Two backbenchers show the nation how to talk about the pandemic without screaming

During another tense week in Ottawa, the most interesting conversation was taking place not between protesters and authorities, or the government and the opposition, but between Liberal backbenchers.

A week after Conservative MPs formally registered their unhappiness with Erin O'Toole, Liberal MP Joël Lightbound summoned reporters to a news conference on Tuesday morning.

Lightbound proceeded to lay out a series of concerns about the impact of public health restrictions and vaccine mandates, the Liberal government's handling of those issues and the politicization of health policy. While he condemned the most extreme elements of the convoy protest in Ottawa and called for the blockade to end, he also empathized with Canadians who told him they were struggling with the consequences of government actions.

He called on the government to release a "roadmap" for lifting federal restrictions and do a better job of explaining its pandemic policies, such as the vaccine mandate for truck drivers who cross the Canada-United States border.

"I believe that if more and more Canadians find it hard to comply with the restrictions, it's not because they lack solidarity," he said. "It's because, increasingly, Canadians don't understand the measures. And they don't understand them because governments no longer care to explain them."

WATCH: Liberal MP Joël Lightbound says he's uncomfortable with politicization of pandemic

Liberal MP says he's 'uncomfortable' with politicization of vaccines, pandemic

3 years ago

Duration 1:50

Liberal MP Joel Lightbound is speaking out against provincial and federal vaccine mandates and COVID-19 policies, many of which were implemented by his party.

Of the trucker mandate's possible impact on the price of goods, Lightbound said that if the "benefits" were clearly explained to people "with data and projections, not with talking points, it would make the burden more bearable."

It's hard to disagree with anyone arguing that the debate over pandemic measures needs fewer talking points — particularly those coming from a government that is too often willing to rest on its message track.

One might quibble with different elements of Lightbound's argument. Like others who want restrictions lifted, he fell back on comparisons to other countries that may not be particularly helpful or wise.

There's also a risk of overly idolizing backbenchers who break with the party line. Such MPs are often held up as the only pure and righteous truth-tellers in a room full of scoundrels — a depiction that risks doing a disservice to other MPs and ignores the fact that even a maverick MP might be motivated by personal political calculation.

Lightbound's press conference is a reminder that in any assembly of 158 people like the Liberal caucus, there will be differences of opinion. For the most part, those differences are aired privately.

But Lightbound's concerns and criticisms aren't unreasonable. And while the business of Parliament likely would suffer if it was populated by 338 wholly independent MPs, a little diversity of opinion makes for a richer conversation.

Two days after Lightbound's news conference, Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith responded with a Twitter thread. While Erskine-Smith criticized the timing of Lightbound's intervention, he agreed with some of his colleague's points, disagreed with others and drew attention to some issues and angles Lightbound had missed.

"The pandemic has been frustrating for all of us, and we don't always meet the standards we set for ourselves even at the best of times (I include myself here too)," Erskine-Smith wrote. "But we all need to manage our differences with respect and remember that we are trustees in the public interest."

Question period debates about the blockades have been dominated by government and opposition MPs loudly trading accusations of blame. The exchange between these two backbenchers had a quality those debates have lacked: nuance.

Perhaps realizing that, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos began a news conference on Friday by citing Lightbound and the Liberal MP's concerns before addressing the current restrictions and what it will mean to "learn to live with" COVID-19 (Duclos half-apologized for slipping back into a professorial tone — a hangover from his previous career as an academic).

There might be things worth shouting about right now. After two years of this pandemic, many Canadians are inclined to scream. But the interventions of Lightbound and Erskine-Smith suggest that what's needed right now is more explanation, detail and calm consideration.