What's happening in Ottawa is no longer a protest. It's an occupation. Michael Harris writes:
Everyone in this country believes in the right to protest. A protest allows free people to display their dissent over public issues.
The right to protest is invaluable. It has worked miracles in changing the course of history. The civil rights marches and protests in the United States brought long-delayed justice to Black Americans—at least on paper.
Protesters brave enough to get on their feet and hit the street were instrumental in ending the Vietnam War.
Long ago, enormously courageous women protested the indefensible voting laws in America until they were finally enfranchised.
But there is a vast difference between a protest and issuing an ultimatum, on behalf of a tiny, ill-informed minority that undermines the rights and safety of the majority of prudent citizens.
That is exactly what the so-called “Freedom Convoy” is all about. It is the naked threat to degrade and make permanently dysfunctional Canada’s capital city, and other cities, unless the government abandons the public health policy it was elected on, and ends all Covid-related restrictions.
What we have here is not a protest but an occupation. And that occupation has put a lot of profoundly important issues on the table.
What are those issues? Consider:
Can an unelected mob shut down the seat of national government and presume to dictate policy? Who elected them? And with money coming in from a number of foreign countries, including the U.S., who is funding them?
Can that mob be allowed to bring in fuel for the trucks gridlocking the city so that they can blow their horns all night?
Can they defecate and urinate on people’s lawns, shut down businesses, flash swastikas and Confederate flags, and deface sacred public monuments?Unfortunately -- but not surprisingly -- the Conservatives have aligned themselves with the convoy. In his recent campaign -- in which Pierre Poilievre announced he was running for Prime Minister, not the leadership of the Conservative Party -- Poilievre repeated the word "freedom" several times. No accident.
This is where the rubber hits the road. Last night, Ottawa police raided a base camp the occupiers are using, making arrests. This morning, a class action lawsuit goes forward against the occupiers. They will be given a deadline. If they leave by the deadline, the court will leave them alone.
The message, Harris writes, is clear: truck off.
Image: The Hill Times
