Canada’s COVID-19 Experience ‘Far From Positive’: Think Tank’s Response to Trudeau’s ‘Better Pandemic’ Claim

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the media in Ottawa before boarding a flight to the Yukon on Feb. 12, 2023. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)

Despite claims by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada “had a better pandemic” than many of its peer countries, data shows that the Canadian experience has been “far from positive,” a think tank says.

A news release by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) on March 1 states that Trudeau’s claims do not paint a true picture of how his government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted Canadians.

“Unfortunately, those casual references to broad impact categories don’t reflect the hard truths compiled by MLI’s COVID Misery Index (CMI), which was designed to capture a meaningful barometer of how public policy choices ultimately affected Canadians during the depths of the pandemic,” the release said.

At a press conference on Feb. 17, Trudeau told reporters that Canada did better in the pandemic than many other Western countries.

“We had a better pandemic than many of our peer countries, with fewer deaths, with lower levels of economic disruption, with greater social cohesions than many other places,” he said.

The think tank begged to differ, arguing that its CMI tracked a wide range of indicators such as Disease Misery, COVID Response Misery, and Economic Misery—each of which has data that countered Trudeau’s “unsubstantiated” claims.

“[These indicators cover] different factors such as economic considerations, impacts on education, excess deaths, and the elements of human well-being affected by long-term lockdowns,” the release said.

‘Failing Grade’

The institute acknowledged that Canada did perform better than the United States, the UK, and Germany when it comes to Disease Misery.

“But even then, it still only received a 4th place (or a B+ grade) out of the 15 countries examined in the CMI. Countries like Australia, Japan, and Norway did much better than Canada,” it said.

Data on the latest ranking was unavailable on MLI’s website, but the site provided a Jan. 20, 2022, version when Canada ranked fifth in Disease Misery.

It showed that Canada’s COVID death rate at the time hit 27.84 per million population—higher than the death rate in Norway (10.77), Japan (9.26), Australia (8.14), and New Zealand (1.25).

The Wednesday news release noted that the Liberal government rolled out “harsh lockdown measures,” which landed the country in the 14th position in terms of severity and length of COVID-19 restrictions.

“Regardless of the clinical reasons for doing so, there is no doubt that asking people to give up personal freedoms comes at a cost. Restricting movement, closing provincial and national borders, and limiting social gatherings have borne a heavy toll,” the think tank said.

“As a result, Canada ended up ranking 7th (or a B grade) on Response Misery, which measures factors such as vaccination rates, tests per case, and lockdown stringency.”

Canada received a “failing grade” in terms of Economic Misery, nearing the bottom at 14th place, according to MLI. “Sky-high” unemployment, public borrowing, and elevated inflation were among the main factors contributing to the poor performance.

“The CMI also found that Canada’s debt-financed spending binge contributed significantly to inflation,” the release said.

“[The index] revealed many difficult aspects of the pandemic that left this nation weaker and more vulnerable.”