Some call it the freedom convoy. Others call it an occupation. I call it a kidnapping.
What has happened and continues to happen in Ottawa is deeply disturbing. Not only is a minority (no matter how loudly their horns blare, that's what the truckers and their collaborators are) seeking to impose its will on the majority, it is doing so in a way that defies law and essentially kidnaps our nation's capital.
Freedom is the last thing this criminal activity is about.
And it is past time to stop pretending such aberrant behaviour is acceptable in a democracy. Yes, the right to protest is one of our cherished freedoms, but it has gone well beyond that. People are suffering through relentless horn blasts, harassments, and threats to individuals and businesses, not to mention the obstacles they represent to emergency-service vehicles.
And sadly, the hatred they are generating is spreading, glommed on to by the uneducated and the credulous, i.e. those who graduated from the university of the internet.
Consider this sad display targeting and threatening people inside a public health building in Belleville:
H/t
Johnny Fondue
It is extraordinarily demoralizing for health-care workers, especially as they anticipate incursions into Toronto today (Saturday).
How did we get here? That’s what Dr. Naheed Dosani has been asking himself.
It wasn’t so long ago that he and other health care workers were cheered from front porches every evening, celebrated as heroes for their work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, nearly two years in, as a protest against vaccine mandates is scheduled to roll into Toronto, they’re being told by hospital officials it might not be a good idea to wear their scrubs in public for fear they may be targets of abuse.
“How did we get to a place where a health worker has to fear for their safety just while they’re going to work?” asked Dosani, a palliative care physician.
As the so-called “Freedom Convoy” arrives in Toronto Saturday and, with it, the threat of harassment or assault for health care workers — particularly those working in the cluster of hospitals near Queen’s Park — Dosani and other doctors interviewed by the Star said they are exhausted, frustrated and demoralized by those set to disrupt the city this weekend.
“I know the vast majority of Canadians stand united with health workers, but this small minority is a very vocal minority, and they can be very hateful,” Dosani said. “The hate that is being incited against health workers at this point by this small minority is having an impact on all of our psyches, it’s causing significant distress, and it’s traumatizing us health workers who have already seen so much trauma throughout the pandemic.”
Perhaps the best assessment is offered by an infectious disease specialist with the University Health Network in Toronto, Dr. Abu Sharkawy, who says,
the protest is indicative of a larger societal creep, fed by right-wing populists, that has created a movement of people who feel “emboldened and entitled to abuse, threaten and recklessly exercise whatever prejudice is within their hearts.”
Responding to advice that those working in healthcare should not wear clothing that indicate their profession, Sharkawy, who has been the recipient of death-threats, asks,
“How is it acceptable that we have to hide?” he said. “We’re being told you shouldn’t wear scrubs, you shouldn’t wear anything that can readily identify you as a health care provider? I mean, this is historic in terms of the level of depravity that this movement has reached, that in Canada in 2022 we have to be afraid to be a visible symbol of something that is unconditionally a good thing.”
The country has been turned upside down by a collection of miscreants. It is now time to remedy the situation.
