We tend to take our chance to live in a democracy for granted. The events of the past few weeks at the border and in Ottawa should have taught us to cherish her. Democracy is the exception on planet Earth and we are indeed very lucky.
What started out as a perfectly fine exercise in protest (because protesting against one’s government is also a democratic right) soon turned into an absurd show of undemocratic behavior.
RIGHT TO PROTEST
The original request? Remove the obligation to be vaccinated, imposed on truckers crossing the border into the United States. A good subject of debate, even if this rule also exists on the American side and that removing it here would have changed absolutely nothing. Protest for that? No problem.
It quickly turned into a desire for truckers to hold Canada’s capital hostage indefinitely until the government resigns.
This attempt to use force to overthrow our democratically elected government is completely illegal. Point. These illegal actions should never have been endorsed by conservatives, including the interim chef and an aspiring chef.
Since it is so clearly illegal, the paralyzed inaction of our leader, Justin Trudeau, is as inexplicable as it is inexcusable. The situation has deteriorated dangerously.
Hundreds of police officers now have to put their lives on the line to defend our democracy.
Truckers who refuse to obey the order to leave will suffer the consequences of their actions, directly during the police operation and, later, before the courts. Tragically, their accompanying family members are also at risk of being victimized. All this, while we celebrate the long weekend of “Family Day” in Ontario! What a sad irony.
- Listen to the Thomas Mulcair and Richard Martineau meeting broadcast live every day at 8 a.m. via QUB-radio :
He hide
Trudeau went into hiding after insulting the protesters (likening them to misogynists believing that the vaccine contained microchips…). He added a layer of it by insulting, in the House, a Conservative MP of the Jewish faith, after having associated her political training with the swastikas and the Confederate flags that we saw in Ottawa.
These symbols are indeed shameful, but they are a distraction. Trudeau should have defended our democratic institutions, the very foundations of our rule of law and not played in these amalgams and schoolyard antics. Instead, he soon found himself overwhelmed by events he had helped to make worse.
Like at the end of the Oka crisis
We may not like Trudeau or the Liberals, but they are the ones who form our democratically elected government. It’s not true that a few hundred truckers have the “freedom” to mess things up because they claim to have the right to decide who governs us.
Until now, we could understand, sympathize, even support the truckers. But this is the moment of truth, like at the end of the Oka crisis. When, in 1990, General de Chastelain had explained, in the most sober tones, that in the name of the State it was impossible for him not to win the battle, it was well and truly over.
Will the Ottawa protesters get the same message? De Chastelain was clear. Trudeau’s waltz-hesitation? It is anything but clear. History risks judging him harshly.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com