Turmoil in Canada

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU E. CHISU, CD, PMSC, FEC, CET, P. Eng. Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East As February marches on, the huge trucker demonstration continues in Ottawa and is spreading to cities across Canada. We also see more and more people wanting to return to a normal life, demanding an end to lockdowns and other measures limiting individual freedom. Political hypocrisy continues to reign, and the subservient media follow the liberal government like troubadours of singing journalists. Perhaps this is just a feature of today's human nature, and maybe I should learn to be more compassionate about hypocrisy. No one can be consistent all the time, and we all go a little cross-eyed when we're angry, but there are limits of common sense that have been missing in the governance of our country for some time. In the last few years, I've watched lefties who once passionately defended the legitimacy of protests that included isolated cases of looting and rioting, now condemn the truck convoy occupying Ottawa. They've gone fully bull-eyed authoritarian, demanding that the police they once wanted defunded, roll in and crack heads G20-style. Of course we have their champions like Jagmeet Singh calling for the immediate crack down on the demonstration. Once asking to defund the police, and now asking for more police to deal with the truckers, he is the embodiment of the hypocrisy politicians practice in the Parliament of Canada today. The Government, the city of Ottawa, their police and the media have gone to extreme lengths to denounce, demean and shut down this trucker protest. They even tried to stop the funding and donations to the convoy, where the money was taken and held by a private company. The Prime Minister's divisive language, his treatment of the protesters and the reaction by those in charge in Ottawa is unprecedented and unacceptable in a democracy. Perhaps the truckers' cause is not something they can agree with, perhaps it is an inconvenience to the city and those living in it. However, the vitriolic response by the mainstream media and the demonization of the protest have reverberated around the world, as have the Prime Minister's words, that make Canada look like a third word country. The hypocrisy of it all is staggering. First, all non-profits in Canada, especially the Environmental non-profits are heavily foreign funded. They have one job, and that is to protest and stop by any means necessary, Canada's oil and gas sector. They are cheered and aided by our Federal Government. I do not remember any of those movements having their funding stripped from them for any reason. Even when they break our laws, create a disturbance to the supply chain and cause the loss of one hundred thousand jobs. I never heard a word from Ottawa about the inconvenience to those who were harmed, be it due to protests or the destruction of lives. Second, the Ottawa police is exempt from being fully vaccinated. and as such, their jobs are protected. Yet this trucker protest seems to be somehow different because for once it is Ottawa that is inconvenienced and many civil servants are not sleeping well. No one has lost their job due to foreign funding, protests, or government interference or intervention. No one has ever denounced and treated any protest like they are treating this one. You don't have to agree with the cause, and yes, it's hard being inconvenienced due to the protest, but you are still employed on taxpayers' money and no one in Ottawa has lost everything. Their world has not been torn down so they have to start from scratch again. The hypocrisy of the mainstream media, the Government, the city, and those people is absolutely astounding. As time passes we start to see clearly that the measures taken in the pandemic were lead by political science and pseudo science advisers rather than real science. And the longer the truckers have to continue this protest, the more likely the whole affair will end in bloodshed, further ratcheting up the cycle of alienation and polarization that got us here in the first place. As the standoff continues somebody will make a mistake with unforeseen consequences. As the warrior style rhetoric from the government escalates by the day, lead by the fierce Minister of Public Safety Mendicino, who is known for his harsh language of condemning allied countries for genocide, I continue to believe that the standard by which the state ought to consider violent action against its own people is very high. It needs to be deeply reviewed, considered, and subject to serious accountability and oversight. We shall see whether this is the case, and hope that clear heads will prevail. The mainstream media continue to focus overwhelmingly on the most sensational elements of the story. Are they hoping, on some level, that it might morph into a US Jan. 6 style insurrection? They are presenting a version of events that is wildly at odds with the reality on the field of the protest. Neither is it in line with people who have attended protests in cities outside of Ottawa, which were mostly positive, non-violent and welcoming. This certainly further erodes trust in the media, pushing the public further into seeking other sources of information and away from politicised and polarized mainstream reporting. I note sadly that Prime Minister Trudeau doesn't seem eager to de-escalate the situation. No "understanding" from the Liberals for this crowd: they're a bunch of fringe deplorables with "unacceptable views." Did anyone expect a gentler tone after the last election? The Liberals only need the support of about 30 per cent of the population to govern, and that 30 per cent neatly aligns with the population who would love to see these truckers, the very personification of the anti vaccine mandate movement, get their heads cracked in, or at least be hauled off in irons. As the situation worsens around the country with the trucker demonstrations hitting the borders, I continue to think that a hard-line response to this protest instead of talking and negotiating risks a very, very bad outcome. If you think our current state of polarization and civil unrest is bad, how do you think it's going to look if the police storm in and leave a handful of dead truckers in the street to become martyrs of a country these people have already deemed tyrannical? The tiny spark that lit this protest was created by a vaccine mandate that would affect only a small percentage of unvaccinated cross border truckers. However, it quickly evolved into a protest to lift all lockdowns, vaccine passports and other vaccine mandates infringing on personal freedoms. The strong swell of support clearly reveals public sentiment now that the pandemic seems to be in the last stages and country after country discards pandemic restrictions. As Saskatchewan lifts pandemic restrictions and Alberta follows suit, what is the federal government doing? It's ignoring the truckers and, according to its very knowledgeable Federal Transport Minister Alghabra, dreams of imposing more pandemic restrictions on movement between provinces. The virus has evolved into a shadow of its former lethal self, because it cannot afford to kill its host if it is to survive. When will the governing leftists be as smart?