Freedom Convoy in Ottawa: Canadians lose patience, Trudeau under siege
All roads lead to Ottawa. This is now the de facto watchword among Canadian truck drivers. In the second largest country in the world, there is a long way to go to get to the capital, but the distance has not frightened the activists of the "Freedom Convoy" at all.
What exactly is happening in Canada? Someone may have heard about it casually in the news or read something on the net, perhaps thanks to some Canadian contacts.
Rows and rows of trucks traveled the streets of the great North American country to bring their protest to Ottawa, renamed "Freedom Convoy" . Started a few days ago, the initiative is enjoying incredible success. A testimony on Twitter speaks of 50,000 trucks queued for 70 kilometers in Winnipeg, all headed to the Canadian capital to bring their anger to the attention of the authorities.
Anger due to the latest restrictions imposed by the increasingly unpopular Trudeau government: the obligation of quarantine for unvaccinated truckers returning to Canada from the United States. But why in Canada and why right now?
Without going into reckless sociological analyzes, the simplest explanation is that Canadians can't take it anymore. Americans like to make fun of their northern neighbors for their patience when it comes to queuing in front of a shop or ticket office and for their exaggerated education. There's a popular joke that if you step on a Canadian's foot, he'll apologize.
Even the peaceful and patient Canadians must have realized that they only have two feet, so there is not much left to apologize for.
Arguably, quarantine for returning truckers was the classic straw that broke a jar that is now full to the brim. Many of them did not like the fact that they were treated as heroes who could keep the Canadian economy on its feet at the beginning of the pandemic, only to be dumped when no longer useful for the liberal government's propaganda.
In Québec, the local government recently decided to penalize those who refuse to be vaccinated with fines. Supermarkets in New Brunswick may at their discretion deny entry to non-vaccinated people even to buy basic necessities. In British Columbia there is the so-called "vaccine card" : without proof of vaccination you are excluded from pubs, restaurants, gyms, and many other activities. It is not enough to have a negative swab or to prove that you have been cured of Covid: no vaccine, no entry . Unvaccinated federal government employees are left without pay, even if they work from home.
It is easy to understand at this point that these are measures that have nothing to do with the protection of public health: it is not clear why in fact those who work remotely should be deprived of wages, as if someone had confused computer viruses and coronavirus .
Just as the obligation of quarantine for unvaccinated truckers appears meaningless, since it is now clear to everyone that vaccinated people can still infect others, vaccinated or not.
The Trudeau government, like the Draghi government in Italy, seems more interested in vaccinating at all costs and making life impossible for those who do not give in, rather than fighting the spread of Covid .
The impression then is that of a karst river that has suddenly emerged channeling, or rather, queuing up in trucks, anger and frustration that had been brewing for some time. On dedicated Telegram channels, activists have been discussing for more than a year now how to oppose the authoritarian drift undertaken by the Trudeau government. Particularly famous is the network “The White Rose” , with international branches.
On the Facebook page of the British Columbia government, there are not a few users who expressed annoyance at the obligation of masks, stressing that a return to normal was promised for the vaccinated. Return that obviously did not take place.
It is therefore no coincidence that many people with banners and signs of support have massed along the roads traveled by truckers to Ottawa, and that demonstrations are also being held in other Canadian cities. It is as if Canadians have awakened from their torpor and have gathered courage to express dissent for too long, which has remained confined between a virtual chat and chat between live friends.
However, a dialogue between the parties appears difficult. On the one hand, thousands of truckers and their supporters gathered in Parliament Hill, where the House Of Commons and the Canadian Senate are based, who promise not to leave until the vaccination obligations are lifted. On the other hand, a government for the moment deaf to every request.
Never before has the leadership of Justin Trudeau, prime minister in a liberal minority government, appeared inadequate as in these situations. Trudeau went into self-isolation (despite a negative Covid test), which immediately sparked the irony of many who believe it is a simple excuse not to confront the protesters. The Canadian prime minister has shown himself to be divisive and punitive, using an approach that even Draghi knows well, going so far as to insult unvaccinated Canadians, accusing them of being unspecified right-wing extremists, misogynists and racists. Gasoline on the fire of a rage now impossible to repress.
The traditional mass media, committed to discrediting the demonstrators for waving a Nazi flag, without providing any contextualization (were they neo-Nazis or demonstrators who wanted to compare the Trudeau government to the Nazi regime?)
Impossible to predict the evolution of events in the coming days. Certainly what we are witnessing is perhaps the largest organized protest against the restrictions related to Covid , to the point that in other countries they are taking note and preparing similar initiatives (American, French, Belgian, Spanish and even Italian truck drivers are warming up their engines ).
Just as it is certain that it is not a small minority of Canadians as claimed by Trudeau, but of thousands of people from all over the nation, who at the moment crowd downtown Ottawa with singing, dancing, fireworks and the roar of truck engines, and which have already raised nearly $ 10 million in donations on GoFundMe , as well as growing international attention.
The post The Freedom Convoy in Ottawa: Canadians lose patience, Trudeau under siege appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/il-freedom-convoy-a-ottawa-i-canadesi-perdono-la-pazienza-trudeau-sotto-assedio/ on Wed, 02 Feb 2022 03:50:00 +0000.