EDITORIAL: For there to be unity, politicians need humility

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There are politicians all across Canada who are calling for calm and unity amidst a variety of protests erupting across our country.

For the past few weeks, we have been witnessing very heated disagreement about the rules that have governed our lives for the past two years.

Politicians have shared their various concerns about these protests and have made a lot of good points.

But we just hope they realize their words apply to them as well — not just to everybody else.

If Canadians are going to come together again after all of this is over, the politicians will have to meet the people in the middle.

While we can disagree with some of the heavy-handed tactics initiated by protesters, such as the blocking of the Ambassador Bridge, we believed that their grievances are largely legitimate ones.

The past two years have been upsetting, traumatic and harmful to many. There are those who have had negative experiences with COVID-19, and then there are those who have suffered under the various restrictions placed upon our lives.

We have supported a number of restrictions on these pages. We have also pushed back against many of them.

Our preference has always leaned towards governments and health officials giving people information to make their own choices, as opposed to over-bearing government measures that demand how people live.

It’s nice to see that, finally, many provinces in Canada are moving in this direction and eliminating all COVID-19 restrictions. The remaining provinces need to immediately head in this direction.

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Politicians can’t stubbornly insist that everything they have done has been perfect. It hasn’t.

They’ve introduced many rules that were unnecessary. There were others they left in place longer than they should have done.

It would be nice to see a politician admit for a change that maybe they weren’t perfect. It would be nice to get an apology or two.

It’s rather rich to witness politicians who have implemented repeated lockdowns suddenly say it’s wrong for a protester to inconvenience a business without batting an eyelash.

Yes, there will be great need for unity here in Canada after these divisions. Our political leaders should prepare to extend the first olive branches.