- by Dave Carr

My mind is in a jumble after the events of February in our nation’s capital; I thought I knew Canada. I thought I knew Canadians. I was wrong. But I do recognize this -- what happened on Wellington Street was not about Freedom. It was not about vaccines. It was not about the border. And although truckers were certainly involved, it really wasn’t about trucking either.

It was about anarchy and insurrection, period. It was no more or less than an attempt to pervert democracy. It was sloppy attempt to overthrow the government. It was one of the most obscene events of its type that I can recall in my 69 years of living in Canada.

The truckers -- I feel badly for them. I have no doubt that the highways of Canada and then the streets of Ottawa included some of what started out as well-intentioned truckers, men and women who even in an overwhelming minority (statistically the 10% we were told remain unvaccinated) thought the world had their back, that their right to work the cross-border routes had its champions, that a convoy to Ottawa to confront government was a journey of purity and justice and right.

They were wrong. They were duped, misled, lied to, and probably quite cunningly by fellow Canadians with a very, very different and darker agenda.

The convoy was organized by avowed and committed separatists who have been at this for years and years. This was for government overthrow pure and simple and before that convoy even got out of the Rockies, they knew, it, I knew it, you knew it.

But it always made the noise of righteousness, and even as more and more dark forces climbed aboard, so did honest truckers, whether corporate or independent. They were sold a bill of goods and they accepted it. And we all saw what happened.
So who won?

Nobody.

Nobody won, least of all any trucker who thought a simple mandate might be reversed and cross-border livelihood could resume. But neither did the anarchists win, at least not in the moment. Neither did the police, Ottawa City Council or its Police Services Board, the people of Ottawa, the province of Ontario -- nobody won.

The Trudeau Liberal government lost terribly, but then so did the O’Toole/Bergen Conservatives. Political stripes no longer seemed to matter. “Government”” seems to be failing us across a broad spectrum, and I think that’s what gave the anarchists their impetus.

Freedom - seldom have we heard a word so badly misused and misunderstood. That people could mount a “come one, come all” unrestricted and unfettered convoy for four days across more than 4,600 km of this wonderful country and then set up a bouncy castle outside one of the most unique parliamentary structures in the world -- I think that says all that needs to be said about an abject failure to understand the meaning of “Freedom”!

One of the most pitiable aspects of all this was the stunning level of just plain ignorance about democracy and government; those people just had no clue, and that should maybe scare us more than anything else we saw in Ottawa.

Now, all this is simply observation. I don’t know the answer to it all; I keep listening for ideas. I do believe a return of civics lessons, social studies, whatever, should be one strong possibility.

And at the end of the day, as we try to sort all this out, we need to remember this:
This country, in the winter of 2022, faced anarchy and insurrection marching right to the steps of Canada’s seat of government.
And it failed.

I think it’s only sleeping for now, a fact we ignore at our peril, but I have enough faith in Canada and Canadians to know that when it comes, it will fail again.

Because we’re Canada. We’re better than this, way better.