In February of 2022, I went to Ottawa because, like many other Canadians, I felt I needed to be there.
This is the story.
In May of 2021, I began working on a project that would take all my time and attention for eight solid months until it ended rather abruptly in early January 2022.
I spent most of the first three weeks of 2022 trying to ignore the outside world as much as possible, limiting my activities to eating, sleeping, watching YouTube, and playing many mindless games on my phone. It helped some, but I was still harbouring a lot of resentment towards our government and all of the others who failed our former allies in Afghanistan. After a while, I just had to admit that it is something that will never fade and that I would have to find a way to live with it.
Around the third week of January, the word of another convoy to Ottawa started appearing in the mainstream corporate media and through other reliable sources online. Initially, I didn’t pay much attention to it, seeing it as just another protest convoy heading to Ottawa that wouldn’t accomplish anything at the end of the day. That point of view started to change towards the end of January as it became clear that this was definitely not just another convoy. In fact, I had even begun to entertain the notion of going there myself.
Then, following an incident at the National War Memorial on February 2nd, which saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier desecrated, a fence was erected around it. It was at this point that I decided that I was absolutely going to go to Ottawa. I started crunching some numbers and working out several plans and contingencies, given that I would be working within the limits and constraints of a budget. It would also mean getting the timing right, since if I were to go too early, I could run out of time before things started happening. I had the feeling that a significant moment in the history of this country was going to happen, and I wanted to be there to witness and be a part of it and to record it for posterity. On the evening of Thursday the 10th, everything had fallen into place and I would be leaving in 36 hours on a direct flight out of Calgary. My window of opportunity would last a little over two weeks, I had booked the return flight home for the 28th.
My priority would be to lend support to the veterans who had been at the War Memorial. Although I would also be lending my support to those in the Freedom Convoy, my reason for going to Ottawa wasn’t to protest against the vaccine mandates, though it would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I would be there to protest every damn thing this government had ever done. From abandoning our former allies in Afghanistan to being an utter foreign policy disaster and complete embarrassment on the world stage, to continually acting to subvert the democratic rights of Canadians, not to mention breaking the law seemingly at will as and when it suits them to do so, etcetera. Everything! Saying this, my objective was to act to affect regime change legally and democratically. Although there are times and circumstances in which the use of violence is warranted, however, these are an extremely narrow set and must have both legal and moral justification, of which there was none to be found in this instance.
That doesn’t mean that the people do not have the right to assemble and demonstrate against the government. In a democracy, the people have every right to assemble and demonstrate against the government. It’s what is supposed to happen. Throughout history, the banning and suppression of such demonstrations have been the hallmarks of crooks and dictators, and so democratically elected governments must necessarily be held to account by the people. Otherwise, those elected governments will continue to act as though they can act without accountability.
A message to the people of Ottawa.
This was my second trip to the nation’s capital, and both times it was to participate in a protest against the government. My first trip to Ottawa was for the Veteran’s Mefloquine Rally on Parliament Hill in September 2019, during which temperatures were in the high 20’s to low 30’s Celsius. I would like to make another trip there someday, only as a tourist next time, not as part of a protest. Ottawa isn’t only home to many of Canada’s historic places and our seat of government, but it is also known for its many pubs and restaurants that are worthy of a visit, and I was able to take in a couple of them while I was there.
I have no quarrel with you.
I can understand the anger and frustration felt by many of you, especially those living and working in proximity to Parliament Hill. However, I believe that sometimes events such as this will come with the territory whenever anyone lives in a national capital, no matter what country you live in. I would suggest that anger and frustration also be directed towards the Trudeau regime, as it was their actions that were responsible for pissing Canadians off to the point that they decided to say “enough”, bringing them out in numbers never seen before in this country.
A moment in history.
For a week in 2022, I joined hundreds of thousands of other Canadians who had made their way to the nation’s capital in unprecedented numbers, and it was an adventure that will remain forever in my memory. I had the chance to meet and talk to some of those people and to see some of the places made (in)famous in Canadian political lore. I stood in solidarity with veterans as they kept watch over the National War Memorial and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I would also come face-to-face with the Sûreté du Québec’s Tactical Intervention Squad, helping to hold the line against them as they began to move in on protesters. By the end of that week, I had walked more than 80 km (50 miles), more than I had walked in the previous 6 months combined.
Between now and February 18th, I will recount the story of my adventure in words and with the images and video I captured during this once-in-a-lifetime moment in Canadian history. Join me as I share with you my firsthand account, and provide you with my take on the events of those seven days in Ottawa.
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The Advocate-Equalizer 