I'm increasingly worried we won't learn anything from COVID-19. I think we're going to have a perfect political storm where both Liberal and Conservative voters — between them, basically a supermajority of the total population — refuse to accept any blame or learn any lessons. +

The very real failures at the provincial levels (not just the ones run by Tories) will be blamed, by Conservatives, entirely on the Liberals. Borders. Vaccines. Lack of early warning.

There will be truth to this. And it will be used to absolve provincial failures.

+

Meanwhile, the real failures at the federal level will be blamed on the provinces screwing up what would otherwise have been as strong federal response (or so Trudeau's fanbase will insist).

Introspection is hard. Admitting you failed is hard. Criticizing your tribe is hard. +

These are things we prefer not to do and, just as part of our human nature, we instinctively try to avoid them. Blame shifting is human. It's what we do.

And COVID landed in Canada at a moment of already high polarization and a strong, pre-existing split between feds and provs.+

This is going to be the pressure release valve tens of millions of Canadians turn to when this is all over. It's a ready made, built-in excuse for all "your" failures: I did as well as I could, but the other guy screwed it up for it.

This is terrible. But it'll happen.