Thousands protest pandemic measures
So much for recent observations that we all calmly accept the curfew and other pandemic measures. A large crowd gathered downtown Saturday afternoon to protest pandemic measures – many without masks, as can be seen in the photo. Signs in the photo claim Covid is a fraud and that we have the right to reject the vaccine (the latter, while a stupid choice, is true).
Update: There were ten arrests and 144 tickets given out at the protest.
Kevin 19:24 on 2021-03-13 Permalink
Lots of the usual suspects among this crowd, including QAnon types. I wonder if the people flying MNLQ flags know what they’ve hoisted.
I would love to know how many in the crowd only come to Montreal to protest.
Tim S. 19:55 on 2021-03-13 Permalink
I think we only escaped the protests because of winter.
Ephraim 20:38 on 2021-03-13 Permalink
The ministry of education’s shame.
qatzelok 22:00 on 2021-03-13 Permalink
Imagine a world where you need to have a parade in order to justify having an opinion on something.
What a high price tag.
GC 22:42 on 2021-03-13 Permalink
I really don’t get the “tired of the restrictions” argument. A) Who isn’t tired of them? B)The virus doesn’t care how you feel about it.
qatzelok 09:52 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
The virus “not caring about anyone or anything” sounds a lot like the fascist governments of the past.
Kate 09:58 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
It’s simply a fact, qatzelok. It doesn’t. These protesters have lost the thread – the restrictions are not about them, and if they have been led to believe that the restrictions are being put in place for some nefarious other reason, they have been misled.
Occam’s razor. There’s a dangerous pathogen in the community so we have to adapt our behaviour not to get sick or risk making others sick. It’s so simple, but some people are too thick to grasp it.
GC 10:12 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Thanks proving my point, qatzelok. You sound as ridiculous as anyone who assigns political motivations to a virus.
Meezly 10:21 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
So there are those who think the QC pandemic measures are too strict and those who think the measures aren’t proactive enough. But Legault is as popular ever.
So it seems that either side must be in the minority then!
Em 10:51 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
As someone who has diligently respected every restriction and guideline, I don’t think it’s right to brand people as idiots for questioning the restrictive measures placed on them, and whether they have yielded enough result to justify them.
Bill Binns 10:53 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
The problem with this pandemic is that it’s largely invisible. If people were collapsing at the IGA and choking on their own blood while seizing, people would be happy to walk around in full hazmat suits 24/7. Instead, the vast majority of the people who have died had already been placed in storage by their families years ago to await death. Well, death arrived but roughly 12-24 months early. The government and the media are bending over backwards to avoid the truth of this.
Fwiw, I don’t agree with the protesters at all but I understand why they are out there. Young people are being asked to sacrifice some of the most important years of their lives to preserve some of the least important years (or months) of the elderly population. It is sort of gratifying to finally see a street protest that the regular commenters here can’t get behind though. I look forward to the demands for the cops to get tough when these folks start tossing Molotov cocktails and smashing shop windows.
Daniel 11:08 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
I do feel for the people who have lost livelihoods or whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the measures put in place. I won’t get this year(+) back either. I am fortunate in many ways, but it still sucks. And I do think many measures could have been done better (whether stricter or looser).
But, wow. Watching the march go past our place with the Trump(?!) flags and the American(?!) flags and anti-5G placards (sigh) and other flags I’m probably lucky not to recognize, if there were sympathetic protestors in the lot, they were mixed in with a lot of people who did not remotely spark my sympathy.
Chris 11:48 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Article says: “The assembled crowd numbered in the thousands for the protest, which was the largest held since the pandemic began.” Really? It was bigger than the BLM protest in summer 2020?
>if there were sympathetic protestors in the lot, they were mixed in with a lot of people who did not remotely spark my sympathy
Hmmm, isn’t that rather analogous to saying “I’m not sympathetic to the BLM movement because of the antifa crowd smashing things.”?
>There’s a dangerous pathogen in the community so we have to adapt our behaviour not to get sick or risk making others sick. It’s so simple…
Umm, it’s not that simple. “Dangerous” is not binary, and neither is adaptation. The virus is not infinitely dangerous and adaptation is not without negative side effects. The balance is anything but simple.
Blork 11:50 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
“I don’t think it’s right to brand people as idiots for questioning the restrictive measures placed on them…”
I don’t think so either. We should always be questioning. I’m branding these people as idiots because they DON’T question. They don’t question the ridiculous QAnon, pro-Trump, anti-5G, (etc.) conspiracy bullshit that seems to be the predominant theme at work here. They don’t question their own “question authority” ethic, they just do it robotically because they think they already know the answer. That’s not questioning, that’s sheepling.
I’m sure some of the protesters were there simply to express their frustration with how the measures have affected their lives, and that’s legit. But what’s the proportion of those people to the idiots? If the ratio is any higher than 2:1 (legit:idiot) then the idiots have ruined it for the others.
Blork 12:16 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Chris: “Hmmm, isn’t that rather analogous to saying “I’m not sympathetic to the BLM movement because of the antifa crowd smashing things.”?”
No, it’s analogous to saying “I’m not going to join that particular protest because it’s been co-opted by people who like to break things.” It’s not about what you believe or support, it’s about the specific protest and whether or not you want to join.
It’s like if I were against the building of settlements in Israel on disputed territory, and the protest about that was clearly overrun with neo-Nazis, well I’m not going to join that protest. But it doesn’t change how I feel about the issue.
Chris 12:28 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Blork, I think we’re saying mostly the same thing here. I’m saying you can’t tar and feather everyone in any protest just because of the ones that the media likes to pay attention to, which is always the most violent/extreme/weird. Indeed the legit:idiot ratio matters. Do we know what it was? Three photos in a couple of articles doesn’t convince me. There are plenty of articles out there that make the BLM protests look like mostly antifa, but that doesn’t make it so.
Tee Owe 13:39 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
@anybody – I need to know – what is antifa? Can I join? Where do I find them/it – is there a website? Or is this just more left/right binary nonsense?
Chris 14:42 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Tee Owe, getting off topic now, but just in case you’re asking seriously: It’s generally horizontally organized, into cell structures so you’re not going to find a single authoritative website, but rather many websites. There’s no single group. Search ‘montreal antifa’ and you’ll find a few. The first result (for me) is a website that actually has an article about their opposition to the covid curfew, bringing this sorta back on topic!
Tee Owe 15:11 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Thanks Chris – it was a serious question, maybe phrased with a bit of an eyebrow-raise. Never sure what to believe.
Kate 16:58 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Tee Owe, antifa isn’t an organization, it’s just a word that characterizes actions against fascist groups. In a sense, it’s simply a term loosely meaning the people who would feel a need to respond to overt fascist activities. The first time I saw it used here in Montreal was when a right‑wing group (Pégida Québec) was threatening to hold a march through the Little Maghreb neighbourhood and plans were being made for a counter-action. That was 2015 or 2016, I think. In the event, the march was never held.
Before that I had understood “antifa” to be a term used in Europe, although in which countries, I couldn’t tell you. Pégida was also a European import and I haven’t seen the name used here lately, although right-wing groups have not gone away.
Tee Owe 17:24 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
Thanks Kate – sort of supports my left/right suspicion – anti-fa = not-right = left. I am nervous about anything binary, can often find aspects of both sides to agree with – or, why Bill Binns is not always wrong (apologies for the ad hominen, but it’s well-meant). Off-topic too but where else to post this. Thanks for the blog!
MarcG 21:10 on 2021-03-14 Permalink
https://miro.medium.com/max/700/0*NuUfYTApeku7mgIt
Chris 15:58 on 2021-03-15 Permalink
MarcG: sure, but that’s not an argument *for* the extra-judicial violence advocated by most self-identifying antifa.
Tee Owe: there’s a whole wiki article, for what it’s worth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)
MarcG 20:23 on 2021-03-15 Permalink
But it is an argument against enlightened centrism.