It seemed a classically Canadian moment in a scene otherwise torn from the book of Trump America. Between the intersection transformed into a mosh pit and the graceful Parliament buildings cluttered with “fake news,” “the Great Resist” and “Covid red pill” signs, a middle-aged man named Johnny Rowe perched on a median last weekend with an amplifier and a simple greeting.
“Welcome to Ottawa,” he called out to the hordes streaming down the middle of the street, many hollering “freedom.” “Thank you for coming.”
If the outside world is baffled by the scenes unfolding in the streets of Canada, they are hardly alone. Many Canadians, too, are dumbfounded, perhaps none more so than the government officials who have stood by largely slack-jawed as giant trucks stake out ground in the normally placid capital, shaking and honking at night as people cheer and dance, neighbours be damned. The pervasive slogan, scrawled across trucks, hats, shirt and flags, is an epithet startlingly vulgar by Canadian standards that urges Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to go away. Some say he should be not just deposed but imprisoned over the vaccine regulations governments in Canada have passed. It all seemed a rebuff to the cherished mythology imposed on its citizens from abroad and held by many Canadians themselves as moderate, rule-following, levelheaded — and just plain nice.
“It feels like a national nervous breakdown,” said Susan Delacourt, a veteran Canadian political columnist from Ottawa who like many of her fellow citizens is wondering what exactly is happening to her country right now.
On Monday, there were some signs of easing tensions.
Traffic resumed over the Ambassador Bridge, a major international route blockaded for a week, and officials announced that they were lifting some contentious vaccine pass requirements. But the government also invoked the Emergencies Act to end the protests, and in Alberta the police arrested 11 people and seized a large cache of weapons. Maybe it is because Canada, unlike the neighbour that overshadows it, was born not from revolution but from negotiation that its approach to rebellion now seems more than a little unconventional, even quirky. But one thing is clear: The members of the so-called freedom convoy are not bellowing “compromise” or “care for one another.” The streets of downtown Ottawa echo with chants and slogans steeped in the language of the American Revolution, right down to the Don’t Tread on Me pennants.
“Freedom,” yells a man in a red mask waving a Canadian flag. “Freedom,” comes the ardent reply. Though the flag, it should be noted, was held aloft in a quintessentially Canadian fashion, attached to a hockey stick.
The repeated invocation of liberty is just one reason — along with the American, Confederate and Trump flags spotted in the mix — many believe the unrest is essentially a US import. For two years, Canadians have been largely stuck at home, and many have spent more time in front of the screen than ever.
As they did, they absorbed the American culture war being played out from Fox News to Breitbart, and Trumpian ideas took root in Canada, said Gerald Butts, a longtime friend of Trudeau’s and his former top political aide.
Right-wing activists in the United States and elsewhere have lent more than moral support to their new kindred spirits in Canada. They are opening their wallets. At least some of the money that has allowed the protesters to keep their trucks fueled and cover other expenses has flowed in from untraceable sources.
“The suffering has gotten to a level where they have nothing to lose,” he said.
—The New York Times
