Columnist Chris Selley ponders the prime minister’s brief journey from declaring that other countries were engaged in “knee jerk” reactions to COVID-19 (March 5) to slamming the border shut to all foreigners except US citizens (March 16). Canadians will have to reflect individually on how they felt about the knee-jerk stand. Did it make anyone uneasy at the time? Here is what Mr. Selley muses. “All those anti-crisis measures other countries are pursuing, but we aren’t? They are overreacting. And when we wind up pursuing those same measures a few days later, and it’s very difficult to understand why it wouldn’t have been better to pursue them earlier? Ah, well, this is what the experts have advised. We are taking things “step by step,” as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday. Canadians do not take more than one step at once. That is for the hotter-blooded nations.” National Post
