Editorial

It’s not only about vaccine mandates

It’s almost two weeks since the truckers descended on Ottawa and shut down the southern end of the city. The idea was to get to Parliament Hill and do their best to get the government’s attention by interfering with the country’s and the city’s business. Needless to say, it has not been a pleasant experience for Ottawans, especially those who live and work in the heart of the shutdown area.

The point of the truckers’ demonstration, at least its initial reason, was to make the Federal government withdraw the vaccine mandate imposed on the long haulers. The mandate prevents unvaccinated drivers from crossing the Canada-US border. Ninety percent of the drivers are vaccinated and are able to function normally; it’s the unvaccinated 10 percent that are at the heart of the demonstration. 

So here we are: stalemate. The irresistible truckers face an immovable Federal government.  And so far an overwhelmed police force is paralyzed while the demonstrators dig in. No one envies the position of the heavily outmanned Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly.

The aim of the deadlock, variously described as a siege, blockade, etc, has evolved from demanding that the government withdraw the vaccine mandate, to the larger matter of withdrawing all the COVID lockdown rules, to a general call for individual freedom. To that end, the truckers have been joined by people carrying Confederate flags, images of swastikas, old time hippies, etc. It’s not a pretty sight.

However, with the media accentuating the aggressive behavior of the protesters, the disrupted lives of Ottawans who live and work in the affected neighbourhood, loss of sleep due to blaring truck horns, the job losses for those who can ill afford to miss a paycheque, not much thought has been given to the call for individual freedom vis a vis collective security and social wellbeing.

Our hope is that when the logjam breaks, which doesn’t look like any time soon, Canadians will engage in the effort to deal with the age old tension between individual and societal rights. Many, especially civil libertarians, are leery of the extraordinary powers being exercised by the authorities in response to the arrival of the virulent and sometimes deadly coronavirus. To be sure, they acknowledge the need for a strong response to the pandemic, but are wary of the authority’s ability to restrict individual rights without much discussion. Additionally, there are many who are vaccinated and do not consider themselves anti-vaxxers, but are not enthusiastic about having to take a second or third jab.

While what is going on at the Ottawa barricades doesn’t seem to lend itself to the ideas expressed in the foregoing paragraph, the blockade leads in that direction – individual freedom and government overreach.

All one needs to do is look at the TV coverage to realize that this “movement” is large and is spread across the country. And there is a large cadre of ordinary, vaccinated folk, the type not likely to be seen at such gatherings, that do not lack sympathy with the demonstration.