First of all, I would like my US and international readers to know that the news about the truck convoy protest, as reported in Canada, is quite different than what I have heard is being reported through some other media, notably Fox News.
Second, a large majority of Canadians are appalled by the protesters and the support they have received from outside Canada, particularly the US far right. Many Canadians are baffled as to why it has taken so long for the police to clear the blockades.
The right to protest is enshrined in Canada, and especially in Quebec, where I live. In Montreal, there are protests and demonstrations all the time, and the city and police know how to handle them fairly peacefully. I'm sure that the initial hope was that the truckers would leave peacefully on their own. However, we should all realize that if this were a protest by Indigenous or other minorities/people of color who blocked city streets, transportation routes, or the supply chain for goods, action against them -- including arrests -- would have been much faster. And it is clearly true that, as in the January 6 2021 Capitol insurrection in D.C., some members of the police and military sympathize and identify with these mostly-white, mostly working-class, mostly-male protesters, some of whom were armed and ready for violent confrontation.
We must not close our eyes to this glaring example of inequality and preferential treatment, which is now typical of most nations in the West. And as Canadians, it's crucial that we see it and speak up swiftly against it, as well as condemning hate speech, far-right ideology, and the influence of foreign money in our domestic affairs.
The Ottawa protest and also the concurrent blocking of border bridges, which continued for 22 days before intervention, included tactics not usually seen in Canadian protests, such as harassment of citizens who live or work in that neighbourhood, and a concerted effort to jam Ottawa's 911 emergency service that came from calls mostly placed from US addresses. Such tactics will result in more stringent terms for what is permitted under citizen's Charter Rights to "freedom of peaceful assembly".
Posted by: Duchesse | February 20, 2022 at 06:58 AM