Free-Dumb Fighters

Here's what I've taken away from the aptly named #FluTruxKlan^* demonstration in Ottawa's downtown core over the past several days:

Photo source: Twitter.

• If you're white and angry enough, you can rest assured that the Ottawa Police Services will smile and help you hold a flag, rather than issue fines for drinking in public, or illegally parking, or harassing store employees and citizens who live and work in the core.
• You can call yourself a "Freedom Fighter" while pissing on the National War Memorial and standing atop the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: you know, those symbols that represent actual freedom fighters.
• It's okay to decry that the government is stomping on your rights while you demand free food from a soup kitchen that is meant to help the homeless, and then complain that the government hasn't set up porta-potties for you.
• You can spout "Fake News" to journalists that are trying to cover the event while whining that your views aren't receiving enough coverage.
• Some Conservative Party of Canada Members of Parliament don't see a problem with shaking hands and offering coffee to protesters while standing in front of Confederate flags and signs that feature the swastika.
• Speaking of flags, you can wave a Confederate flag, a Nazi flag, and an American flag, and call yourself a "patriot," all while waving the Canadian flag upside-down.
• You can stick a sign on the statue of Terry Fox, calling for an end to vaccine mandates, while Fox himself believed in science and the advice of medical professionals.
• While about 90 percent of truck drivers are vaccinated and able to do their jobs, a fraction of the 10-percent anti-vax, anti-mandate mobs feel that they can disrupt businesses, including truckers who need to get their goods to downtown stores.

Our tax dollars at work (photo via Twitter).

This protest is costing the City of Ottawa $800,000 a day, and yet as of writing this post, there are no plans for the city to put an end to the protest. I can't imagine that if these demonstrators were protesting race inequality or were Indigenous, they would be treated with the same tolerance.

Meanwhile, trucks have been parked on streets that don't allow parking, idling for days and honking their horns at all hours (there are municipal by-laws that prohibit this action). The core is filled with diesel fumes: DW was skating on the canal, on Saturday, and as soon as she got north of the Queensway, she had to turn back because of the choking fumes. This is an environmental nightmare, and what happens when these trucks run out of fuel? Are they going to continue to clog the streets until there's enough room to tow them?

Like most Canadians, I'm all for peaceful protests. But this has not been a peaceful protest, as hotel and restaurant staff have been harassed and assaulted, both verbally and physically. Sure, there haven't been any major clashes or riots but there have been offenses.

This protest originally centred around the requirement that all truckers who cross the Canada-US border be vaccinated. Because this is a bi-lateral regulation, this protest is moot: even if Canada lifted the restriction (which it won't and shouldn't), the American border authorities won't let truckers enter their country without proof of vaccination.

Protesters then added that all mandates be cancelled: no masks, no social distancing, no closure of businesses and public gatherings. Most of these protesters seem to be anti-vaxxers and pandemic deniers. But what they seem to miss is the fact that mask mandates and business closures are under the jurisdiction of the provinces, not the federal government.

Blaming everything on the federal government, waving "F🍁ck Trudeau" flags falls under other people who have joined this giant tailgate party: people who don't like our current prime minister and are demanding that he resign. Even though he won the last election. I've also seen signs that have called for harming Trudeau.

Don't we have laws against this behaviour?

The #FluTruksKlan protest has become a lawless, racist, seditious gathering that has only one clear message: hatred.

I'll end this rant by directing questions at the protesters and the Conservative MPs that have supported them: if you're standing with people who want to cause harm to elected officials and are waving Nazi and Confederate flags, are you really on the right side? And if you don't agree with the hate-mongers, why are you not denouncing them or distancing yourselves?

^* a brilliant hashtag that surfaced at the beginning of the convoy.