WHAT IS GOING ON?

I’m politically, epidemiologically, and personally opposed to effectively everything even tangentially related to the Ottawa convoy and those attracted to it, and likely more so than anyone reading this. I also hope the near-endless free publicity all of our media are distributing across all their networks fails to convince anyone of the worst of what they have to offer. More than that, absent a pandemic I don’t even support diesel trucks entering cities, ever, period; I also avoid congregations of humans whenever possible, no matter what country I’m in, particularly when folks tell me they have the best of intentions and are thinking about the greater good; and I’ve never even owned a Canadian flag or anything emblazoned with it. That is to say I would be happy to defend my contention that I am likely less aligned with these folks or anyone partaking in the festivities than just about anyone. Despite this, I’m certain the communication about who is in the streets of Ottawa, why they are there, and what they are up to remains nonsensical. Most troublingly, the narrative is just so senseless across all our most mainstream newspapers and national media outlets. Worse, things have continued to be so and without correction despite glaring errors and transparently misleading reporting. So, what is going on?

For example, Dr. Michael Kempa, criminology professor from the University of Ottawa, tells CBC that protesters have a counter-mainstream agenda, one that seeks to dismantle the conventional state system by replacing Canadian democratic norms and the charter system we have with far-right authoritarianism. And his learned assessment of the current situation in Ottawa is that it requires “military intervention.” Kempa contends that “we need to be very clear on what the difference is between freedom of expression and assembly, in other words the right to protest, and where an illegal occupation begins … We do not tolerate the occupation of physical space, preventing citizens from going about their business, for days and days, ‘until our political demands are met’. That’s not the expression of ideas, that’s extortion at that point.”

Now, what visuals did CBC choose to accompany this dire messaging? Well, it starts with a small jubilant crowd of folks waving Canadian and Quebec flags and seemingly singing the national anthem. Following this we see another small group of folks dancing, which transitions to a shot of a crowd of folks beneath a string of provincial and territorial flags; above them stands folks waving Canadian flags tied to hockey sticks from the roof of truck covered in maple leaves and emblazoned with an excerpt from the national anthem that reads, “God keep our land, glorious and free!” However you feel about all of these symbols and slogans, you may notice how different this sounds and appears from other movements actually aimed at dismantling Canada's institutions and transitioning from our evolved norms.

Elsewhere, CBC shows us a scene of protesters that includes a woman wrapped in a Canadian flag and covered in other Canadian paraphernalia, while also sporting a medicine wheel. She is seen collecting a printout of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms from a stack being handed out by other protesters. If only to me, this seems to be something different than anti-Canadian forces with authoritarian leanings attempting to undermine our laws and norms. I could be wrong.

With all of this footage, it seems worth asking why CBC is not looping images of a trucker lobbing a flaming jerrycan toward the Parliament buildings or setting police cars ablaze? Why is there no grainy still from security camera footage of a rabid mob of disgruntled middle-aged men in high-vis vests and brandishing tire irons attacking elderly women and the unhoused? Why not a single distant and decontextualized photo allegedly showing a "Fuck Trudeau" truck blocking the path of an ambulance?

And then, in the absence of these images, it seems worth asking why the CBC brings up racism as an organizing principle within this group (without a Facebook post or even a vague anecdote to share) and then turns around and explains how these evil people were initiated, funded, and continue to be fuelled by the scheming of nefarious foreign actors, probably the Chinese and/or Russians? Bold. Wasn't it practically yesterday that we were told that even suggesting the pandemic virus was from China was at best propagandistic and dangerously close to the worst forms of bigotry, all while stoking the nation's xenophobia and racism? That's a curious and dramatic policy flip. But to add to this we're told of women and minorities feeling unsafe in their own city, how people are afraid even to leave their homes. And instead of interviewing a single human or explaining this in any way (the job of the news), they show us footage of seemingly normal, happy Canadians of all stripes out with their families, singing the national anthem, waving maple leaves, and holding signs saying "free hugs." Why the extraordinarily stark contrast? Why the total absence of journalism or basic journalistic integrity?

The closest thing I’ve personally seen to disturbing footage was a woman who spoke with someone from the Ottawa Citizen. The paper's video on this episode is titled “Centretown resident visibly shaken after talking to trucker about her mask.” In it, a still image appears to show a twenty or thirty-something woman holding her Starbucks and yelling from behind her blue surgical mask at someone wearing a high-vis hat.

As the woman explains, she confronted protesters to tell them that a lot of people in the city are scared and don’t feel like they can leave their homes. She tells us that they responded by telling her their protest was about giving her the freedom to not wear a mask and that they're concerned people's rights are being taken away. She tells us her retort to that was to say she was happy wearing her mask and that there is no human rights issue here: that everyone has the right to choose to not patronize businesses requiring masks. Visibly annoyed, she tells the reporter “They just don’t understand the impact this [protest] is having on people here, I guess.” Now, however you interpret and feel about the above, I hope we can agree that at the very least this is rather far from anything like a disturbing encounter with an unhinged mob. We may disagree, but I would go so far as to say the above is of no journalistic value whatsoever.

Just as other media, CBC likens this protest to the January 6th insurrectionists in the US, formally labelling them dangerous, toxic, white-supremacist, anti-vax truckers. Diane Deans, Ottawa city councillor and chair of the Ottawa police services board, explains to CBC that this convoy has brought to Ottawa “the most boorish, and ugly, hateful behaviour that one could ever expect … it’s really an insurrection," she insists, "an attack on our democracy, an attack on our federal government; it has a lot of international elements to it…” Along with this she speaks of calls for 1,800 additional police and associated agents to move in on Ottawa to put down this militant insurrection by foreign agents.

Again, as ever, they only offer an assertion from an authority. Across ten segments on the insurrection the CBC gives the public an absence of quotes, Tweets, screen shots, still images, or video clips of any kind showing any of the above behaviour, implied intent, or anything that would seem to justify a call to arms. Instead, their own footage shows streets not blocked by trucks and a noticeable void where I would expect a sea of protesters. Most of their interviews with government officials, in fact, are paired with the same weird live shot overlooking the street in front of Parliament. In it, police are seen at a distance on the lawn of the Parliament; a few folks walk the sidewalk and a couple of trucks are parked, occupying part of the street; but all of this with effectively no protesters seen anywhere. Given their messaging, this is quite the shot to be offering and so persistently.

When there are people in their reports, they overwhelmingly look to me to be Canadians, effectively my neighbours, waving Quebec and Canadian flags and with signs demanding to have choice about vaccines and an end to (seemingly pointless) vaccine passports. Otherwise, folks are carrying signs or flags that read “Fuck Trudeau.” You’d think if the primary demand was to end democracy or dismantle our institutions there wouldn’t just be countless signs to this effect and folks belting these slogans but also CBC would be sharing these, even one, to complement their reporting of the same. After all, by contrast, we might remember that it is trivial to find talk of dismantling Canada and all our institutions, overturning our government, the courts and our entire legal framework, our economy, the food system, and more at any of a countless number of environmental and social justice protests of the last few years – the ones we like. And we all know the slogans, have seen the posts, read the posters on lampposts and in cafe windows, watched folks throw these out in conversation and hear them being yelled through bullhorns or over loudspeakers. We may have even shared them ourselves. So why the curious hypocrisy?

As if to drive all of this home, CTV News invited journalist, economist, and activist Erica Ifill to pitch for defunding Ottawa’s police as a result of this protest. As Ifill explains, “What is clear is that the Ottawa police does not treat Black and Indigenous people and demonstrations from that sector of society as it does this Freedom Convoy.” She adds the question, “Why are Black and Indigenous protesters treated to violence and this protest is treated to a welcome mat?”

As Ifill spells this out, various video clips of the convoy scroll by. Among those images is a very brief clip (which is so brief that it appears to have accidentally been left in the reel) of a car in the middle of the road with Canadian and Indigenous flags on the roof and covered in slogans such as: Native rights, women’s rights, standing for human rights, fight for freedom, no more lockdowns, enough is enough, and stop the compliance. Almost as if to contradict themselves and show us how well Indigenous peoples are represented at this white-supremacist insurrection, we're offered still another video clip of a female protester happily drumming in an intersection surrounded by Canadian flags and trucks.

Because I am not in Ottawa, and our media appear incapable of providing a single interview with a protester and hardly a glimpse of the city, I wanted to see what was actually going on in the streets. Eventually I found a YouTube account called Ottawalks, with unedited hours-long livestreams by someone taking daily strolls through the center of the action. I watched six hours of footage from Saturday and Sunday, day and night, and was shocked by what I saw.

The overwhelming sense I get from these hours of footage is how quiet and vacant the streets are. Where there are people, this thing seems to be both popular and playful. As implied in the media footage, and contrary to their words, it seems to be attended largely by folks walking around with with Canadian flags, passing out food and water, and playing hockey in the street. Along with this are radical scenes of kids enjoying bouncy castles, vendors selling pizza and beaver tails, and Black and Asian DJs pumping out Bob Marley and dance music for a diverse crowd of folks all downtown at 8pm on a weekend. Basically madness. Signs like “support the right to choose,” "facts over fear," or “anti-coercion, anti-censorship, anti-discrimination, anti-segregation, anti-authoritarianism” are seen but not as commonly as the ubiquitous “Fuck Trudeau” flags and posters. It really quite the neo-Fascist insurrection. While I really have no idea what is going on, aside from maybe the 2010 Olympics, this may be the most Canadian thing I’ve ever seen.

Despite the overwhelming volume of footage such as the above, to listen to the CBC is to be convinced that the nation is besieged by agents of a malicious foreign power (or maybe three), all directed at destroying Canada as we know it. I'm not so sure this, or anything like it, is what's taking place. What I am sure of is that anyone living in Ottawa and watching or listening to CBC would be understandably convinced of this narrative and terrified to leave their home.