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BULLIES IN OTTAWA, NOT FREEDOM LOVERS by George Froelich




So, the so-called “freedom convoy” descended on the nation’s capital on the weekend. Though not as many as Fox, so-called, News would like to pretend, there were many, many, participants of the truck convoy assault on Ottawa, protesting vaccine mandates and generally swanking around like a gang of bikers invading a small town (See the film, The Wild One). Some, though a minority, were even truckers.

Here is a list of the major actions for which they will be duly remembered.

The production of one of the most undemocratic and dumbest manifestoes ever written, the misnamed, “Memorandum of Understanding” in which they demanded that our unelected Governor General and the unelected Senate join forces, “fire” the duly elected government and roll back all mandates that the authors didn’t like.

In practical terms they:
* Defiled the Terry Fox statue.
* Defiled the National War Memorial.
* Flew Confederate flags.
* Displayed Nazi swastikas.
* Intimidated and hurled insults at fellow Canadians.
* Intimidated the staff at a centre serving homeless people and demanded that the food, meant for the homeless, be handed instead to them.
* Enjoyed the support of many Conservative politicians, including the Conservative party leader, Erin O’Toole, Pierre Poilievre, he who wants to be leader, and some provincial Premiers.
* Intimidated hotel employees at the hotels where they were staying.
* Intimidated restaurant workers.
* Forced the shutdown of many small businesses.
* Forced parents into the position of not being able to send their children to school due to street access to schools being blocked.
* Forced the Ottawa police to station extra police, due to public safety concerns after some protesters publicly threatened public officials, including the Prime Minister, who was forced, along with his family, to stay at a secret location. The cost to the Ottawa public purse? A cool $800,000 per day.
* Left a lot of extra garbage on the streets of Ottawa, forcing an extra clean-up, likely costing several hundred thousand dollars, added to that already required by the extra police presence.

This, let us keep in mind, is a small minority of truck drivers. The majority of truck drivers in Canada are not part of the protest. But the ranks were swelled by the involvement of plenty of right-wing ideologues with agendas only minimally connected to any concern that a small percentage of truckers had ever voiced. But all were intent on holding the government, and peaceful Canadians, hostage.

In a democracy everyone has the right to protest against government policies, regulations and actions. And that’s the way it should be. But those protests must be peaceful and respectful of others. This protest was, and is, (a bunch of the gang is still there) anything but. Enough is surely sufficient.

Democracy does not allow you disregard and trample the rights of those who are not protesters. These protesters are spitting in the face democracy and thus, spitting on all of us.

Some of these “freedom lovers” are vowing to stay and inflict their yowling on the population of the Capital for “as long as it takes”. So, the crucial question remains - how long will politicians, not to mention the police forces, continue to allow this perversion of a travesty of democratic action to persist?

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