Clayton McAllister, a truck driver from London, Ontario, attended The Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa, joining many others in a movement that began in early 2022. The convoy was organized by truck drivers protesting the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers and other pandemic restrictions.
As participants drove to Ottawa in late January to demand an end to the mandates and a restoration of personal freedoms, the protest quickly gained momentum. Big rig trucks blocked downtown Ottawa streets, creating significant disruptions and attracting widespread attention. The demonstration lasted for weeks before the government invoked the Emergencies Act in mid-February, granting law enforcement sweeping powers to clear protestors and remove the blockades.
McAllister did not attend the protest as a truck driver, but went to show support for the truckers’ cause. Driving his pickup truck and trailer loaded with donated food and supplies, he planned to stay for only two days. However, after witnessing the mainstream media’s portrayal of protestors as “terrorists,” McAllister felt compelled to remain longer. He argued that this characterization was “not the case at all.”
Arrested shortly after the Emergencies Act was invoked, McAllister faced charges of mischief, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace. Recalling the day of his arrest, he described how, after police began moving in, he lay down in front of them in the snow before being taken into custody. He was placed in a paddy wagon and left there for eight hours, denied access to a lawyer. Eventually, he was driven out of town and dropped off at a gas station with his phone battery almost dead.
Adding to the ordeal, police seized the keys to McAllister’s truck, which was parked in downtown Ottawa, leaving him unable to retrieve it. Two days later, he watched on TV as officers smashed the windows of his truck before it was towed away. Later, McAllister discovered that all of his bank accounts had been frozen.
Nearly two and a half years later, McAllister received a major victory when the Crown notified his lawyer that all charges against him would be withdrawn. Initially, the Crown offered McAllister a peace bond, with a restriction preventing him from attending any protest, gathering, or rally with more than 25 people for one year.
McAllister rejected the offer, standing firm on his belief that “I’m not giving in to being silenced—that’s the main principle I’m fighting for.” The Crown returned with a revised offer—a peace bond without protest restrictions, provided McAllister wrote a 100-word paragraph explaining the difference between a political protest and criminal mischief. McAllister accepted this offer.
In February of this year, federal court judge Justice Richard G. Mosley ruled that the invocation of the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional. This landmark decision triggered a wave of lawsuits against the federal government, with McAllister joining 19 other plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking $2 million in damages each. The federal government has filed an appeal challenging Justice Mosley’s decision.
McAllister’s lawyer, Ian McCuaig, spoke with The Canadian Independent, expressing satisfaction with the verdict and noting that “Mr. McAllister is happy, and that is a measure of success.” McCuaig emphasized McAllister’s strong defense, which centered on multiple Charter violations.
He argued that McAllister’s rights had been repeatedly breached, including violations of his section 10 rights, as he was denied access to a lawyer and had his property unlawfully seized. Additionally, McCuaig cited unlawful detention and a breach of section 7, pointing out that McAllister had been “driven against his will to a remote location and abandoned.” These violations, McCuaig contended, made “a compelling argument for a stay of proceedings.”
McCuaig also highlighted the importance of the outcome in preserving McAllister’s section 2 rights, which guarantee freedom of movement and association. “His right to engage in protected expression was not compromised,” McCuaig said, adding, “That was a priority for me, as someone who values those rights dearly.”
DORCHESTER, ONTARIO, September 21, 2024. A number of CAFE supporters and CAFE Director Paul Fromm attended a fundraiser for political prisoner Clayton McAllister at a barn here tonight. CAFE contributed $200 to Mr. McAllister’s defence fund.
Clayton was the first trucker arrested at the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa in February, 2022, when Trudeau brought in the police state Emergencies Act to deal with a parking problem! His non-violent resistance where he lay down in front of the Police Officers was an iconic photo seen internationally. He was arrested and faces charges of mischief, violating a Court order, trespass and resisting arrest. The torrent of charges are the acts of a vengeful state against a gentle non-violent trucker. His one month long trial opens in Ottawa, October 21, 2024. The fundraiser was held in a huge barn. Over a hundred people enjoyed an all-you-can-eat dinner, followed by line dancing and entertainment by the Kristin Nicholls country rock band.
Garbage bins of trucker convoy signs were in front of Parliament Hill after it had been cleared of protesters. Photo by Adam Huras/Parliament Hill files
On Jan. 29, 2022, a trucker convoy headed down to the Coutts, Alta., border crossing with the U.S. to protest the COVID-19 vaccine mandates the Trudeau government had put in place. The protest turned into a full-scale blockade that lasted 17 days. Two of the protest leaders, Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and mischief, accusations that were hard to credit given the context of the event. They remained in custody for 723 days, during 74 of which Morin was in solitary confinement. Finally, after their lawyer filed a Charter of Rights application to examine the case, the Crown suddenly accepted
Contrast this with the recent case of a mother and her child fatally stabbed in a horrific random attack outside an Edmonton school. Despite a long history of violence, the accused killer had been released on bail 18 days before their murders.
In addition to the two Coutts truckers, the federal government has been persecuting Tamara Lich, who had journeyed from across the country to serve as an organizer and spokesperson for a truckers protest in Ottawa that began Jan. 29, 2022, and ended with the Trudeau government’s implementation of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14.
Lich, an Indigenous grandmother from Alberta, was arrested and charged with “obstructing police, counselling others to commit mischief, and intimidation.” It’s hard to imagine how this petite, soft-spoken woman could “obstruct police or intimidate” anyone.
Handcuffed between two towering federal police officers, Lich was put in solitary confinement in a dungeon-like cell with a tiny window five metres above her head.
She spent two weeks in jail and was then released on bail with orders not to communicate with anyone associated with the convoy. Later that summer, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms selected her as the recipient of its annual “George Jonas Freedom Award for advancing and preserving freedom in our country.” At the awards ceremony in Toronto, she was photographed with another person associated with the convoy and as a result was re-arrested. After serving another 30 days in prison, she was again released on bail after a different judge ruled there had been “no significant interaction” with the other convoy member.
Meanwhile in Ontario, Randal McKenzie, a habitual offender charged with weapons violations and assaulting a police officer, was set free on bail with no conditions other than periodically reporting to his parole officer. He was subsequently charged in the shooting death of Ontario Provincial Police Constable Greg Pierzchala.
The Canadian Criminal Code states: “Persons who are charged with an offence are constitutionally entitled to be released from custody unless Crown Counsel is able to justify their continued detention … including consideration of the background of the accused and risk to the public.” It’s inconceivable that Lich could be considered a risk to anyone.
The trials of Tamara Lich and convoy co-organizer Chris Barber finally began in September of last year. The federal Crown Prosecutor, presumably aware the government wanted to teach the convoy protesters a lesson, had already stated he would seek a prison sentence of 10 years — a sentence given only for very serious violent assaults by habitual criminals.
The trial was originally expected to finish Oct. 15 but is taking much longer. After adjourning in December, it restarted in January, though for only one day. A shortage of available court time makes its completion date uncertain.
Tamara Lich, Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin spent a combined total of 767 days in jail — despite not having been convicted of anything. Meanwhile, Canada’s bail laws continue to allow habitually violent offenders loose after just a few days in custody.
One of the fundamental cornerstones separating a democracy from a dictatorship is the prohibition of government interference in the judicial process. But what else can explain the stark discrepancy between the Crown’s treatment of the non-violent convoy leaders and its pervasive and persistent empathy for habitual criminals and even murderers.
Even Canadians who didn’t agree with the trucker convoy’s message or methods should be concerned by the obvious disparity in their treatment at the hands of the legal system. It’s something to ponder as we await the news of yet another murder or egregious assault by a violent offender released on bail that we all know will come only too soon.
OAKVILLE, ONTARIO, May 13, 2023. Over 300 people, many veterans of last last year’s Truckers Freedom Convoy rallied here this evening. There was great fellowship, dancing and renewed commitment to fight tyranny, mandates and Globalism, and, above all, the totalitarian regime of Justin Trudeau.
On Family Day, a celebration called Family Fringy Day took place on a private farm somewhere between Hamilton and Cambridge, Ont.
The guest of honour: Christine Anderson, the German MEP, who is a quite the celebrity in some circles in Canada given her on-going criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Given the freedom fighters in attendance, Anderson was unsurprisingly given a hero’s welcome at the farm when she arrived as a passenger in a big rig. She was greeted with cheers and was quite moved by the display of both Canadian and German flags.
This primary purpose of the event was meant to commemorate last year’s Ottawa Freedom Convoy. At first blush, it seemed odd that this gathering took place on a private farm closer to Steeltown than our capital city. But then again, we’ve seen how the Trudeau Liberals react to peaceful protests that run contrary to their censorious agenda.
Which is to say, this government has no problem fining, arresting, and freezing the bank accounts of Canadians in order to shut down demonstrations that they dislike. Alas, it would appear that freedom of expression in Canada is on the endangered species list; many Liberals, no doubt, would like to see it extinct.
While we would like to report that a good time was had by all, when it comes to those on the left who look upon freedom as the new “f-word”, such celebrations are… triggering.
Case in point: check out the jaw-dropping story in Cambridge Today headlined, “Cambridge MP condemns ‘Fringy’ Family Day as dangerous.”
Dangerous? What in the world qualifies a peaceful gathering as “dangerous” in the weird mind of Liberal MP Bryan May?
Nevertheless, May questioned the “true intent” of Family Fringy Day and what it was trying to achieve.
May said:
From the very beginning, the Ottawa occupation and blockades were about anti-government sentiment, more specifically anti-Liberal and anti-Trudeau.
Gracious! Anti-government and anti-Liberal and anti-Trudeau sentiment? Yes, that was the very point of the protest.
It should come as no surprise that May, a loyal Trudeau trained seal, is so tone-deaf. During the outrageous response to the pandemic these past few years, people lost their homes and their jobs and their businesses and were also coerced into taking an experimental vaccine. And May wonders why demonstrators were “anti-Liberal” and “anti-Trudeau”? Give us a break.
No surprise that MP May not only condemned Family Fringy Day but also took a pot-shot at Anderson in his Cambridge Today interview. May stated that Anderson’s “ideology runs contrary to Canadian values.”
Really? Like what?
Luckily, we were able to conduct an interview with Anderson in order to receive a rebuttal to May’s nonsense. She also had plenty to say about the Canadian freedom movement.
Check out our exclusive interview with this German politician who has the courage to call out corruption and chicanery.
In recognition of the incredible national & international effect Canadian truckers have had for freedom, supported all over the world, we are remembering their contributions and sacrifices on the 1st anniversary of their arrival in Ottawa earlier this year on January 28.
Join us on January 28, 2023 at McCurdy Corner in Kelowna, B.C. for an all-day convoy in the B.C. Interior!!
We need a truly independent inquiry – not some committee where the arbitrator is appointed and the terms and conditions set out by the Prime Dictator of Canada.
The dangers of digital gov’t ID and currencies are here… you need to use cash.
Withdraw money on Sunday from the bank machine, and then leave your money at home if you are scared to carry it with you, and just carry the amounts of cash for each day’s purchases for the week.
NO MORE CARDS!!!! NO EXCUSES!
USE CASH $$$$$$$$$
————————————–
Contact Unity Health & Sciences Team to volunteer to distribute their professional brochures and Medical Doctor Packages throughout your home area, and to your medical doctor!
Not every doctor, analyst, and specialist is on the gov’t side and many have strong science and personal experiences opposing the gov’t narrative.
Even though COVID-19 restrictions are, for the most part, no longer in effect, other freedom issues have arisen as gov’ts use the cover of COVID-19 to introduce other more formidable liberty restrictions, including privacy violations.
Freedom is a multi-generational struggle – our legacy is to leave a better place for our children, not simply to quit after an issue appears to be over and anger diminishes; and of course, it rarely is truly over.
We urge you to provide designs (clear2012@pm.me) and/or your own signs for upcoming threats, including Digital ID
Further confirmation the Liberals were never acting in good faith.
As we know, the Liberal government and much of the establishment media were desperate to cast the Freedom Convoy as “Canada’s January 6th.”
This stemmed in part from the fact that many in this country filter every event through the lens of the United States, and from the fact that the Liberal government clearly felt they could benefit from it politically.
Also, if Canadians perceived the Freedom Convoy as an ‘insurrection,’ the Liberals would be able to further expand government power.
We could seem the trying to will their fantasy into reality, with Trudeau using purposely divisive rhetoric and the Liberals almost goading convoy participants into more and more aggressive
When that didn’t work, the Liberals decided to use the Emergencies Act anyway, likely believing that using emergency powers would convince many Canadians that it must have been an emergency situation.
The Liberals would like you to think they were acting in good faith and only used the Act as the ‘last resort.’
But now, more evidence has emerged showing the Liberals were plotting to frame the convoy as ‘extremist’ before it even arrived in Ottawa: https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=SpencerFernando&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-px
In case you have trouble loading the Tweet above, a photo of the Trudeau PMO conversation is below:
This is quite demonstrative of the attitude of the Liberals.
Look at this line in particular:
“I think there could be an opportunity to get in on this growing narrative of the truckers.”
“Growing narrative.”
“Get in on.”
Even before anyone arrived, the Liberals were planning to demonize Convoy participants as extremists.
And the “LRB” referenced in the text refers to the Liberal Research Bureau:
“Power references the Liberal Research Bureau doing research into the convoy’s backers. This is the partisan operations wing under the auspices of the Liberal party, not the federal government.
The Liberals were never acting in good faith
Now, it’s not a surprise to us that the Liberals were never acting in good faith during the convoy.
And why would it be?
The policies that led to the Convoy itself were bad faith policies.
Remember, Justin Trudeau had at one point said Canada wouldn’t mandate vaccinations, and seemed to express concern about making vaccination status a wedge issue.
But then, the Liberals started to fear they were going to lose the 2021 federal election, and all of Trudeau’s ‘principles’ flew out the window.
He ran on a deeply divisive and cynical campaign of demonizing unvaccinated Canadians, and then imposed a vaccine mandate on truckers for what seemed like purely punitive reasons.
Having pushed so many Canadians into such a horrible situation, Trudeau and the Liberal government then demonized them and tried to provoke them.
This is what Canadians must understand:
The Freedom Convoy was a reaction to a government that had tried to rob people of their livelihoods and that had purposely sought to turn Canadians against each other. And instead of listening, instead of being open to the perspective of Canadians who disagreed with him, Trudeau instead tried to use the Convoy as a pretext for grabbing even more power.
Whatever our political views may be, we should have zero tolerance for our ‘leaders’ so willfully dividing Canadians in such a brazen and cynical manner.
Submission by the Canadian Association for Free Expression to the Public Order Emergency Commission, Inquiry into the Invocation of the Emergencies Act
SUMMARY:
The Act is only to be invoked when all other measures have failed or when there are no other means or powers to solve a very serious emergency. The three week Truckers Freedom Convoy protest may have been a nuisance, an embarrassment, and affront to the Government but it was scarcely a dire crisis. It was a political problem which should have been solved by political means. These were never tried.
INTRODUCTION:
1. The Canadian Association for Free Expression Inc. (CAFE) is a non-profit educational organization incorporated under Letters Patent in Ontario in 1983. It’s brief is to promote the value of freedom of speech and to come to the support of those attacked for the non-violent expression of their political religious or artistic views. In pursuit of this goal CAFE has intervened in numerous legal and human rights cases over the years in Ontario, British Columbia and New Brunswick. http://cafe.nfshost.com
2. I wish to offer my observations on the freedom protests which led to the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy and which continue today in many cities across Canada, albeit with fewer numbers than before. This first hand and extensive experience may prove useful to the inquiry.
3. I am a veteran of close to 100 freedom protests in 18 different Canadian cities in two provinces from April, 2020 to the present. Those cities are: Ottawa (m), Toronto(m), Mississauga, Burlington (m), Hamilton (m), Brantford (m), Simcoe, London, Stratford, Niagara Falls (m), Niagara-on-the-Lake, Burlington (m), Kelowna (m), Penticton (m), Oliver, Osoyoos (m), and Vancouver. [(m) indicates many times.]
BACKGROUND TO THE END THE LOCKDOWN RALLIES & THE TRUCKERS’ FREEDOM CONVOY
4. The reactions of the federal, and the various provincial and territorial and municipal governments to the crisis caused by COVID (despite its 99.7% survival rate) resulted in the greatest restriction of the rights of Canadians at least since the Second World War.
5. At various times, gatherings were limited or restricted, businesses declared non-essential and ordered closed, persons forbidden to practise their faith by gathering to worship. For months, the Province of Quebec was placed under curfew.
6. People were compelled in many circumstances to wear masks. For months, people could not fly on Canadian airlines without showing proof of vaccination. A person’s right to determine what is introduced into his/her body (a vaccine) was negated. People were blackmailed into being vaccinated in order to keep or get a job. Thousands, including many medical people and civil servants were fired or put on unpaid leave of absence, if they wouldn’t take the vaccine or if they wouldn’t reveal their vaccination status [over 400 municipal workers in my home of Hamilton alone].
7. Pastors who felt a higher calling — to heed the Biblical injunction for the People of God to worship together communally — were, in some provinces, jailed or heavily fined. The Church of Aylmer Ontario Pastor Henry Hildebrandt was actually padlocked and chained closed by police.
8. Canadians who dissented from these measures as being wrong or an over-reaction to a virus were reviled in most the press and by most politicians as “conspiracy theorists” or selfish people who didn’t care if they killed grandma.
THE END THE LOCKDOWN PROTESTS & THE TRUCKERS’ FREEDOM CONVOY
9. Thus, starting in Vancouver in mid-March, 2020, spreading to Toronto the next weekend and then to cities and even towns across Canada was the largest mass protest in living memory. People frustrated by the various COVID restrictions and the deafness of most politicians gathered to stand up for their individual rights and freedoms. Theirs was very much a freedom protest.
10. At the July 1, 2020 Dominion Day rally on Parliament Hill, the sound of “”freedom, freedom” from a sea of Canadian flags and Red Ensigns was answered by “liberte, liberte” from a sea of Quebec blue fleur de lys flags and a few patriote flag from the rebellion of 1837. At a support rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto, the second Saturday of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy gathering in Ottawa, I met a man wearing a Polish flag as a cape. We got talking and he explained his presence succinctly: “As a youth in Poland I marched with Solidarity for freedom; today, in Canada, I march for freedom in my new homeland. Both countries are threatened by totalitarianism.”
11. These protests became weekly events in cities across Canada and in many places continue to this day. There has grown a dedicated freedom movement from coast to coast. The weekly nature of these rallies and their persistence for more than two and a half years is unprecedented. There is outrage and dedication fuelling the freedom movement, outrage at the casual ways politicians and even bureaucrats and businesses have stomped on individual rights, and disillusionment with most politicians who were mute or went along with these violations as did most of the media.
12. In the 18 cities where I have attended these freedom rallies, I have never witnessed violence. Indeed, the atmosphere, as it was for much of the truckers’ three week protest in Ottawa, more resembled a 1960s era “happening”. People at these rallies, almost to a man or woman, were unmasked. Social distancing, of course, was not practised. People hugged and embraced complete strangers. Mary Lou Gutscher, a former leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada, greets all who attend the Sunday rallies in Penticton with a hug.
13. People revelled in practising the freedoms that had been banned. In Toronto, for months a Chinese lady brought her home baking and generously shared with one and all. Small groups of various faiths prayed together with their co-religionists. There might be brief speeches and often music and dancing.
14. These rallies brought together people from various points on the political spectrum. I encountered people who had voted Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green and People’s Party in recent elections. What united people was a deeply felt sense of the loss of their freedom and frustration at a dismissive and unresponsive political class and a largely sneering media which, when it wasn’t ignoring these protests, demonized and dismissed participants as conspiracy theorists or anti-vaxxers. It was more complicated.
15. The disappointment and anger at the loss of freedom was what united people. Some, like followers of Pastor Henry Hildebrandt whom I met a Toronto rallies, were dismayed at the trampling of their right to practise their faith. Others opposed the forced closure of businesses. Some opposed all vaccinations on religious or medical grounds. More were skeptical of the vaccines introduced in late 2020 which had been developed, as President Trump said, “at warp speed”.
16. Many in 2020 worried about forced vaccination. Prime Minister Trudeau had said vaccination would be voluntary, but people noticed how policies changed from day to day. Early in 2020, Dr. Teresa Tam had said masks were of little use. My late Spring, masks were advisable and by Autumn, in many places, compulsory. Many at the rallies feared the same would be the case for COVID vaccines and, indeed, their fears came true.
17. Most people at the rallies were Old Stock Canadians or quebecois de souche in Quebec. Nevertheless, the rallies attracted a number of native Indians, people from Asia, Blacks and some Sikhs. (Many Sikhs are involved in small trucking firms.)
18. Many people at the rallies were furthered in their doubts about the various restrictive mandates by the unequal way in which they were applied. They noted that Prime Minister Trudeau had ignored social distancing and taken a knee at a large Black Lives Rally in Ottawa in June, 2020. Perhaps, the ever-present danger of COVID had taken a holiday that day so that the large gathering could occur. The then Toronto Chief of Police took a knee in a large crowd in the lobby of Toronto Police Headquarters. In June, 2020, a family of London Muslims was run over by a man in a truck. Various federal and provincial politicians, including Premier Ford and Prime Minister Trudeau, attended a large outdoor memorial, again in apparent defiance of mandates on the size of gatherings.
WHAT THE END THE LOCKDOWN FOLKS AND THE TRUCKERS’ FREEDOM CONVOY WANTED
19. When the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy began to take shape early in January, 2022, it was initially to oppose a new order to compel cross border truckers to be vaccinated. The convoy received enthusiastic support from dissenters across the country. It grew in size and its message was an end to all COVID mandates. At numerous rallies in January, I heard great enthusiasm for the convoy as the spearhead of the discontent with COVID restrictions.
20. People protest to get attention for their cause. There was a widespread disillusionment with being ignored by almost all politicians and most of the media when it wasn’t smearing the End the Lockdown and freedom rallies. It was hard to contact MPs. Few were available; many constituency offices were close. The universal excuse was COVID.
21. The goal of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy was to be heard. They wanted the politicians in Ottawa to pay attention to them and to listen to their concerns.
22. One criticism made as the truckers converged on Ottawa was that they wanted to overthrow and replace the Trudeau government. Allegedly, they hoped to get the Senate and protest representatives with the Governor General to depose Justin Trudeau and form a new government. This foolish plan was the brain child of a tiny faction. Few people at the support rallies I attended had even heard of it and no one agreed. It was obviously unconstitutional and wildly impractical. There was no evidence even one senator agreed. The Governor-General is a creature of Ottawa politics and the federal civil service. That she would so rock the boat as to be part of such a plan is preposterous. Virtually nothing more was heard of this after the truckers arrived in Ottawa.
23. Along the way, from coast to coast, people rallied to feed and cheer the convoy on its way. Mostly, it was bitter cold. The crowds were huge. In Hamilton, a welcome rally was planned for Thursday morning, January 27. It was brutally cold. I expected the organizers would be lucky to muster 200 people to greet the convoy coming up from Niagara. In fact, almost 2,000 people lined roads and snow banks cheering and singing and waving Canadian flags. Station wagons drove up and gave boxes of food and bottled water to the truckers. I followed the convoy along the Queen Elizabeth Way to Mississauga. On every overpass, there were between 30 and 300 people, sometimes even coming down the ramp to the highway, waving flags and cheering the convoy. They had waited for over an hour in what was a frigid wind tunnel. Others told me this was the pattern all to way to Ottawa. There was huge grassroots support for the convoy.
THE REACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT
24. There has long been a rift in Canada between what is sometimes called the Laurentian Elite — the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto Axis and much of the rest of the country, especially small town-rural-small city Canada. Many in the latter group believe they are looked down on as unsophisticated, backward people who must be directed and led, for their own good, of course.
25. The demarcation lines are not perfect, of course. Many of the freedom protesters came from big cities, like Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal.
26. Perhaps, a hint of the reaction of much of Canada’s political class occurred in the wake of the first End the Lockdown ally in Toronto in late March, 2020. Premier Doug Ford dismissed the protesters as “a bunch of yahoos.” He had headed the populist Ford Nation and ridden to victory in the 2018 provincial election on a wave of populism. Ford Nation was to die from the totalitarian restrictions and lockdowns imposed by the premier is response to COVID.
27. As the convoy gathered and headed toward Ottawa, the reactions of the government were hostile and abusive. This was not very astute nor fair, passing judgments on people the Prime Minister had never met. Surely, in Canada’s system of representative government an MP must listen to his/her constituents and attempt to represent their views as best as possible, but at the very least the MP should respectfully listen. The same obligation falls upon the First Minister, who spectacularly did not listen.
28. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who refused to meet the truckers, denounced them as a “fringe group”, with “unacceptable” views, who were “misogynistic” and racist and adherents of unscientific ideas. These accusations were made before the convoy even got to Ottawa. This was quite a blast at a group he hadn’t met! There was also much fretting about “violence”. There was much talk of bigotry and “hate”, although the issue of the truckers and their supporters was regaining freedom and an end to government mandates.
29. These accusations were false. As I have indicated, I noticed no violence or threats of violence at the close to 100 freedom rallies I’ve attended. Police testimony already before the Inquiry indicates there was remarkably little violence resulting from a three weeks protest by such a large crowd.
30. Representative government is imperilled when only certain views are deemed “acceptable” to even be heard. Similarly, whether an opinion is that of the majority or a minority (hence, perhaps, “fringe”) it should be heard. The government is loud in its loyalty to “diversity” and “inclusion”. [It even has a Ministry of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion.] One might hope that diversity and inclusion would apply to ideas as well.
32. The smear of “misogyny” was especially offensive and ludicrous. Women played a key role in the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy. One of the major organizers was Tamara Lich, who raised over $10-million in a Go Fund Me appeal within just a few weeks in January. It was subsequently stolen [that is, all but about $1-million, by a judge’s order did not go to the intended recipients, the truckers.] Women were often the majority at End the Lockdown rallies. Indeed, David Lindsay leader of the weekly C.L.E.A.R.-BC freedom protests in Kelowna said to me in the Fall of 2020: “Where are the guys? Seventy per cent of our supporters at these rallies are women.”
33. It would seem that the Prime Minister, much of the political class and many in the media sought to marginalize the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy with a torrent of baseless weaponized words.
34. The Prime Minister, instead of being open to hearing the convoy’s concerns, refused to meet with them and oozed a visceral disdain and contempt for them. In July, 2021, during the federal election the Prime Minister made a startling remark in French that was not reported in the English language press until January of 2022. The Toronto Sun (January 6, 2022) reported his comment: ““They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?”So, far from negotiation, the Prime Minister questioned whether COVID dissenters should even be tolerated. With such visceral rejection we may see why the Emergencies Act was invoked to smash the uprising of people he saw, in Hillary Clinton’s words, as “deplorables.”
35. Further to the Prime Minister’s mindset, in an article entitled “Convoy was no ‘occupation'”, Ottawa writer Rupa Subramanya says: “In the ultimate analysis, the narrative tone was set from the outset by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and it continues to this day. Commenting on the actions of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Trudeau praised Ford for ‘standing with the people of Ottawa, of Ontario and of Canada, and not others.’ Unless the prime minister believes, contrary to the evidence, that members of the Freedom Convoy came from Mars, or at any rate from outside Canada, he’s quite literally “othering” fellow Canadians. Trudeau is no longer even bothering with the pretence that he governs for all Canadians, and not just the minority (not even a plurality) who voted for him.” (National Post, October 29, 2022)
36. With the exception of a small number of Conservative MPs who met with and greeted the truckers, Ottawa’s political class was decidedly frosty and unwelcoming in its approach. Former Liberal Cabinet member Catherine McKenna called for censorship of the Internet: “Time for Canada to regulate social media companies so they stop promoting violence and hate.” (National Post, February 1, 2022) The then Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole flip flopped. At first, he refused to meet members of the convoy but eventually agreed to meet some truckers but away from Parliament Hill. Why, as if they were some disreputable people who could not be seen publicly in decent company? Still, he had to scold those he hadn’t even yet met: “There are other groups using the plight of truckers to bring division, hatred, and we need to call that out and stamp it out,” said O’Toole, with no specifics as to what hatred or who those groups were. (CBC January 27, 2022) NDP leader Jagmeet Singh leads a party that for generations has billed itself as the voice of the workingman. He, too, would not meet with these workingmen and women. Sounding a lot like Trudeau and O’Toole, he said that “some of the people behind the demonstration are pushing ‘false information’ through ‘inflammatory, divisive and hateful comments.'” (CBC, January 26, 2022)
NEGOTIATIONS: THE ROUTE NOT TAKEN
37. The main goal of the convoy and its supporters was to the heard by the politicians and especially by the government, to be treated respectfully and seriously. This would have been a reasonable political solution. The government might have invited the convoy to send a delegation of spokesmen to sit down with the Prime Minister and/or a team of Cabinet ministers to discuss their concerns with a view to ending the protests. This was never done.
38.The Inquiry has heard testimony from then-Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson that he had, in fact, negotiated with the Convoy leadership to begin moving their vehicles out of residential neighbourhoods and that the agreement held. “In a statement released on Sunday, the Freedom Convoy Board said it agreed with the mayor’s request to begin moving operations out of residential neighbourhoods.
‘We have made a plan to consolidate our protest efforts around Parliament Hill. We will be working hard over the next 24 hours to get buy in from the truckers. We hope to start repositioning our trucks on Monday,’ reads a letter from the board.” (Global News, February 15, 2022) The conclusion is clear: Negotiations — that is a political settlement — were indeed possible.
39. In early 2020, just before COVID hit, radical Indians and radical environmentalists occupied several railway lines. The most critical was the CN line across the top of Lake Ontario. The two week blockade cost over $300-million in losses for delayed deliveries. The government’s reaction to these manifestly illegal blockades was very different from its approach to the truckers. There were no angry denunciations. In the end, there were negotiations. Note the non-judgemental and conciliatory language used by Minister Marc Miller in regards to the blockades: “Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller says there is a clear ‘path forward’ to defuse the ongoing tensions caused by protests that have hamstrung the country’s transportation network, despite some Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs refusing to meet until the RCMP leave their territory.
‘I know that the recent events in B.C. and in various places across the country are deeply concerning to all Canadians. It is a very difficult situation for everyone — for those people who are non-Indigenous but especially if they are Indigenous,’ said Miller during an emergency debate in the House of Commons Tuesday night. ‘All of Canada is hurting, and we are all hoping and working for a peaceful resolution.'” (CBC, February 19, 2020)
40. Although the demands by the Indian and environmentalist blockaders might well be seen as extremist or fringe, there was no such denunciation in the minister’s language.
41. Similarly, while the Black Lives Matter protests in Canada during June and July, 2020, were mostly peaceful, their demand for defunding the police could be viewed as “fringe” or “extreme” but the Prime Minister was glad to greet BLM in Ottawa, meet with them and take a knee.
CONCLUSION
42. There was a political solution to the three week protest in Ottawa. An early meeting with the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy leaders might well have ended the protest after the first weekend. It is clear the truckers were amenable to negotiation and were reasonable. Their main goal was to feature their grievances in a mass protest (in that they succeeded) and to get the attention of the nation’s political leadership, especially the government. In that they got the equivalent of the bloody cavalry charge unleashed on peaceful protesters in 1905 in St. Petersburg by the Czar, at least as portrayed in the 1960s movie Dr. Zhivago.
The Prime Minister’s remarks, even before the convoy arrived dripped with hostility and contempt, as did much of the media coverage. This was politically clumsy at best.
The Emergencies Act is meant to be used as a last resort in a dire emergency In our submission, the peaceful Truckers’ Freedom Convoy may have been an annoyance and disruption but it was not a dire emergency. The federal government had not tried other means, especially political negotiations, to resolve the situation Instead, their response was to reach for the nuclear weapon of responses — the freedom stealing, money thieving Emergencies Act.
Prime Minister Trudeau has, on occasion, expressed admiration for the Communist Chinese system because, being a dictatorship, it can make decisions quickly and take action quickly, without the messy interference of Parliament or laws. That may be their system but it is not the Canadian way!
Rupa Subramanya: Ludicrous to call the Freedom Convoy an occupation
The protesters didn’t come from Mars, or from anywhere outside Canada Author of the article: Rupa Subramanya
(National Post, Oct 28, 2022)
Protesters gathered around Parliament Hill and the downtown core for the Freedom Convoy protest that made their way from various locations across Canada, Sunday January 30, 2022. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Article content
As the second full week of hearings by the Public Order Emergency Commission winds down, it’s becoming increasingly clear just how weak the government’s rationale appears to be for invoking the Emergencies Act. As I wrote last week, key witnesses, including the OPP’s intelligence chief Supt. Pat Morris, shredded the federal narrative that the protesters were a violent and dangerous fringe who posed an imminent threat to the nation’s capital. Morris’s point of view was reconfirmed by OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique, who asserted categorically that there was no “credible threat” to national security posed by the Freedom Convoy.
Echoing the OPP, Ottawa Police Service incident commander Supt. Robert Bernier made clear that the Emergencies Act was not required for the police to do their job. Added to this, interim Ottawa police chief Steve Bell said that while the emergency powers were “helpful,” they were not “needed” for the police, the OPP and the RCMP as part of their unified command to do their job.
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It’s obvious that emergency powers being helpful is not an adequate criterion to invoke them, and it’s going to be very hard for the government to make a convincing case that there was no viable alternative except imposing an emergency. Presumably, the last straw for the government to grasp at is that they had lost faith in the ability of the Ottawa Police, something suggested in a text message exchange now made public between Carrique and RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who apparently relayed the government’s lack of faith to Carrique.
Leave the police aside — there’s ample reason to have little faith in Ottawa’s outgoing mayor, Jim Watson. One of his more outlandish suggestions after the protests had already been cleared was that protesters’ vehicles that had been seized be sold and the proceeds used for policing costs. City solicitor David White, in a memo that since been made public, shot down the idea, saying the city had no legal authority to permanently seize vehicles in such a manner. The fact that Watson, the mayor of a G7 capital, was apparently unaware of this and was proposing tactics that you would more usually find in a banana republic is flabbergasting and scary. Yet, this is of a piece with the federal government’s freezing of the bank accounts not just of the protesters but those who gave them a few dollars of support online.
Equally disturbing was some of Chief Bell’s verbiage during his testimony to the commission of inquiry. He repeatedly referred to the protests as an “occupation” and the protesters as “occupiers,” terms widely used by critics and opponents of the protests. Such terms are clearly intended to delegitimize what was in fact a peaceful disobedience movement, of a type that Canada or Ottawa has not seen much of, but which is common around the world, including in our neighbour to the south.
Likewise, when challenged under cross examination by Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller, Bell, who repeatedly invoked “violence” being done to city residents, conceded that his use of the term did not refer to actual violence as defined by the Criminal Code but a violence that was “felt” by Ottawa residents. Again, such an assertion might possibly make sense coming from a psychiatrist or a psychological counsellor, but seems rather bizarre coming from the chief of police, whose day job is enforcing the law, not psychologizing what some residents may or may not have felt.
If the rest of the hearings go like this, it’s hard to believe an impartial commission could conclude otherwise than the government failed to make its case for the invocation of the Emergencies Act. However, the Liberals have their waiting saviour in the NDP and Jagmeet Singh. Singh has said, while the inquiry is in progress, that even if the commission finds fault with the government, his party won’t pull the plug on Trudeau’s minority, thus propping them up until their term expires in 2025. Rationalize it however Singh may, this is nothing other than the most cynical political calculus, since an early election is likely to prove ruinous to the veto that a party unlikely to ever form a government has over the current governing party.
In the ultimate analysis, the narrative tone was set from the outset by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and it continues to this day. Commenting on the actions of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Trudeau praised Ford for “standing with the people of Ottawa, of Ontario and of Canada, and not others.” Unless the prime minister believes, contrary to the evidence, that members of the Freedom Convoy came from Mars, or at any rate from outside Canada, he’s quite literally “othering” fellow Canadians. Trudeau is no longer even bothering with the pretence that he governs for all Canadians, and not just the minority (not even a plurality) who voted for him.
(subject to change without notice!!! Lol – dress warm – NO SNOW!!!!)
