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It’s unnecessary. It’s unwanted.

And it’s been imposed on us — commencing this weekend, according to a Reuters report — by a Prime Minister who is unfit.

Because, make no mistake: Unfit he is. Untrustworthy and unethical, too.

He swore he was a “feminist” while neglecting to mention to other Liberals that he’d groped a woman in BC. He pledged to fight racism when he’d remained silent about video evidence that he’d worn racist blackface multiple times.

He insisted he’d be scandal-free and then he became the first sitting Prime Minister to be found guilty of violating federal statutes. Oh, and his myriad other promises, like balancing the budget or getting clean water to Indigenous people?

Those were all untruths, too.

He’s the UnPrime Minister. And this will be the UnElection.

Because we don’t want an election now. We don’t need an election now.

Vast swaths of the country have been literally on fire. Thousands have been forced out of their homes, or — like my brother and his family in rural B.C. — they are waiting for the order to evacuate.

The situation has gotten bad enough that people in Nova Scotia have smelled smoke — smoke that has wafted East from far-away BC.

And the virus, the cruel, unkillable virus. It’s surging again, pretty much everywhere. And Canadians are getting sick again — and some are dying from it.

In the past week alone, due to the Delta variant, Covid infections have exploded by 60% across Canada. That’s the worst it has been in months.

As former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould put it on Twitter, it’s the “#DeltaElection.”

And into this morass Justin Trudeau wants to force an election? Why?

Because he thinks he can win back the majority government he squandered. Because he thinks his opponents aren’t as good as him.

Because of his ego, essentially.

His ego is immense. It is vast. It is without limit. He is known to sit on government jets, reviewing his Instagram photos. Not his briefing books.

And the evidence was right there, for all to see. For months — and as this newspaper regularly documented — his vaccine acquisition effort was an unmitigated fiasco.

He tried to do a deal with a hostile foreign power, the Chinese while the Chinese were illegally detaining two innocent Canadian men. And when that vaccine deal predictably fell apart, he hid the evidence from us for months, thereby losing critical time. And Canadian lives.

For months, we lagged far behind our allies in vaccinating citizens. And we are only now near the front of the vaccination pack because of the determination of Canadians themselves, not the feckless, reckless Prime Minister.

His record, his performance, his values all combine to produce one irreducible, irrefutable truth: he is unfit of the high office he has held, improbably, for half a decade. He is unqualified and unfit.

Is he unelectable? Only you, Canadian voters, can answer that question.

Because the unElection is about to begin.

Kinsella was chairman of the Liberal Party’s war rooms in 1993 and 2000.

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In the bleak, grinding, early days of the pandemic – when it felt like the world might actually sort-of end – I wrote this:

“When times are this bad, we learn things about ourselves. We learn things about our leaders, too.

For this writer, few leaders are as inspiring as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. No adjectives, no spin, no homilies: in that New Yorker’s brusque dialect, Cuomo sits there every day, no notes, and simply offers up the truth.

He emotes honesty. He tells it as is; he does not give false hope.  And he seemingly knows everything.

More than once, I’ve been driving my Jeep – to locate toilet paper, to pick up some canned food my little band of survivors – and I’ve pulled over to the side of the road to listen to Cuomo. In the way that my grandmother told me that she and her seven children would stop everything, and gather around the radio to listen to Winston Churchill during World War Two. Giving hope, giving faith, giving a path forward.”

Was I wrong? Was I ever wrong. 

And I quote those words, here, to provide a reminder – to myself, and maybe to you – that we should stop having heroes.

Or, at least, having heroes who are in politics. Because they always seem to end up breaking our hearts, don’t they?

Cuomo’s story is, by now, well known.  He resigned in disgrace this week, chased out of office by dozens of complaints of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct.

In the end, the Democratic Party establishment – of which he himself was once part – turned its back on him.  So, too, President Joe Biden, who said that Cuomo needed to resign for his appalling behavior.

And appalling it was.  He, a former champion of the #MeToo movement, felled by it.  A likely future presidential candidate, his career now in ruins. And deservedly so.

For me, Cuomo isn’t the only politician who fell from grace.  There was Sir John A. Macdonald, who I learned had called Indigenous people like my daughter “savages” – and who lamented the loss of “Aryan culture” in Canada. And who created residential schools to “kill the Indian in the child.”

There was Bill Clinton, who I once respected so much – so much so that a photograph of Clinton and I adorns the cover of my book The War Room. And who, I learned, destroyed the life and reputation of Monica Lewinsky, simply because he was a man and powerful, and she was neither.

And now Cuomo. Who I actually wrote “emotes honesty” – when all he emotes, now, is sleaze.

Who I said “gave hope, gave faith.”When all that he gives us, now, is an important reminder: to stop having political heroes.

Stop putting their names on the sides of schools.  Stop naming roadways and schools after them.  Stop regarding them as some superior order of human.

They’re not. They’re just mortals – and, sometimes, deeply flawed and dishonest ones.

Like Andrew Cuomo.

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Dear Unvaccinated People:

I’d love to say it’s nothing personal, but it is.

It’s really, really personal.

The fact that you refuse to get vaccinated, I mean. I’m sick of you, no pun intended. And I’m not alone.

The Globe and Mail commissioned a Nanos poll on it. My friend and former colleague John Ibbitson wrote on it. 

This is the question they asked: “Would you support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or oppose unvaccinated people being denied access to public gatherings like sporting events or indoor dining in restaurants?”

Wrote John, who has been a smallish-c conservative-minded fellow since we met in the Ottawa Citizen newsroom more than thirty years ago: “Seventy-eight per cent of respondents said they would support (59%) or somewhat support (19%) such a ban. Only 15% opposed a ban, and 5% were somewhat opposed. Two per cent were unsure.” 

That 20% — Team Covid, you could call them, and I do — neatly corresponds to the number of Canadian vaccination holdouts, which I wrote about in these pages, earlier this week.

And if they’re declining to get the jab because it might make things worse – like one friend of mine, who was paralyzed for months after getting a flu shot a few years ago – then, fine. That’s a bona fide reason not to get vaccinated against Covid-19. No one will get mad at you for that.

But refusing to get it because you think Covid “is no worse than the flu?” Or because you’re comparatively young “and in good shape?”

Or because you believe the basement-dwelling epidemiologists on Twitter — the ones whose handle is typically a Teutonic name followed by a bunch of numbers, alongside a picture of a wolf — over the men and women who, you know, actually went to school and studied viruses and disease and save lives every day?

Get your head out of your arse.

Because the rest of us are sick to death — pun intended, sorry but it fits — of you.

Yes, you.

Oh, and that Nanos poll Ibbitson wrote about? Don’t put on your pretend Poll Expert hat now, either.

Everyone is against you, pretty much, in every region of Canada.

Wrote John: “There was no difference in support between men and women. Regionally, support ranged from 7% in Atlantic Canada to 81% in Ontario.”

Now, nobody has deputized me to speak on behalf of the Silent Majority, Team Covid, but someone had to.

And, besides, while we are decidedly the majority, we are silent no more.

If you don’t want to get vaccinated because you’re an idiot, fine.

The Not-So-Silent Majority won’t force you to stop being an idiot. But we sure as hell don’t want to rub elbows with you anymore.

That’s what the July-August poll of more than 1,000 Canadians found, as well: the majority aren’t in favour of mandatory vaccinations.

But they, we, are in favour of making a few changes in our living arrangements.

That means, wrote the Globe, limits on “any public gathering that involves people being close together, such as workplaces, college campuses, hospitals, airplanes, public transit, gyms, shops and supermarkets.” 

Bottom line? Stay unvaccinated, sure.

But stay home, Team Covid.

Oh, and save us your lectures about freedom, by the by. Because “freedom” explicitly and constitutionally includes the freedom to “life” as well as liberty. It includes “security of the person,” too.

Your stubborn, stupefying refusal to get a little needle that will keep you healthy and alive — and keep healthy and alive those who for some reason still care about you — is dangerous. And it’s putting the rest of us in danger.

Get the shot, or don’t. But if you don’t, stay away.

Because for the majority of us, this has become really, really personal.

Sincerely,

Etc.

— Warren Kinsella was chief of staff to a federal Liberal Minister of Health

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To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate?

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With all apologies due to Shakespeare and Hamlet, that isn’t the question. Or it shouldn’t be.

Getting vaccinated — so, you know, you don’t get really sick or die, and/or so you don’t leave someone else sick or dying — shouldn’t be complicated. It should be easy.

But, for many, it isn’t.

Why?

The New York Times fronted a story about what it called “the unvaccinated” in Sunday’s paper. Above the fold, colour graphics, across three columns. Four bylines. Big story.

According to the Times, some 93 million Americans are unvaccinated. Given the fact that the satanic delta variant is rampaging across the U.S., sickening and killing those 93 million holdouts, the Times set out to answer the question: Why?

The 93 million aren’t a monolith. They are actually two groups in one.

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One group, unsurprisingly, are unrelenting in their opposition to vaccines. They are, the Times wrote, “disproportionately white, rural, evangelical Christian and politically conservative.”

Their opposition to vaccines isn’t about the vaccines per se. This constituency are against pretty much anything that is authored by government: Fluoridation, the metric system, bilingualism, seat belts, speed limits, you name it.

But there’s another group who are not so easily dismissed by the elites as backward, backwoods mouth-breathers. This second group, surprise surprise, “tend to be a more diverse and urban group, including many younger people, Black and Latino Americans, and Democrats.”

Democrats!

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This “diverse and urban” group aren’t as hardcore in their opposition. They aren’t saying “never” as much as “not yet.”

They have put off getting vaccinated or are waiting for more information. But therein lies a problem: The information they are getting is often bad.

Up here in the Great White North, too, government pandemic communications have ranged from incoherent to incomprehensible.

Remember our erstwhile federal minister of health demanding that we don’t wear masks? And then flip-flopping and insisting that we do? Or her insinuation that anyone who wanted to close our borders was a crypto-racist, and then reversing herself on that, too?

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Or the politicians and the alleged public health experts saying AstraZeneca was safe, then withdrawing it, then saying it was safe again, then withdrawing it yet again? All in a period of a few weeks?

With our leaders and experts so often publicly contradicting each other — and themselves — it should surprise no one that enthusiasm for getting a potentially life-saving jab would drop precipitously. Millions lack confidence in vaccines simply because they have lost confidence in the very governments who are pushing vaccines.

So, governments have tried all manner of tricks to encourage vaccination: Advertising, lotteries and tickets to special events. But millions of holdouts remain unconvinced and are still holding out.

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Plenty of other factors have contributed to our collective failure to achieve the elusive herd immunity. Geography, education, fear of deportation and lack of access to regular health care are all in the mix, too.

But conspiracy theories — as dark and despicable and dishonest as they are — have had an enormous impact on the attitudes of the unvaccinated. They’re everywhere, oozing up through dark corners on the Internet, persuading millions to take the risk of getting sick — or worse.

The conspiracy theories are myriad: That governments can track those who get a shot. That enough metal is being injected to make magnets stick to you. That they will make you infertile. That the U.S. government created COVID-19 as a “bio-weapon” to reduce their own population and defeat Donald Trump (seriously).

In Canada, we are finally doing better than the States in getting people fully vaccinated. But nearly 20% of Canadians still refuse to get a shot.

To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate? For millions, that remains a question, sure. But the answer is equally clear.

Get vaccinated. Please.

— Warren Kinsella was the Chief of Staff to a federal Liberal Minister of Health

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Justin Trudeau wants an election sooner than later.

Why?

Because, you know, he could win it. Big. 

But, but, but: a fourth wave is coming. Jagmeet Singh’s NDP is surging. Canadians don’t like Summertime elections. The don’t-go-early examples provided by David Peterson and Jim Prentice. 

And, most of all, it may make voters really mad at Trudeau. The polling agency Nanos says nearly 40 per cent of Canadians are “upset” at the prospect of voting anytime soon. 

So, given all that, why is Trudeau jonesing for a vote now? Ten reasons. 

1. His opponents. Trudeau thinks he’s a better campaigner than his opponents, and he’s not wrong. He’s beaten two Tory leaders (one a majority Prime Minister), and he’s convinced himself Erin O’Toole will make it a hat trick.

2. The polls. He’s ahead in them, across the board. In some cases, way ahead. The Conservatives, in fact, may be as much as 12 points behind the Trudeau Liberals – which would see O’Toole resigning on election night, among other things.

3. WE forget. He made vaccine acquisition a fiasco, sure, and the WE scandal cemented the perception that he is corrupt. But voters generally have a memory span of minutes: they’ve forgotten much of that stuff. Besides, it’s a pandemic: most of us can’t recall what day it is, let alone what Trudeau did last year.

4. Dishonesty abounds. The good news for Trudeau haters: Canadians tend to agree that Trudeau is dishonest. The bad news: they think everybody involved in politics is a liar. Hollering that Trudeau is corrupt gets the Opposition nowhere, because voters believe none of them would be any better.

5. Midstream horses. There’s an old cliché about changing horses midstream. And it particularly applies to pandemic politics. Canadians may not be enthusiastic about Justin Trudeau‘s performance – and slightly more than half aren’t – but they’re even less enthusiastic about big political changes in the middle of a global public health crisis.

6. The aforementioned fourth wave. The experts say it’s not a question of if, but when. So when the fourth wave happens, Justin Trudeau would prefer it happens after his unnecessary, half-a-billion-dollar election. Not during or before.

7. The Liberal war room. Trudeau Liberals may be terrible at governing, but they’re pretty darn good at campaigning. They are prepared to say and do anything to win. Anything. If they have an ideology, in fact, it’s winning elections. Their opponents, meanwhile, I think losing is principled.

8. The media. We ink-stained wretches know that Trudeau is corrupt and dishonest leader. But, when Conservative partisans continually call us in the media similarly corrupt and dishonest, we have a tendency not to write nice things about them. All evidence to the contrary, reporters are human too.

9. Incumbency. With the notable exception of Donald Trump, incumbent governments have greatly benefited from the pandemic. Challengers haven’t. In government, Trudeau controls announcements, spending and decision-making. Power and the pandemic are his friends.

10. His ego. That’s what this election is all about. Justin Trudeau wants another majority because he wants another majority. He’s obsessed with his size, you might say, like adolescent males tend to be. And that’s why he wants an election now. Period.

Could he change course? Could he put off a trip to the residence of the newly-installed Governor General? Sure. Of course.

But my money is on an election now. 

Not later.

[Kinsella was special assistant to Jean Chretien.]

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Dear Joe:

You don’t mind if I call you Joe, do you? I mean, I know you’re president of the United States and all, but I feel like we’re close.

Joe, you seem to have forgotten that I worked for you, for months. Even though I was way up here in Trudeaustan, unable to cross the border, I volunteered for you.

I was with you when you were seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Joe, and everyone except me said you were going to lose. I worked for you when you defied all the nay-sayers, and won the nomination.

For months, Joe, I worked the phones for you. From my little farmhouse up here in Prince Edward County, I’d call voters all over the States for you. New Hampshire to Florida to California, and myriad points in between. I’d call, Joe. For you, big guy.

Did the voter need a ride to a polling station? Did they get the advance voting package from the town clerk’s office? Did they double-envelope it, and sign it, and mail it back? Were there any questions I could answer?

Hundreds and hundreds of calls, Joe. I did that for you. Because I have believed in you way back to 2008, when that young senator from Chicago picked you to be his running mate.

I have never doubted you, Joe — partly because you so reminded me of my former boss, Jean Chretien. But that’s a column for another day.

Anyway, Joe, since you became president, I’ve been good. I didn’t complain too much when you killed the Keystone pipeline, even though your country and mine both need it.

I didn’t gripe when you wouldn’t let COVID vaccines be shipped from America to Canada (we got a lot of ours from Europe and India).

But the border thing, Joe. I can’t let that one go.

This week, our toy prime minister announced that Canada would be welcoming fully vaccinated Americans starting Aug. 9. You? You sent out your press secretary to sniff that you wouldn’t do likewise. Said she: “I wouldn’t look at it through reciprocal intention.”

Seriously, Joe? Reciprocal intention? I mean, is reciprocal even a word? (It is, Kinsella. – Ed.)

OK, it may be a word, but it’s no way to treat your best friend and ally. We’re letting your fully-vaxxed folks in: why can’t you let in ours?

It’s not fair. It’s not scientific. Most problematic of all: it’s put me in a situation where I have to say something nice about Justin Trudeau and something critical about Joe Biden! (Told you, Kinsella. — Ed.)

Joe, your fellow Democrats in Congress want you to let us Trudeaupians in. So do Democratic governors and state legislators. So do chambers of commerce. So does everyone down there, with the possible exception of the GOP, which is as good a reason as any to let us in.

Look, Joe, we know you have a political problem. The Mexicans want the border reopened, too. But your predecessor, the Mango Mussolini, made the U.S.-Mexico border a hot topic. We get it.

So open it just to us, Joe. You have nothing to fear from Canadians. Even our hockey teams can’t beat yours.

I worked for you, Joe. I shed blood, sweat and tears for you. I believe in you, Joe.

But I need you to open up the border to us, big guy. If not for Justin, then for me.

I’ve got a Red Sox game at Fenway to get to, Joe, and I’m counting on you. Don’t let me down.

Yours faithfully, your humble volunteer,

Warren

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