By David Lim
Thousands of protesters have arrived in the capital of Canada to rally against the federal government’s health mandates and it all looks very exciting but what exactly is their endgame?
Somewhere between 2000 to 3000 truckers (a far cry from the 50000 reported by Fox News) from around the country have gathered on Parliament Hill, blaring their horns and showcasing anti-vaccine and anti-Trudeau signs. They claim their intention is to compel the government to end vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers going into the United States. Even if they are able to achieve this, President Joe Biden still has his border restrictions in place, which would prevent unvaccinated Canadian truckers from entering the United States anyway. So now what? Are the protesters going to drive to Washington DC? Oh yeah, they can’t.
One has to wonder if there is another motive for this protest, which has paralyzed traffic in downtown Ottawa and brought in police contingents from several other cities to assist local law enforcement and the RCMP. For the most part, the protesters have been peaceful. Although, some were carrying swastika flags, disrespecting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, defacing the Terry Fox monument, vandalizing local stores with spray paint, intimidating employees at the Rideau Shopping Center, and harassing soup kitchens for free meals that are supposed to be for the homeless. None of those actions appear to be congruent with protesting the government’s health mandates.
In the days leading up to the protest, I’ve seen many posts of pictures and videos on social media with trucks lined up for miles on the highway and huge crowds greeting them with signs. Many of those posts are headlined with variations of ‘what the mainstream media is not showing you’. Is this protest supposed to show Canadians that mainstream media is lying to you and that these truckers represent the national public consensus? There is one way to measure public opinion and it is through elections. The most recent one occurred four months ago when Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were re-elected with just ten seats short of a majority. That is quantifiable data even though it looks less impressive than the spectacle of seeing thousands of trucks gathered on Parliament Hill.
If exposing the lies of mainstream media was another objective of the convoy and showing they are the ones who truly represent the majority of Canadians, the electoral riding numbers are not on their side. It gives them even less credibility when you factor in the 90% of Canadian truckers that have complied with the vaccine mandate and that the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) and Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) have come out against the convoy. In fact, the CTA made a public statement indicating that many of the people participating in the protests are not even truckers.
People who have travelled to Ottawa and come out in support of the convoy have said that they believe these public health mandates will eventually lead Canada down the same path as Nazi Germany by taking away their rights and unleashing medical apartheid on the unvaccinated. If that is the destination Canada is heading towards, we arrived there long ago by restricting smoking in public areas, enforcing drinking and driving laws, and requiring public school attendees to be vaccinated against Polio, Measles, and Tetanus. Where was all the uproar when these laws came into effect?
Let’s examine that word ‘apartheid’, which is used to define segregation of a group of people based on their ethnicity. It’s funny how some people of this convoy liken themselves to the oppressed black community in South Africa. Can they not see that they can choose to get vaccinated and black people cannot choose the color of their skin? Also, if these freedom fighters ever decide to get life insurance, they’ll be shocked to realize that unvaccinated people, smokers, and heavy drinkers receive less favorable premiums than those who are vaccinated, don’t smoke, and are not heavy drinkers. Would they consider that medical apartheid or are the insurance adjusters just accounting for the greater risk of these people being hospitalized and having shorter life expectancies?
The Freedom Convoy has garnered quite a bit of media attention and given Conservative MPs like Erin O’Toole, Pierre Poilievre, and Maxime Bernier an opportunity to schmooze with potential voters. However, the endgame of this convoy appears to be muddled.
If they are looking to end cross-border vaccine mandates, they still won’t be able to enter the United States until the US ends its border restrictions. If they are looking to protest other health mandates like masking and lockdowns, those are handled at the provincial level and they should be protesting against their premiers, not the federal government. If this was a ploy to expose mainstream media and show that the majority of Canadians actually oppose the governing Liberals, the most recent election that occurred four months ago would suggest differently. If this is a fight against government regulating your rights and freedoms, what makes these mandates different from the existing health mandates that limit what you can do?
The Freedom Convoy has definitely made a splash on social media and national news and their GoFundMe page shows people have donated a whopping $8.3 million to their cause. I just wonder if they know what that cause is and if this was the most effective way of achieving their intended outcome.
