WE ARE REPORTING and take no pleasure in the recent turn of events.
It has come to this:
Stephen Guibeault, former radical activist (and proud of it) is on Team Trudeau’s point guard. As the federal Minister of the Environment & Climate Change he’s rewarded with close to 200 million dollars to carry out ‘the climate plan’ the very day the Prime Minister announced emergency measures.
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, in a scolding tone warns the “presumed guilty” that banks & insurance companies have been instructed to freeze assets of anyone connected with the Freedom Convoy (no matter how remote the connection, or the implications of freezing assets of people you don’t like or disagree with).
The bouncy castle atmosphere of Ottawa (annoying to locals yet relatively peaceful), scattered by the the blunt instrument of the Emergencies Act contrasts—starkly—with the federal government’s response to Canadians who recently burned churches to the ground and blockaded railways out of utter frustration.
The preferences of a prime minister and his fellow travellers in office is clear for those who care to see.
What if Mr. Trudeau had risen above the taunts and the mocking, and taken the time and care to understand what the protestors’ cries for freedom were really about—not to embolden the opportunists looking for trouble; not to enable the extremists (who would surely have been known to CSIS, the country’s security and intelligence agency); and not to capitulate—but to understand what actually drove these ordinary Canadians to protest. There was no bent knee for these people.
Instead, it’s become a polarized and entrenched battle of wills. Protestors mock government leaders and government leaders respond with taunts—pushing the red-hot buttons of freedom-loving protestors and their allies across the country. It’s like blocking a conversation on Twitter because you don’t like what you are hearing.
Certainly, using children as human shields is deplorable but the message being delivered to protestors is one that challenges the very essence of their appeals for freedom: The state will be coming for your children if you don’t see things our way.
It’s no longer a protest about vaccine mandates. It is a rally of patriots (from their point of view) who object to the radical makeover Trudeau has enacted in his quest for Canada to become the “first post national state.”
And now it’s the weekend. A Family Day weekend. Ottawa has spoken. And if you are of a certain mind, might you think they’re coming for you, your bank account, and your children if you disagree…
Add to the mix the goading & mocking…
Tick-tick-tick…
This column is the consensus opinion of the writers Donna Kennedy-Glans & Don Hill. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to BEYOND POLARITY — scroll down on your phone or tablet, or look to the right in the panel beside this post. Enter your email to FOLLOW, a wheel spins, hamsters get fed.