau government’s silence on the fifth anniversary of B.C. declaring the overdose crisis a provincial health emergency.

Successive provincial governments of starkly different stripes have both entreated Ottawa endlessly for action on this file.

They need the federal government to decriminalize simple drug possession so that substance use disorder can be properly treated as a health issue, and they need the government to spearhead the sourcing of a safe supply of opioids.

The latter is imperative to stop people from dying when their drugs are cut with substances that are much more acutely harmful.

People who use drugs have a chance at recovery; dead people do not.

When Justin Trudeau asks for your vote later this year — as he undoubtedly will — remember this week, not for an MP neglecting to ensure his colleagues couldn’t watch him change, but for Trudeau’s much more revealing failures.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.