Canada: Trudeau denounces anti-vaccine trucker protests
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has denounced “symbols of hatred and division” that were on display during mass demonstrations by anti-vaccine truckers and their supporters in the capital, Ottawa.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trudeau said that while people have a right to protest, “hate can never be the answer”.
“Over the past few days, Canadians were shocked and frankly disgusted by the behaviour displayed by some people protesting in our nation’s capital,” Trudeau said during a news conference.
“I want to be very clear: We are not intimidated by those who hurl insults and abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless. We won’t give in to those who fly racist flags. We won’t cave to those who engage in vandalism or dishonour the memory of our veterans.”
Participants in the so-called “Freedom Convoy” began arriving in Ottawa on Friday from across the country, and a crowd of thousands marched through the city the next day to denounce a coronavirus vaccine mandate for truckers driving across the Canada-US border.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), a federation of provincial trucking associations that denounced the protest, has said a “vast majority” of Canadian truckers are vaccinated – approximately 85 percent – in line with vaccination rates among the general Canadian population.
While some protesters in Ottawa raised grievances with the mandate and wider pandemic policies, experts last week pointed out that known far-right activists who regularly espouse Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and other hateful views were among the event organisers.
Images shared on social media during the weekend showed protesters waving flags with swastikas on them, as well as US Confederate flags – which civil rights groups say is a symbol of white supremacy.
Global News journalist Marc-Andre Cossette also tweeted a photo of a flag of the Three Percenters, a far-right, anti-government militia that Canada designated as a “terrorist” organisation last year, that was draped to the hood of a truck parked near Parliament Hill.
“To anyone who joined the convoy but is rightly uncomfortable with the symbols of hatred and division on display: join with your fellow Canadians, be courageous and speak out – do not stand for or with intolerance and hate,” Trudeau said on Monday.
Many Canadians also were angered when demonstrators parked vehicles on the site of a monument to fallen soldiers, as well as defaced a statue of Terry Fox, a widely revered, late Canadian athlete who ran across the country in the 1980s to raise money for cancer research after one of his legs was amputated.
Meanwhile, Ottawa residents have complained of incessant honking and restrictions on movement in the downtown area, where many of the protesters have parked their vehicles, while others said they were verbally harassed and intimidated.
“People live in the downtown; they’re sick and tired of the diesel fumes and the honking of the horn. Their kids can’t get to sleep. They feel fearful,” Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said in an interview with CBC News on Monday morning.
“We’ve had a number of occasions where people have been intimidated and yelled at for wearing a mask outside,” Watson said. “It just is illogical. Even their theme of coming here to fight for freedom – you’re fighting against some of the rare tools we have to fight COVID-19.”
Shepherds of Good Hope, a homeless shelter in downtown Ottawa, said in a statement on Sunday that staff and volunteers in its soup kitchen were subjected to “verbal harassment and pressure” from protesters seeking meals.
One member of the shelter community was assaulted by protesters, the shelter said, and a security guard who went to the person’s aid “was threatened and called racial slurs”.
A reporter at the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, Elizabeth Payne, also cited a spokesperson for the Ottawa Paramedic Service as reporting that rocks were thrown at an ambulance and racial slurs were made against the paramedic from a truck that was part of the protest convoy. “Paramedics working downtown asked for police escorts because they didn’t feel safe,” she tweeted .
Ottawa residents have criticised police for their response to the demonstrations, however.
Catherine McKenney, a city councillor, tweeted on Monday morning that she had heard from hundreds of residents “who are tired & frightened at what they are experiencing in their neighbourhoods”. She said she would attend a meeting with city and police officials to raise those concerns.
“And I will say that we need to call on the provincial and federal governments for help. We have been patient but we are fed up. It’s time to get our city back,” she wrote.
In a statement on Sunday, the Ottawa Police Service said the cost of policing the protest is estimated at more than $800,000 Canadian ($628,000) per day, but said “police have avoided ticketing and towing vehicle so as not to instigate confrontations with demonstrators”.
“Police are aware that many demonstrators have announced their intention to stay in place. This will continue to cause major traffic, noise and safety issues in the downtown core. We urge all residents to avoid travel” to the area, it said.
Even before protesters began arriving in Ottawa, organisers openly said their intention was to disrupt day-to-day life in the Canadian capital. They also said the demonstration went beyond the vaccine mandate for truck drivers.
“This is no longer about the mandate any more,” said Jason LaFace, the convoy’s main organiser in Ontario, who is not a trucker, as reported by CityNews last week. “This is about Canada, this is about our rights and how the government’s been manipulating the population and oppressing us all the time.”
Barbara Perry, a professor at Ontario Tech University and director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism, told Al Jazeera last week that the convoy has brought together “anti-vax sentiment, anti-lockdown sentiment, anti-government sentiment – and then even beyond that, the far-right [is] coming into play”.
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There is an alternate seed based on FOX drivel praising the anti-vax bores by their vexed reporters who are vaxxed ... one wonders when these intrepid 'journalists' will trample their employer.
What gives them the right to take food from people who really need it? If they brought their happy asses to Ottawa from all over Canada then they have enough money to go to McDonald's.
Some of our RWNJ with their Confederate flags moved to Canada, and Fox news followed them.
Hate to say this Hallux but I hope that they stay up in the great north. You gave us Cancun Ted so this is payback.
They need to come back home. I don't want them to ruin Canada
Wait till y'all down there realize that Neil Young is a Canadian.
We did at the same time that we realized that Justin Bieber was Canadian.
So was Neil Peart
Morning..for ages I thought his name was Beaver..it was the accent that did it... couldn't stand him anyway...
Then have GoFundMe release the $5 million that was donated.
You say some really stupid stuff but this one is probably your stupidest one today.
Do I look like I have the keys to Go Fund Me?
What good will that do? These morons know full well that masks are mandatory to enter a business that serves the public.
Anything but address the purpose of the protest. Just go straight to denigrating them.
It seems the protestors themselves did everything they could to obscure the reason for the protest
The reason for the protest has been known from the start. But lets ignore that and freak out over something petty.
You would prefer the FOX approach that just goes straight to praising them?
if that's what you want then contact them.
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Not all of the trucks were protesters. Some were just drivers trying to do their jobs and got stuck in the insanity.
The highways and expressways throughout Montreal were full of truckers in far greater numbers doing just that, their jobs.
If the protesting truckers goal wass to alienate as many possible supporters as they could they've succeeded by all epectations. Rolling road blocks on highways, blocking border crossings, causing massive traffic jams in cities across the country, crashing into police blockades and generally behaiving like spoiled children is a surefire way to get people on your side.
Good on PM Trudeau. Anti-vaccers and similar ilk should be denounced, as well as publicly shamed and humiliated. No one should give in to their stupidity and insanity. We'll done sir, well done.
"Images shared on social media during the weekend showed protesters waving flags with swastikas on them, as well as US Confederate flags – which civil rights groups say is a symbol of white supremacy."
Many anti-vaxxers are White-wing haters.