YOU SAID IT: Now that’s a leader

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NOW THAT’S A LEADER

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There are media reports that President Zelenskyy refuses to leave his country, Ukraine, amid the Russian invasion, even though he and his family are targeted to be killed. He continues to communicate with his citizens of him and reassures them that he will not leave, and that he will fight for freedom in Ukraine.

Now juxtapose that with Justin Trudeau, fearful of the truckers’ convoy, hiding behind COVID protocols, refusing to meet with the protesters, marginalizing them as fringe groups and invoking the Emergencies Act.

One of them is a true leader and the other is a feckless drama teacher.

ROBB FLEMMING

ORLEANS

(When you put it that way…)

TRUCK TO UKRAINE

What happened in Ottawa was a total display of disrespect to the City of Ottawa and its tax-paying citizens. This is what I have to say to all of you truckers and protesters and supporters who put Ottawa, Canada, in a very dangerous situation. I am appalled that some parents actually took their children to protest in a very dangerous scene. What is going on in this violent world of ours with Russia and Ukraine is sad.

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So I say to the truckers of “Freedom Convoy 2022” in Ottawa and other areas of Canada, “Hey, truckers “Freedom Convoy,” time to get in your trucks and head to Ukraine and live up to your name. I am sure Ukrainians will be happy to show you what losing your freedoms to a tyrant actually looks like in real time.”

Let’s hope, for mankind, it does not escalate into WW III.

Derek Sheppard

(Here’s hoping.)

THAT WAS NO EMERGENCY

Re: Act worked — get over it, letter, Feb. 27

I hate to be the one to break it to the letter writer, but the so-called “insurrection and hostage taking,” as he put it, did not take over, again as he put it, an “entire city.” Maybe Ottawa’s downtown core, but Kanata, Orléans, Carp, Barrhaven, Cumberland, Ottawa South, Mississippi Mills? C’mon.

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The Emergencies Act was invoked. It worked. It was rescinded. Get over it, he wrote.

I’m “over it,” but I’d have to be on mind-altering drugs to believe trucks blocking Wellington Street with horns honking, two men in a hot tub, street hockey games, bouncy castles, dance parties, barbecuing and some people (not a lot) using bad language in any way was a reason to invoke the Emergencies Act. And don’t even get me started on Justin Trudeau shutting down the average Canadian Joe’s bank account.

Ukraine is in a state of emergency. Ottawa was not.

JILL YOUNG

OTTAWA

(That depends on your perspective.)

SHOULD BE THANKFUL

Our attention is now on the horror in Ukraine. It is such a relief that our police finally pushed the convoy bouncy castle festival off our streets. It was the pandemic that caused such disruption to our lives and it is so weird to me that so many people claim that Trudeau was the only one implementing strict mandates, when similar ones were implemented in every country of the world.

Thankfully, the COVID numbers are still coming down and as a result the mandates are being lifted everywhere. We live in such a self-entitled society when we should just be so thankful we aren’t living down in a subway station in Ukraine, scared out of our minds that our lives will never be the same.

Peter Westaway

NEPEAN

(Indeed.)