The Dispatch: More from CWR...

I saw a mob; it wasn’t truckers

Whatever you read about the Freedom Convoy, whatever your stance on vaccine mandates and passports, know this: the narrative being spun that the convoy is a fascist, white supremacist movement is a bald-faced political lie.

Trucks block a downtown road as truckers and supporters take part in a convoy to protest the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers, in Ottawa, Ontario, Jan. 29, 2022. (CNS photo/Patrick Doyle, Reuters)

A true mob is terrible to witness, much less get stuck in. Something happens when humans are pressed together in fear and anger: a feral scent is emitted, an emboldening and anxious spirit. Once unleashed, it crashes over and draws down all in its wake.

If I told you two things about my weekend — that I was on Parliament Hill, and that I experienced such a mob — what would you conclude? Well, I did witness a mob, but it wasn’t on Parliament Hill.

On Parliament Hill, I saw hundreds of Canadian flags and an incredibly diverse cross-section of Canadians. Imagine guys wearing hunting camo and an odd group of white Boomers trying to drum. Throw in some Sikhs, a lot of little kids all wrapped up in snowsuits and an enormous crowd of Quebecers. Imagine them standing around in delight and bemusement, looking at each other and saying, “Hello? Do I know you? Is that you, Canada?”

For the record, I did not see one Confederate flag or swastika. Middle-aged ladies were draped in Trump 2024 regalia, but they were one fewer than the three counter-protestors holding #FLUTRUCKKLAN signs. Both groups seemed to be looking for friends but hadn’t found them.

There were lots of trucks. And honking that went late into Saturday night, which, if you know Ottawa, you will understand meant it tapered off about 9:30 p.m.

We overheard conversations. One Quebecer, behind us in a vast stream waiting to join the Wellington Street crowds, said, “I never imagined I would ever feel so united to ‘les Anglos’; it is a symbiosis.”

We saw lots of signs. One teenage girl’s said: “I lost my graduation; I lost my prom; Trudeau, you lost nothing.”  The police, while we wandered around, did not seem concerned or on guard. I read this morning not one arrest was made.

When I returned to the house, and my fingers had thawed, I turned to Twitter on my phone. I learned that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family were whisked away for safety; that the CBC was speculating the Freedom Convoy was directed by Russian operatives; that a former press officer for Stephen Harper deleted her account after being hounded for tweeting that the day’s events felt like a happy Canada Day; that NDP leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted, “today Conservative MPs have endorsed a convoy led by those that claim the superiority of the white bloodline and equate Islam to a disease.”

Say, what? I felt like a cartoon character giving its head a shake. The friend I went to Ottawa with is the daughter of a Trinidadian-Canadian. She stared as I read out Singh’s words. I felt a little sick. There, on my phone, was the mob.

Sunday morning, we joined a group reciting the Rosary on the Hill. The sky above Parliament was  brilliant blue. The air horn noise nearly deafening. When I closed my eyes for the first decade, just a few of us were gathered. When I opened my eyes, at least 25 stood in a circle. Some joined all the prayers, some only the Our Father. Others stood quietly with us, observing and serious.

I thought of, and prayed for, two Indigenous women interviewed for a video clip earlier in the week. They were beside the road awaiting the convoy. When a reporter asked why they were in the cold with their drums, cheering for the truckers, they spoke of the divisions in their community over vaccine mandates. They spoke of inability to access the health clinic because of vaccine status, of limits placed on travel to visit family and friends. One put her hand to her chest to steady herself and said, “We are unable to attend Round Dances in our community.” The pain in her face and voice is hard to witness.

Whatever you read about the Freedom Convoy, whatever your stance on vaccine mandates and passports, know this: the narrative being spun that the convoy is a fascist, white supremacist movement is a bald-faced political lie.

Seeing those crowds, hearing those voices equally frustrated and hopeful, the words from the Prophet Hosea came to mind, “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Our political leaders are currently “sowing the wind.” I worry about the whirlwind.

Catholics across the country, from Salmon Arm, B.C., to Montreal, have spent the last frigid weeks standing outside to attend Mass. Those sweet women, wrapped in blankets, waited beside the road to show support for the convoy. On Sunday morning, we stood beside the Centennial Flame, the fountain that does not freeze in winter, to ask for the intercession of Our Lady of Canada. We may be outside, in the cold, but we refuse to be divided.

Notre Dame Du Cap, pray for us!

(Editor’s note: This essay was first published on January 31, 2022 by The Catholic Register, and is republished here with kind permission of the author.)


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Anna Farrow 6 Articles
Anna Farrow is a Montreal-based writer and columnist for The Catholic Register.

69 Comments

  1. I’m so old I remember reading the salacious articles about JT’s parents. He had a lot to let the Devil in. And he did. Poor guy. Pray for him, he’ll be going home very soon.

  2. Canadian authorities did a much better job of minimizing the effects of the covid pandemic than the authorities of the United States. The death rate from covid per one million people in Canada is 898 deaths. Meanwhile, the United States covid death rate per one million people is 2686 deaths. Kudos to the Canadian authorities.

    • Canada, like the US, has an obesity problem. I am not sure if it is as bad as ours, but a quick google search lead me to an article that noted Canada is amoung the most obese. But obesity is only one piece of the SC2 puzzle. There is Vit D deficiency, and somewhat surprisingly anxiety.
      .
      The Gov’t can’t “control” the spread. Johns Hopkins finally admitted that: https://fee.org/articles/lockdowns-had-little-to-no-effect-on-covid-mortality-new-john-hopkins-study/
      .
      Full Johns Hopkins study here: https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

        • The Freedom Convoy? Not much. I was replying to Grosek who noted that the gov’t had “done a better job” of controlling SC2 in Canada. I suspect that Canada’s better numbers are due to a somewhat lower numbers of obesity and diabetes than the US
          .

    • Yes. Kudos to their totalitarian measures that stampeded over basic rights and civil liberties under the pretense of “keeping people safe.”

      • What basic rights and liberties are you referring to? The only liberty you give up when you wear a face mask is the liberty to spit. The measures the Canadian authorities took saved thousands of lives. What is a life worth?

        • Freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom from coercion as it relates to our medical choices, just for starters.

          • Not to mention the freedom that comes from resisting the junk science that promotes wearing masks when they might actually have a counterproductive effect.

        • Vinnay Prasad, MD, self-indentified “progressive” has come out with a working paper (with a couple of co-authors) where they look at different mask studies.
          .
          Their conclusion: “The available clinical evidence of facemask efficacy is of low quality and the best available clinical evidence has mostly failed to show efficacy, with fourteen of sixteen identified randomized controlled trials comparing face masks to no mask controls failing to find statistically significant benefit in the intent‐​to‐​treat populations. Of sixteen quantitative meta‐​analyses, eight were equivocal or critical as to whether evidence supports a public recommendation of masks, and the remaining eight supported a public mask intervention on limited evidence primarily on the basis of the precautionary principle.”
          .
          Find the working paper here: https://www.cato.org/working-paper/evidence-community-cloth-face-masking-limit-spread-sars-cov-2-critical-review
          .
          Incidentally, Dr. Prasad is a fairly decent watch on his YouTube Channel
          .
          For more information on what Quebec has done at least, I suggest Viva Frei. Canada’s insanity goes way behind just face masks

    • Death from covid in 2021, approximately 400,000. Deaths from cancer in 2021 approximately 600,000. You have to die from something, honey. Simply LIVING at any cost isn’t enough for some of us. QUALITY of life counts for something. At least, for those of us with a spine. I have zero interest in “living” in a box with a mask for the next 20 years to accommodate the hysterics among us who delude themselves into thinking they will never die if they mask up and are careful. Its interesting that an hysterical person by definition CANNOT think clearly. About anything.

        • You do know that the great majority of people are not at great risk of becoming seriously ill from Covid. Masks are worthless. Lockdowns saved no lives and only prolonged the crisis. The damage done to our immune systems as a result of the stupid isolation policies will probably only be fully appreciated later. And then there are the social, psychological and economic costs to consider. In short, the response of governments (including Canada’s) to the pandemic made the situation much worse. An intelligent plan of letting the thing naturally run its course, while putting in place some measures to protect the truly vulnerable would have been what governments that actually look out for the best interests of their citizens would have followed.

          The “Covid crisis”, like the “migrant crisis” and the ‘climate change crisis” are all deliberately engineered by governments and the not-at-all-concealed cabals that control them. They depend on useful idiots to let them get away with their crimes.

          • Fake news.

            The problem with letting the virus run the freedom course is that the US medical system is geared to making profit, not caring for millions of people at once.

            Sure, it is possible to let a virulent strain or four run wild in a population. You just can’t take care of all the people it will sicken.

          • Back in March 2020 I was already aware this was a manufactured fake crisis so I searched out any experts that could back up what I was already aware of on my own. Here are a few of their statements that all proved to be 100% truth!
            “People think this virus is going to attack them all, and then they’re all going to die,’ says Prof. Jihad Bishara. ‘Not at all. In fact, most of those infected won’t even know it”

            “People are thinking that there’s a kind of virus, it’s in the air, it’s going to attack every one of us, and whoever is attacked is going to die,” he said.

            “That’s not the way it is at all. It’s not in the air. Not everyone [who is infected] dies; most of them will get better and won’t even know they were sick, or will have a bit of mucus.”

            “But in Israel and around the world, “everybody is whipping everybody else up into panic — the leaders, via the media, and the wider public — who then in turn start to stress out the leaders. We’ve entered some kind of vicious cycle.”

            “He urged the public to internalize that “we’re talking about a virus that is not airborne. Infection is via droplet transmission… Only if you are close to someone who has the virus, and you get the saliva when he sneezes or coughs, can you get ill. And if you don’t then maintain personal hygiene,” primarily by washing hands.”

            “He said the virus did not appear to be “too intelligent” — unlike flu, “which is very intelligent, it changes, adapts, and it infects people via their airway passages.”

            “Bishara said some of the harsh steps taken in Israel — which has essentially closed its borders, limited gatherings to no more than 10 people, closed all educational facilities, and shut down malls, restaurants and places of entertainment and culture — were motivated by the leaders’ acknowledged awareness that the Israeli health system will buckle under any further strain.”

            “People can die from the coronavirus just like people die every year from the flu and other respiratory illnesses but that doesn’t mean everyone who gets it will die. As a matter of fact, most people will recover and move on with their lives just fine.”

            “The mass panic and shutting down of society is truly way over done. It boggles the mind.”

            https://lawrencemorra.com/2020/03/21/same-shit-different-day-of-the-msm-and-dem-party/

            A specialist in biomedical data science and statistics, Professor John Ioannidis argued in the report that the response to the pandemic could be a “fiasco in the making” because global governments are making huge decisions based on data that is “utterly unreliable.”

            “Ioannidis claimed in the report that the United States, as well as European governments, is likely to be overreacting.”

            “In the piece, published by STAT, Ioannidis argued that the virus has been labeled a “once-in-a-century pandemic” but “may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco.”

            https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

            My conclusion that I’m able to make about the political aspect of this is this, as follows:

            https://lawrencemorradotcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/xi-commie-china-leader-sm-print.jpg?w=840

            Disinformation, misinformation and outright LIES are the cornerstone of the Communist Chinese Government Party; therefore nothing can or should be believed at all! They MUST substantiate and back up with hard verifiable evidence anything they say to the world at large with regard to the safety and well-being of human beings regarding this Wuhan Corona Virus Pandemic; as the last thing they are interested in is our health and safety! Key individuals disappearing and story-lines coming out of China changing repeatedly is a clear sign of the old shell game and musical chairs routine being conducted by this brutal evil regime which has a bottom-line agenda of world dominance and absolute power, which I claim is diabolical in its origin and nature. I expressed in my very first article and a subsequent one in which I wrote about this COVID-19 pandemic; that I knew perhaps more by faith how there was a bat connection and though airborne it was like rabies a highly infectious disease that may have originated in bats! Even without most of the pieces to this puzzle it is plain to see how the Chinese Government is completely responsible for this nightmare, which isn’t going to end pretty or very soon. The WHO is nothing but a bought and paid for defunct agency which acts as a propaganda arm of the New World Order and these Communist Party devils now; indeed even worse the UN is a joke and doesn’t even belong on American soil nor should it be considered a friend! The World Health Organization and its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is totally complicit with the underlying propaganda to blame everyone but China for this horrific deadly pandemic!
            https://lawrencemorra.com/2020/04/06/there-before-me-was-a-pale-horse-beginning-of-sorrows/

            I offered this information back in July 2020 which has obviously been proven out over time as well.

            “face masks are not designed or certified to protect the wearer from exposure to respiratory hazards.”
            A republishing:
            Today July 19, 2020
            Zero Lift-Off Only The Beginning
            by Lawrence Morra
            “Wearing A Mask…Offers Little, If Any, Protection From Infection” – Harvard Doctors

            Published 5 days ago on

            By Arjun WaliaCE Staff Writer
            In Brief

            The Facts:A study published in the New England Medical Journal outlines how it’s already known that masks provide little to zero benefit when it comes to protection a public setting.
            Reflect On:Should we have the freedom to wear masks? Why are so many things we are doing right now contrary to data and evidence? Are these measures helping us thrive, or are they totalitarian type measures?

            What Happened: Is this fake news? No, it’s a quote directly from a paper published a couple of months ago in the New England Journal of Medicine by, Michael Klompas, M.D., M.P.H., Charles A. Morris, M.D., M.P.H., Julia Sinclair, M.B.A., Madelyn Pearson, D.N.P., R.N., and Erica S. Shenoy, M.D., Ph.D. Whether or not it’s true may be up for debate, but these authors put it quite bluntly.
            https://lawrencemorra.com/2020/07/19/no-impact-on-the-epidemic-curve/

            Then there was this last April.
            Herd Immunity Could Have Been Achieved In 6not66 Weeks!

            “Lockdowns are not saving lives, they’re costing lives. Every respiratory disease … virus epidemic … everyone one of them, ends with herd immunity. There is no other way for an epidemic to end. So it’s not an invention — a strategy — it’s just the way nature regulates respiratory disease epidemics.” https://namelyliberty.com/source/news/childrens-health-defense/

            Look people, I truly hope most if not all of you are really so called “Woke” as in Waking up to the “Truth” that you and I have all been lied to and played by the corrupted evil ways of the world system, which is all about “Big Money and Total Control” of we the little people who sit under the Tyrants of the world! They’re all in Cahoots, and you know by now about “New World Order” which has been a plan for many decades when nefarious power mongers like the Rothschild’s spawned Big Pharma with others like the Rockefeller’s, to subdue and totally control the masses and even to eventually do some depopulation of the human race!
            https://lawrencemorra.com/2021/04/06/epidemiologist-we-could-have-reached-natural-herd-immunity-in-6-weeks/

            So we’ve apparently arrived as the crossroads of Truth and Results coming full circle in two years where now the obvious global deception plan is becoming all too apparent to everyone with a functioning brain who isn’t completely brainwashed!
            I unfortunately don’t think this will end well because the damage and game plan is already in place to now move toward a Social Credit Score System as the next phase of the WEF NWO Global Reset is now being implemented in America, as in Canada for example where police powers can be applied by the government to freeze assets and restrict individual liberty for anything they say is a threat to the public or Nation which means totalitarianism is just ahead for all of us!

            God bless you.
            Brother in Christ Jesus,
            Lawrence Morra III

        • Duh. But many cancers are preventable and could be eliminated by more mandates. Like skin cancer. What about an officer checking every person on the beaches every summer to be certain they have applied sunscreen? What about banning tobacco totally, which causes several types of cancers? After all, some people have been KILLED by second hand smoke, have they not?? Covid isnt Ebola. Its a flu like many others. HUNGER remains the greatest cause of death world-wide, with an estimated 7,000 PER DAY dying of starvation in India. My point was that there are many ways to die, and eventually we all die of something.. Covid is not really unique and in my opinion, and thus it is hard to justify the draconian measures against civil liberties which have been taken in an effort to contain the disease.

      • It seems that a lot of people would benefit from a little alone time with their God. Take a walk in a park. Read a book–maybe the Bible. You might think people who complain about masks are feeling deprived of crowded subway cars, mosh pits, dance clubs, and standing room only at ball games. Look on the bright side: all these masks are screwing up the CIA’s face-recognition software. Why not wear a mask? It only confuses the NWO.

    • Canada should compare its statistics with that of Australia and South Korea, two countries with populations of similar size. It fares poorly compared to these countries.

    • Well one issue is how you count deaths. Did the death count include those whose who died from Covid or just died with Covid, ie were unfortunately going to die anyway. In the US hospitals received higher payments for those dying with Covid. Remember too that many states like NY sent the older covid sick back to nursing homes to infect everyone, thus creating additional deaths that could and should have been prevented.

      The other side point to me is that it looks like the average Canadian is all too willing to give up one’s freedom way too easily. Think Canadians, except for these protesting truckers, should not be allowed in the US and in particular stopped from settling in the Arizona and Florida. Just don’t want these pro dictatorship people in the US, we already have enough of them.

    • Maybe, had there not been crooked Mayors/Governors enjoying their power, or greedy hospitals eager to make a few buck on every “covid victim” whether from knife fights, flu, or shootings, our numbers might have been lower also.

      • Governments never should have incentivized the diagnosis or treatment of covid as was done in the US.

        Government has but one job… protect individual liberty.
        That is all.

        Everything else flows from this one basic responsibility.
        Everything.

    • Baloney. Fauci pumped up the numbers with false-positives and calling anybody who died within two weeks of submitting to the “vaccines” as “unvaccinated.”

      According to the CDC’s own numbers, the Fauci/China biological warfare virus has a 99.74% survival rate.

      https://www.nbc26.com/news/coronavirus/cdc-estimates-covid-19-fatality-rate-including-asymptomatic-cases

      75% of the people who died from it had four or more comorbidities.

      https://www.dailywire.com/news/cdc-director-admits-over-75-of-covid-deaths-in-people-with-at-least-4-comorbidities

  3. We are praying for our neighboring Canadians, and especially their misguided leaders, that fear mongering will subside, freedoms and rights will prevail, and the government will realize Covid-19 vaccine mandates are not the only way to heal. Alternative medicine, herd immunity, immune boosting supplements, and homeopathic medicines are all methods to protect humans and battle this man made virus. Today’s Societies do not accept gross misrepresentation from leadership. Humble yourself and add Amit your faults and mistakes. Love cures all things.

    • What alternative medicine has been proven to prevent the spread of COVID in any of its forms? Besides, a protest that blocks essential business/hospitals etc. and citizens from carrying on is not a “civil” protest. So shocked and saddened to see how many Americans are leading Canadians into this illegal form of protest. I understand the right to protest, I understand the rights to believe what you believe, but please do it without the suppression of the rights of others who disagree with you. How about some civil discourse, instead of bullying tactics?

      • Ms Bresnik,
        How do you feel about BLM and the various little darlings who have destroyed our cities, large and small businesses, homes, peace? Would you say they were legal, and freeing the miscreants from jail and eliminating the police is a good way to “dialogue?”

    • Addenda:

      1) The vast majority of those who participated so enthusiastically in the riots of the summer of 2020 were WITHOUT masks, unless they were busy looting stores to add to the experience.

      2) Look at the crowd shots of the NFL playoffs – did anyone see a lot of masks? I don’t think so.

  4. Many of us in both nations have watched the truth being lied about, manipulated and distorted to fit a political agenda on the left. They have often succeeded in this thanks to a complicit and willfully blind media, which refuses to ferret out the truth, but is content to regurgitate the party line and PRETEND it is the truth.They are propagandists, not journalists in any way. I grew up at the height of the cold war, with a distinct view of the REALITY of what made communists on the left so dangerous. Countries fell and millions were murdered in an effort to make their point of view the SOLE view. Free speech and thinking were their sworn enemies. Our view of them, then and NOW, was the TRUTH, not propaganda. Much of what I see and hear today from the left( Pelosi, Biden, the squad and other leftist minions) reminds me of elements of my childhood. Not in a good way. I say bravo to these truckers for their courage. In the words of an old Brit ” Never, never, never give up!”.

  5. What we are seeing in Canada now reminds me of the People Power Revolution that took place in the Philippines in 1986, when the people of that beleaguered country finally kicked out their corrupt despot, Ferdinand Marcos. Hopefully Canadians will do the same to the Trudeau dictatorship. Given that my brother is a Canadian citizen, I am following developments over there with keen interest.

  6. As a Canadian and a veteran, I was disgusted by the desecration.of the National War Memorial and Tomb of the Unknown Solider at this protest (in addition to the Terry Fox statue). The behaviour of too many at these protests has been shameful and intimidating. These truckers do not represent the views of most in their industry or the majority of Canadians.

    • Surely, Andrew, you don’t believe those truckers are of the same nasty world view as those who have been desecrating America (including those in power) for the last 2 years? You’ve been reading the NY Times or watching NBC et al. too long!

      • Kathleen – I don’t understand your comment. I don’t watch American news channels or really read American newspapers. .

        The National War Memorial in Ottawa (which includes our Tomb of the Unknown Solider) was desecrated at this protest (people parked their trucks on it, urinated on the memorial – including the spot where a Canadian solider was killed a few years ago while on guard, and they literally danced on the grave of the Unknown Solider). As a Canadian veteran I find that despicable! Imagine the reaction if a group of people did that at Arlington? People would be rightly outraged.

        The act of desecration by protestors is indicative of the intimidation tactics and disrespectful actions of far too many at these protests. Making excuses for them or “what-aboutism” is a sad response to the disrespect shown to the Canadian men and women who have served their country and died for the true cause of freedom (including the over 40,000 Canadians who served in the war in Afghanistan). Don’t make excuses for, or ignore, objectively immoral and disrespectful behaviour.

        PS: the author of this article lives in Montreal. Meaning after her “fun” day of protesting she get to drive 2hrs to peace and quiet away from the constant noise of horns, grid lock etc. In other words, she doesn’t really have to live with the grind of this “protest”. It’s good she had fun though.

        • If you have no knowledge of American papers or TV channels you cannot understand the situation here. Papers and TV stations here exude a political point of view but never say so.They pretend to be objective in their reporting and are SHOCKED, shocked I say, at any opposition to their party line.Even when there is photographic evidence of the truth. They will deny it. Unlike the good old days of broadcasting when the job of a journalist was to ferret out the TRUTH, now, the object is to damage your political opponent, with lies if necessary. “What aboutism ” is a totally legitimate inquiry. Too often here the left goes crazy over almost nothing, as they have with the January 6th incident, passing off outright lies about that day as news, not unlike the Russia collusion fabrication. In their heads, it was HORRIBLE for unarmed citizens to gain entry to the seat of government, but perfectly ok for a leftist mob to SET FIRE to the church directly across the street from the White House a few months earlier, with NO negative commentary from the press. It is NOT ok to employ a double standard of justice in the US . At least, in this country it didnt used to be ok. Disturbingly, there appears to be a clear trend in that direction.

          • LJ – What are going on about? This article and my comments are not taking about the USA at all. They are talking about events in Canada.

          • As an American, my apologies for my countryman. Many Americans think the whole universe revolves around whatever their view of stars & stripes/red, white, and blue. This is a Canadian event. As I read in the Canadian news outlets, horns, loud engines, and other activities generously described as impolite. Having big vehicles does not verify the rightness of a protest. Sure: a person who disagrees with some public action has a right to protest. Why not do as others do? March with other people. Talk, discuss, have an experience of community. If there are local ordinances about noise and all, then a protester should accept arrest, fines, and sanctions. That’s just how it’s done.

        • Andrew,

          Your comment to me below lacks a reply button so I am responding here.Of course I know you are talking about the truckers in Canada. To Kathleen you said ” I don’t watch American news channels or really read American newspapers.” She was suggesting that people are on the right are wrongfully accused of doing what those on the left are ACTUALLY doing. Riots, mayhem, lack of accountability. The truth is when you have tens of thousands of protesters in one place it is almost impossible to police the dozen who will create trouble ( like attacking the war monument) and of course that will be broadcast about. All while the media suppresses balanced coverage of the vast majority who were there. Its interesting you focus on the handful of over the top protesters and ignore the vaster numbers of responsible protesters. “Whataboutism” often represents reality, whether or not those on the left like it. We had a year of burning down cities in the US before January 6th, about which the left said NOTHING. Billions stolen or destroyed and dozens dead. Then an unarmed crowd provokes faux fear and outrage. Canada, which has lately been locking up pastors who had the gumption to hold worship services after being suppressed for two years, is not going down a good road. That truckers in a nation known for lack of assertiveness would organize a convoy to express their outrage is quite something.Its also telling that the truckers “Go fund Me” page not only was shut down, but the company has confiscated the 10 million in cash raised with no apparent intent to release or return it. Who gave them that legal right? In fact it sounds self serving and quite ILLEGAL. Maybe you are ok with totalitarianism as the price of peace, but many of us are not. Whether here or in Canada, the left presents a bearing danger to anyone who values their civil rights. No one condones the destruction of statues honoring veterans , but in a crowd of this size, some will be agitators.They do not represent the sentiments of the majority. No doubt the emotional energy in the trucker protest was upsetting to some to observe. Low energy “go along, get along” seems to be the Canadian way. Its not ours. Here, an American point of view from one of our Revolutionaries, Benjamin Franklin: “Those who are willing to surrender their liberty for a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

  7. For the life of me I just cannot understand why there are “mandates”. The only real mandates I know of are the Ten Commandments. If you feel you need the vaccine, get it. If you feel the need to wear a mask, wear one. But don’t tell me I have to do the same. If you are vaccinated and wearing a mask you should be safe from me. I think this is what the truckers and others are saying. Let me have the freedom to decide for myself.

    • Mostly agree. If you don’t want to wear a mask, just stay away from vulnerable people. If you live in my neighborhood, steer clear of my wife and daughter who, though vaccinated, are high risk because of medical conditions. Adults know that with rights and freedom come responsibility. It would be nice if everybody understood that. When you get married and especially when you have children, you recognize that the world no longer revolves around self-centered concerns.

      • If vulnerable people have masks on and are vaccinated, they are protected and do not have to worry if I’m masked or not, vaccinated or not. That is freedom.

      • If you think you are “vulnerable” and imagine that being around someone not wearing a mask is going to kill you, then stay home. Spare us your sanctimonious directives. They are based on junk science and woke virtue-signaling. Retaining some measure of self-respect and refusing to comply with humiliating orders that are based pseudo-science does not equate to selfishness.

        • Nope. I’m doubling down on my directives. If you aren’t wearing a mask, stay the hell away from people who are vulnerable.

          I can, however, accept that adults feel being told what to do is humiliating. Most teenagers feel that way, too. The difference is that some people grow up. And they care for and worry about people who are not themselves.

          Bottom line: mask up or stay away. Please.

          • Essentially you are saying, if the vulnerable are vaccinated and masked and I am vaccinated too, I should try to imagine who is vulnerable and stay away from all public places if I decline to mask? That is as good as admitting the vaccines are useless. In which case, why subject yourself to them? I am responsible for my OWN health. Period.YOU are responsible for yours. If you are especially susceptible, it is YOUR job to remain out of restaurants, stores, crowds, public transportation, wear a double mask, etc. Not mine. Too many blue politicians have made it clear they have no intention of giving up their usurped powers to order all of our lives, in spite of the “science”, the weakening of the virus and the declining death rate. The power trip is just too much of a lure for them. Those who hop to it when ordered by the govt can do so if they wish, but have no right to pressure the rest of us who chose not to live life in fear and in a bubble. I live in a VERY BLUE state, am cooperating for now, but will not do so indefinitely, which is how it is starting to look.

          • “That is as good as admitting the vaccines are useless.”

            No. This is wrong. Vaccines aren’t perfect, but they are far from useless. Think of them like speed limits. They don’t prevent all accidents, but they reduce fatalities. I see the occasional driver on the road speeding 10-15 mph over the limit on a city street or even close to 90 on a highway. They are not expressing their freedom to deal with a medical emergency or even that they overslept and are late for work or a date. The behavior is immature, not an expression of liberty.

            For the adult in society, rights are always tempered by responsibilities. Christians have an even deeper impulse to look out for the vulnerable and needy.

          • Hunker down for two weeks to “flatten the curve” has morphed into the start of year THREE of living like we are in a prison gulag. It’s not for me. I am increasingly unwilling to sacrifice my constitutional rights to pander to someone else’s hysteria. “The good of the collective” is a Communist notion, NOT a Christian one. Even good will and community responsibility has its limits.In the US we used to pull together when we faced a crisis. My feelings on this jaded as it became clear that those on the left were only interested in themselves and what they wanted at any cost . To the degree of the left suggesting those with opposite opinions have medical care denied, their freedom of speech suppressed on all sorts of media; proposed vaccine passports to travel around the US, be barred from churches and schools ( unmasked students now threatened with ARREST in Loudon county, Virginia) and group gatherings. In Canada, this has entailed jailing ministers and forbidding the unvaccinated from grocery stores. Not to mention your own suggestion that those who dont feel a need to mask are the problem and should remain confined at home like criminals while you travel free, irrespective of the fact that many unmasked are in fact vaccinated. I pray every day that this mad excuse for a leftist power grab comes to an end very soon.I hope this for the sake of the country, which until now has escaped the curse of totalitarianism. This whole episode does not follow the science and it does not follow the law. It simply indulges the weak, hypes their fears and therefore controls them. Not all of us have been willing to give up our freedoms so blithely.

          • Yes, a long list of sullen inconveniences most of which neither you nor I have experienced. Only heard about.

            The “good of the collective” is your term. But it is, as you say, a matter of a community pulling together. Like Acts 4:32.

            I don’t think unmasked people are a problem, as long as they remain distant from vulnerable people. For the good of my family, both members at home are more medically vulnerable than I, I don’t mind wearing a mask when I go to church, shop for groceries, eat in a restaurant, or socialize at my club once a week.

            As for the perception the “left” is behind all of this, I’m unsympathetic our previous president identified with doing little or nothing about the virus until it was too late, and expressed more concern about economic indicators and his own reelection chances than keeping people safe. As for him, he’d still be in office if he had only chosen to be a leader in 2020, rather than follow the whims of money, celebrity, and popularity.

  8. Beautifully and, I’m certain, accurately described. However, the author seems unaware that the unity, optimism, and consideration for others she witnessed describes Pres Trump’s gatherings as well. We are equally stupified by deliberately inaccurate descriptions. And yet I, just a Momof3 and many others like me, are labeled “insurrectionists” by people with power. If the powerful are lying in Canada, what makes you so sure they aren’t lying in the US? God bless the truckers and the Canadian “mob.”

  9. I am not a Troudeau fan, mainly because his pro abortion actions. It’s one thing to believe in abortion but he has made it a requirement to be pro abortion to run for the Liberal party and to get summer grants. I did not vote for him and can’t imagine voting for him in future. But I do applaud the governments attempts to end this pandemic and keep Canadians safe. I know that the numbers of COVID cases in hospitals have made life saving surgeries and treatments and tests causing untold hardship to Canadians and loss of life. I don’t blame the government for that but I do blame mobs like these truckers and their supporters who would rather protest and say it’s about freedom. Rights also have responsibilities. I know we were vaccinated when we were children and so were our children and it wasn’t a reason to protest it was doing what was your duty to keep diseases like polio, whooping cough etc. If these protestors and their supporters would start obeying the health protocols this pandemic would be over so., That is what is called being responsible. Blocking the highway, causing ambulances attempting to take ill people to hospital and disrespecting the Terry Fox statue definitely not responsible. Shame on them.

  10. Thirty years ago my future son-in-law attended a peaceful Pro-Life demonstration in front of a California abortion clinic. Counter protesters arrived and started knocking over elderly Pro-Lifers and destroying their signs. A television news crew arrived to film the activity. That night on the local evening news heavily edited footage was shown with narration such that one was led to believe that it was violent “anti-abortion” fanatics who were roughing people up.

    I continuously experienced such “objective” news coverage during the massive yet supremely peaceful protests that took place in Wichita, Kansas during the summer of 1991.

    Pro-Life activists have known for decades that the MSM is nothing but a propaganda machine controlled by the godless left.

    It is wonderful to see that most ordinary people now realize this.

  11. Anna’s flowery writing bespeaks a mind blinkered by lack of charity. These fake truckers have personal issues wh9ich they want to transform into a public issue. Well, they have done that in a manner I cannot describe as love of neighbour. Who is my neighbour” We have been taught it is anyone we are in a position to help. Tell us, Anna, who is being help my this behaviour?
    There is such a thing as legitimate protest. What is happening with these expensive vehicles not fit the definition.

    • Mr.Peringer,
      Please read my reply to “Arthur.” You too have been reading too much NY Times or CNN or all the rest of the media, which hasn’t told the truth about ANYTHING since (maybe) Kennedy’s assassination.

  12. Canadian attorney Viva Frei, whose content is on both YouTube and Rumble, has has been highly critical of what has been happening in Canada during the pandemic. He has done many videos about the situation in Canada, and has been doing live-streams of the Ottawa trucker protests.

Leave a Reply to Athanasius Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*