Trucker protest: support here
There was a mini protest in Montreal on Sunday in support of the Ottawa protest. Some drivers just wanted to get together and honk a lot, I think.
François Legault has spoken of his desire to tendre la main to these protesters. He spoke of the importance of trucking, while he must know that the majority of truck drivers simply want to get on with doing their jobs. But Legault also knows that the populist end of his voting base is in tune with some of the ideas being expressed in Ottawa.
Our politicians need to understand the anti-vaxxers, the anti-science people, even the Trump supporters and Nazis that have turned out in Ottawa. It would be foolish to ignore the groundswell of bad ideas coming from social media and percolating up from the United States. But understanding it, finding ways to counter it when necessary, is a far cry from holding out a hand to them.
Joey 10:45 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Legault can talk about “tendre la main” as much as he pleases – between Quebec’s various pandemic restrictions and the looming unvaxxed tax, he’s doing considerably more than Justin Trudeau to ‘restrict their freedom’. Perhaps he’s just better at being a politician than JT….
Ephraim 11:42 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Let’s see, there were Confederate flags, Gadsden flags, Nazi flags, Trump flags, desecrated flags, upside-down flags, and hate Trudeau flags. There were members of the National Socialist Black Metal. And desecration of the Terry Fox statue as well as both war memorials in Ottawa. Not to mention that they were anonymously donating to the cause… it all smacks of the HATE movements. And if you don’t quickly move to exclude those flags and support of hate… you are accepting it. I have absolutely NO SYMPATHY for this group, because they didn’t act to exclude HATE.
What do they say in Germany? If you have a Nazi at the table and no one says a word, you have a table of Nazis.
Kate 11:58 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Ephraim, as Christopher Curtis tweeted yesterday, If people show up to your rally with swastikas and an actual Nazi flag and they aren’t immediately shouted down/kicked out, it’s their rally.
Meezly 12:19 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
I sincerely wish if it were that simple. The far right has become so adept at disinformation, they’d frame it as the feds planting fake Nazis and extremists to sow doubt.
I was surprised to learn that parents I know who live here traveled with their kids to the Ottawa rally. They’re educated professionals and their photos showed a family-friendly event with Canada/PQ flags being waved.
I wonder if the cognitive dissonance is also so strong that if they saw Nazis supporting the same cause they believe in, they’d still find a reason to explain away why they’re in the same company as them.
Ephraim 12:47 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
@Kate – Exactly. That’s why the donations were made anonymously. That’s why they didn’t act to curtail their actions. And the CPC supported it all…. they are also complicit.
js 13:00 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
On Reddit someone in Ottawa counted the trucks in the convoy. It was only about 150. This thing is just more fleecing of the rubes.
denpanosekai 13:08 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
I saw entirely too many “Freedom” pickup trucks in Lasalle over the weekend.
Blork 14:36 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
I wish we could get a data set a few months down the road that would reliably track how many infections were a direct and indirect result of this shitshow.
More important: how many hospitalizations, how many deaths, how many tangential deaths due to overwhelmed hospitals and suspended surgeries, how many front-line worker burnouts, etc.
I doubt we’ll ever see that, but it would make for a revealing documentary in a year or two.
Phil from Frelighsberg 14:57 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Great to see people fighting against repression. Glad to see people speaking up against the tyranny in Quebec and Canada. One step at a time to get the politicians listening to the message that we want our freedom back.
Tee Owe 15:22 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’ – it’s all yours Phil
MarcG 15:36 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Phil: Can we assume that you’re willfully refusing to be vaccinated and the freedoms you’ve lost involve the passport requirement?
MarcG 15:39 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
The freedoms that I’ve lost in the past 2 years are lost because there’s a virus circulating, not because of the government.
Blork 16:09 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Further to MarcG’s point, the freedoms I’ve lost have been due to a deadly pandemic, and they CONTINUE to be lost because too many people refuse to chip in and assume their fair share of masking, isolation, and vaccine in order to remove the source of the loss of freedom (the virus).
walkerp 16:21 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Somebody plop the pacifier back in Phil’smouth.
Kevin 16:47 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Phil which is not your real name,
Like I said before, you know grifters better than anyone else. Why are you supporting this group of conmen?