It is not everyday that a writer gets to contemplate a momentous event in his own country. In Canada, the land of the laid back, that is even more true. BUT, times have changed.
The Freedom Convoy 2022, which started as one man’s vision to fight back against vaccine mandates for truckers to cross into the US has blossomed into an all out revolution of ideals. Two years of suffocating “lockdowns” (normally used in the sense of locking rowdy prisoners in their cells, but used against the entire population), “mandated” (read “forced”) vaccinations, and demonization have led to a popular uprising in Canada. It is not an understatement to say that: a popular uprising.
The tens of thousands of people who line the overpasses and roads of the country as the convoy made its way to Ottawa were the real sign of this movement. They braved, in many cases, -30 Celsius or worse temperatures for hours to show their support, and encouragement for what the truckers and their supporters were doing. As did the people who stood shoulder to shoulder last weekend – again to support the convoy’s message that mandates are unconstitutional, violate Canadian’s civil rights, and are destroying their quality of life. Mothers, fathers, children, in fact vastly more younger families than any other demographic, waved their flags in defiance of the actions of provincial and especially federal governments, and of course its chief cheerleader Mr. Trudeau.
Like Mary Antoinette of French infamy who arrogantly stated “Let them eat cake”, Trudeau referred to these patriots, and all those young families lining the nation’s highways, as a “fringe minority espousing unacceptable views”. The convoy, and the majority of Canadian supporters, who were already angry at their freedoms being discarded like unnecessary trash, now were seeing red – Antoinette-style. Trudeau quickly left the capital just before the convoy arrived, and was moved to a “safe place” (likely somewhere out of truck horn distance from Ottawa).
His government, and to their extreme discredit the national media, attempted to demonize the protesters as everything from nazi or KKK supporters, to a violent mob spitting at old people and stealing food from the homeless shelters. The federal Liberal government has done everything in its power to label these Canadians, who represent average Canadians completely, as something akin to a “mob of the vile”. Or as one establishment lady once said to me: “the great unwashed”. It is enough to turn your stomach thinking that people look at others in this way, and believe it to their core. With Trudeau hiding, Freelend, the grand daughter of a nazi sympathizer and publisher in Ukraine during World War 2, has been doing a lot of spinning herself in the Parliament of Canada. Again, portraying these Canadians as viler and unworthy.
As a Canadian, a veteran, the son of a WW 2 veteran, and a person that has defended freedom in Canada at all times, I do not recognize my country right now. I see the memory of my country in this movement to retake our constitutional rights back from those who so duplicitously absconded with them. A veteran who lost his way, who lost sight of what he defended as an officer in the air force, the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition, has fallen – removed by the western Canadian caucus of his own party for failing to defend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms strongly enough in support of the convoy. It seems that western Canada is the true bastion of freedom in Canada. The convoy started here. The voices against mandates were the strongest here. The remembrance of Canada as a free nation are most sacred here. The rest of Canada has been inspired by the West that it is only that freedom that makes us who we are, and without it we are nothing. I think that is fair to say.
While nobody aspires to violence in this uprising, one deliberate act of suppression of the protesters by the use of force could send it off the charts. This is not an exaggeration, but a warning of sorts. Trudeau and his like have been tossing the idea of a military action to end the demonstration – yet the demonstrations are happening all over the second largest country in the world. A country that is solely dependent on three or four primary crossing points into the US for its economy – one of which was shut down by trucks for several days – and may be again. The ugly truth is that our very own Prime Minister considers his own country the “first post-national country” – in other words Canada has outlived its usefulness. It is only in a country as laid back as Canada that he could get away with a statement like that. In other countries that would be legitimately considered a treacherous statement – high treason.
This weekend there will be massive demonstrations across major cities throughout Canada. In Alberta today I witnessed kilometers long convoys of large farm machinery, adorned with new Canadian flags, and hand made signs calling for a return to freedom – an end to mandates. That was Thursday. The real event doesn’t start until Saturday. Word is that massive convoys are converging on Quebec City, Toronto, and other major Canadian cities.
What will be the result of all this? It is hard to say. I suppose it depends on how it ends. What is clear is that either the constitutional rights of Canadians will be returned or their will likely not be a Canada as we know it now. The liberals (small L and big L) have gone too far this time. They have arrogantly told the people of Canada to “eat cake”. The only question is whether Canadians are cake eaters or the descendants of those that stormed Vimy Ridge with the resolute bravery that fills the heart of a free man and woman.
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