Happy Birthday, Freedom Convoy!

Canada may indeed be a "privileged country", but this privilege wasn't cheap and if we want to hold onto it, we'd better not take it for granted.

I love birthdays, especially when they belong to someone else. If it wasn't that the second digit of my age matched the year of the current decade (for all but the month of December), I'd probably forget how old I am.

The best thing about birthdays is knowing that you have once again successfully circumnavigated the solar system and you're not too much worse for wear compared to the last time you were here. And of course, there’s the party.

In the case of the Freedom Convoy, I doubt there will ever be a birthday party bigger than the one that happened on its initial birthing in January/February of 2022.

It wasn't too many months before this event that those with laptops and loafers were opining poetically about our wonderful essential workers. Then suddenly it seemed these same people (many of whom continued to work from their homes or cottages during the height of the pandemic lockdowns) discovered just how essential those very workers are. How unsettling for them it must have been to realize that this hard working, obedient class had finally decided to wield it's immense power at their expense.

Now that a year has passed and we all have the benefit of hindsight, I wonder if we as a country, will be able to discuss the lessons learned in a rational manner.

Contrary to what our state-sponsored media was shouting at us the whole time, the point of that whole deal was always about mandates. It wasn't about anything else. The media and the government slandered it so badly, it's no surprise that most people didn't (and still don't) understand that. That's one of those "little things" where someone will say, "What's the big deal? Just get the shot and move on," and then before you know it we've slipped from 6th place to 13th place on the Freedom Scale. It sounds funny, but it's not a joke. The little things matter because it's never just one little thing.

It seems to me that most people looked at the invocation of the Emergencies Act as a pretty mild and tolerable couple of weeks compared to the previous two years of draconian lockdowns. If it was any other year, I'd expect more people would have been a little more concerned about it. How quick we are to lower the bar and give up control.

The Emergencies Act

Ah, the Emergencies Act. In case you're not aware, the Emergencies Act is what replaced the War Measures Act in 1988, so it's kind of the same thing. There were three times the War Measures Act was used:

1. Aug. 1914: WWI - a really big war.

2. Aug. 1939: WW2 - an even bigger war.

3. Oct. 1970: The October Crisis - some bombings, a murder, tons of TNT and some kidnappings.

Here is the exhaustive list of the total number of times the Emergencies Act has been used since 1988:

1. Feb, 2022 - A bunch of truckers partying with hot tubs and bouncy castles on Parliament Hill.

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Around this time, Justin Trudeau had made it known that if you decide to go to Ottawa to help the protesters, you'll be breaking the law, which may impact your job, and your ability to earn a living, and even the possibility of traveling internationally. I remember thinking, “Hmmm, that sounds almost as bad as not getting vaccinated...”

There were so many bizarre incidents during those three weeks, but some of the funniest ones (at least to me) involved Trudeau's constant posturing. Quotes like this were pure gold:

"And we know that vaccines are the way we will get through this pandemic."

This of course, was said from isolation in his cottage, so what he might just as well have said, was this:

“We know that vaccines are the way we will get through this because of the fact that I've had my three shots and am now isolating in a secure location so I don't spread Covid to everyone in the House of Commons.”

Coincidentally, this occurred on the very weekend the Freedom Convoy rolled into town, and so it's entirely possible the isolation had another purpose as well…

Trudeau tests negative for covid but still goes into isolation the weekend the Freedom Convoy arrives in Ottawa.

The Public Order Emergency Commission

I was fascinated with the proceedings of the Emergencies Act Inquiry, aka the Public Order Emergency Commission. There were a plethora of witnesses from both sides - citizens of downtown Ottawa, protestors, politicians, law enforcement, among others.

The most interesting witness (in my opinion) was OPP head of intelligence officer Pat Morris. He had some very enlightening things to say regarding the Freedom Convoy and media reports. Of course, this was likely only shocking to those people who get the majority of their news from the CBC:

Here's officer Morris:

“So when I read accounts that the state of Russia had something to do with it, or that this was a result of American influence, either financially or ideologically, or that Donald Trump was behind it, or that it was un-Canadian, or that the people participating were un-Canadian and that they were not Canadian views and they were extremists, I found it to be problematic.”

“It [the protest] is not comprised of ideologically Motivated Violent Extremists (IMVEs). The actual leaders are not extremists with histories of violent criminal acts—although events do attract unpredictable and extreme elements. The absolute lack of criminal activity across Canada, and the minimal violent crime throughout the event illustrate this."

“Problematic” is one way to say it. Evidently officer Morris is a very gracious individual.

What we discovered during his and other’s testimony was that even though the Freedom Convoy and it's supporters were saying (and demonstrating) from the start that it was going to be HUGE, there was absolutely no intelligence to confirm that. Everyone was surprised except the protesters and their supporters. Maybe they were getting their intelligence from the CBC too.

We learned that in spite of the media stories of a “violent, racist gathering” pretty much the only actual violence consisted of some residents throwing eggs at the protesters, and with 50,000 people over three weeks there were a total of 10 charges for violent crimes, six of which were levied against police officers.

We also discovered that there was an actual threat against Rideau Hall early in the protest, but upon proper investigation it turned out to have come from a counter protester trying to spread misinformation.

At another time, officer Pat Morris was quoted as saying this:

The absolute lack of criminal activity across Canada, and the minimal violent crime throughout the event was shocking.

Oh yeah, and here's a particularly juicy one from Mr. Morris:

The public discourse is dominated by political figures and the media—and the commentary is providing a very different picture than what law enforcement collectively gathered.

Add to this the fact that (according to other testimony) there was no foreign involvement and no foreign funding, and you get no reason to invoke the Emergencies Act. This was the opinion of every witness except those directly affiliated with the federal government, and some of those living in the area. I guess we'll see in a couple of weeks how Justice Paul Rouleau sees it.

Even though the media has largely ignored this or outright slandered it and our PM has brushed it off as a "fringe minority with unacceptable views", the protest still managed to raise around 10 million dollars in only a few weeks, which I think still puts it in the top ten largest GoFundMe campaigns on record. At the time, it was actually the 6th largest, and the 5th largest was the support for the Victims of the Pulse Shooting in 2016 at $7.8 million, which took them 29 months to reach. Of course there's no longer any official record of that with GoFundMe.

Then, they did it again with GiveSendGo. In total, they raised approximately $24 million.

That's a pretty strong message. No wonder the government and the media tried to blame the funding on the Russians.

I put this video together last February. In the first week it had been shared over 4,000 times, so it's the closest I'll likely ever come to a “viral” video. It features Canada’s very own Stompin’ Tom Conners.

Some people look at a protest like this and like to complain about how “privileged” we are for protesting against these “minor inconveniences”. These people might just as well be asking, What's the Big Deal About Freedom?

I would say that we do indeed live in a very privileged country. And part of the reason for that is the fact that we made sure to draft laws that keep the government from overstepping it's authority. If we want to keep that privilege and not become like other unprivileged countries, we need to make sure that we don't take it for granted.

The Freedom Convoy protest is an encouraging sign that maybe we won't.