The official response to the truckers protesting COVID restrictions is one of the most disgraceful political episodes in the history of Canada as an autonomous country. The prime minister’s statement that the truckers were probably homophobic, trans-phobic, misogynists and racists was an outrage that was unsupported by evidence. Instead of dealing with these truckers and the issues that propelled them across the country in a serious way, the prime minister attacked them en route as a “small fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views.” There is no justification for any of this and polls show the truckers represent approximately as many Canadians as the number who voted for this government in September. The government propaganda machine followed with a smear job highlighting Nazi and racist imagery, though there is very little of that, and a Confederate flag-waver was led away by the truckers.
Former governor of the banks of Canada and England and apparent Liberal office-seeker Mark Carney denounced the protesters in the Globe and Mail, accusing them of “sedition” and “insurrection,” and announced that their goal is “undermining our democracy and the rule of law.” In fact, they are just trying to avoid two weeks of quarantine when crossing the border, not overthrow the government. Taking on the august airs of a central banker, he wrote: “I know from experience that crises don’t end by themselves. You can’t spin your way out of failure.” That is particularly apposite coming from someone who was a total failure as the governor of the Bank of England when he became a mindless parrot of the Cameron government in claiming that Britain would be devastated if it approved Brexit, and when he tried to turn the bank into an authoritarian enforcer of a green ecological despotism, a public policy area that is no business of a central bank and where his views are moonshine.
There are some problems with the truckers’ stance. Their initial grievance was that the approximately 10 per cent of them who are not vaccinated would be quarantined for 14 days when they re-entered Canada from the United States. This is a legitimate complaint and the government could easily have substituted a strict testing system for a two-week layoff. The policy could be a serious threat to the supply chain of this country. These are highly skilled men with lonely and challenging jobs performing a vital national function. The truckers’ procession across the country was good-natured and contained no hints of violence or sociopathic or bigoted motives.
With that said, the truckers seem to be suffering from mission creep and have broadened their complaints to a general demand for an end to the entire oppressive complex of compulsory anti-COVID measures. This, too, is not unreasonable.
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See Also:
(2) Trudeau promises Biden ‘quick action’ on blockades
(3) Truckers In Southern Alberta Hold the Line Despite RCMP Enforcement
(4) Ottawa Will Soon Announce Changes to Border Measures as Omicron Recedes: Health Minister
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