Cookies for the Convoy
Is Canada a Police State now? What happened to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Yesterday, I packed up 300 cookies, dozens of clementines (healthier than cookies), printed off thank you notes for the #FreedomConvoy2022 and headed to Ottawa to support the truckers. It is cold in Ottawa, the coldest capitol on earth, and when I learned that the Ottawa Police Chief had warned Canadians that he had now considered it a crime to provide fuel and food to the truckers to keep them warm and fed, that was it for me. The police and the government have forgotten Canadians have a constitution and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Oh, except the Ontario Provincial Police. They decided to send police officers to the homes of private citizens of a particular Facebook group (don’t know which one) to “inform” them of their charter rights. “Thank you,” said the polite Canadian at the door, “I have a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The officer was also very polite, as Canadians tend to be, but this sort of behaviour is what you expect from a Police State, which is not really very polite at all.
The truth is, our Canadian police officers are some of the best in the world. Many of them are uncomfortable about what the government is trying to do to peaceful protesters in Ottawa. A judge last week confirmed that the protesters absolutely have the right to be here but not the right to honk their horns non-stop (which is awfully fair — endless honking is not a very polite thing to do). If you read mainstream media, you will not hear that first bit about their right to peacefully protest. You will hear all about the honking, though.
Protests attract agitators and, so far, the people arrested here are not truckers. As the writer Jonathan Kay noted, truckers tend not to be teens with long purple hair. The man charged with a weapons offence was not part of the convoy. He is an antifa supporter who lives in Ottawa. The guys holding the Nazi and Confederate flags are not truckers, either. They’re agitators trying to whip up hate against our peaceful citizens. You’ll not read that in the mainstream media, either.
The truckers’ spokespeople here in Ottawa said that they will not resist arrest. They will go peacefully but not willingly. Many police officers are very distressed about how their chiefs are directing them. I’ve witnessed very moving testimonials to their concern. In response to the heavy-handed and potentially illegal plans that the government has in store for the peaceful protesters, at least one seasoned RCMP officer quit and joined the #FreedomConvoy2022 as an advisor.
Truckers are playing nice but I can tell there is tension in the air. They’re worried.
Why wouldn’t there be? 25% of the truckers came with their families to celebrate a peaceful protest and so the Ottawa Police Chief has called upon Children’s Aid to get involved. That’s code for “Come take these truckers’ children away.” Oh, he did this after surrounding the family compound with snipers on rooftops to cover for the scores of police officers who came in the night to take away their fuel and food — without a warrant. We’re supposed to have the rule of law in Canada. To remove private property from someone under force, you must have a warrant. To forcefully remove children from loving parents is something the Canadian government did to the Indigenous People for decades. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.
So I’ve come to Ottawa to hand out cookies to the convoy. I gave due notice to the Ottawa Police that I would be initiating this criminal act on Friday, Feb 11. Off I go! Wish me luck.
Special note to reader: On March 1, 2022, I returned to this post to check the links — many of them no longer worked. Once the government issued the Emergency Act and threatened to freeze the bank accounts of anyone who contributed $25.00 or more to the Freedom Convoy, many people ripped down their posts and ran to the bank to withdraw funds. That story is for another day, but I’ve gone back in and found new links for the issues I highlighted here.