Vehicles clog downtown Ottawa streets as truckers and supporters continue to protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Feb. 8.BLAIR GABLE/Reuters
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A word
Re It’s Time To End The Sedition In Ottawa (Feb. 8): Mark Carney calls it by its name: sedition.
Returning to normal is in our near future. I believe it always was, and we didn’t need unvaccinated truckers to tell us. Canadians have sacrificed a great deal to arrive at this point.
We are on the verge of regaining our economy and quality of life because we have committed to the science of containing the virus. The convoy protests on the other hand, despite beginning as protests, have hijacked our economy and quality of life.
Marilyn Cooperman Montreal
Mark Carney’s opinion seems to only further inflame a situation that shouldn’t be any big deal.
The Prime Minister may have imposed new mandates on cross-border truck drivers, but mandates are being scrapped all over the world in favour of more consensus among the people. Why not do that now and have done with it?
The Canadian response has already inspired copycat demonstrations south of the border and in places as far away as New Zealand. How will all this not inflate the truckers in the eyes of the world?
John McLeod Halifax
In Ottawa
Re Ottawa Mayor Wants More Help ‘To Take Back The Streets’ (Feb. 8): I think Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson and Police Chief Peter Sloly have become an embarrassment to the beautiful city which I called home for 40 years, and to its residents who have looked to them for leadership and protection.
The ineptness I have seen over the past 12 days is impossible for me to understand, let alone condone, and the lack of foresight is incomprehensible. The damage has been done, and I believe it has permanently scarred Ottawa.
The events that have occurred are now a model for any community anywhere in the world to emulate.
Lanny Klassen Kingston
None of Jim Watson, Doug Ford nor Justin Trudeau wants to call in the military to end the trucker assault on parliamentary democracy.
As I watch a cluster of protesters play shinny on Wellington Street, one thing is clear to me: No one can pass the puck (oops, I meant buck) like a Canadian.
Matt Bergbusch Montreal
Re ‘It Has To Stop’: Trudeau Urges Ottawa Protesters To Go Home (Feb. 8): According to recent figures from Johns Hopkins University (which may have to be taken with a pinch of salt because they have been compiled with no input from protesters) total COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population show as about 92 in Canada, 237 in Britain and 275 in the United States.
Whatever one thinks of Justin Trudeau, doesn’t this suggest that, in the great comparative scheme of things, his government may not be doing too badly by the Canadian public? Among all the cries for “freedom” in Ottawa, one would have thought the freedom to stay alive was worth an honourable mention.
Keith Wilson Ottawa
I’m sick and tired of these restrictions: isolation at home and requirements to wear boots, scarves and face protection.
If God won’t let me be free of all this and take winter away, I’m going to block the street outside a church and honk my horn until summer comes.
Bruce Bauer Kitchener, Ont.
In politics
Re Poilievre Riding The Populist Wave That Began As A Vaccine Protest (Feb. 7): Back in February, 2020, Pierre Poilievre said in an interview that “these blockades are taking away the freedom of other people to move their goods and themselves … that is wrong, and the government has laws and tools to combat it.” He made this statement after a group opposed to the Coastal Gaslink pipeline had blockaded a railway.
Mr. Poilievre’s concern then was that a blockade was depriving people of their freedom. What happened to this concern in 2022? It looks like he has already caught a bad case of Erin O’Toole’s “flip-flop-itis.”
Roy Schneider Regina
I fail to understand how the federal government can allow this protest to continue. It makes no sense to me politically, never mind ethically.
And I more than fail to comprehend the Conservative strategy. If a majority of the population supports vaccines, how on Earth is supporting this protest against vaccination going to do anything other than, finally, help destroy the Conservative Party?
Mary Lazier Corbett Prince Edward County, Ont.
Elsewhere
Re Trucker Convoy Demonstrations Spread Across Canada As Counter-protests Call For An End To Disruptions (Online, Feb. 5): Last week, it took a mother and child 12 hours to travel from their home in the north end of Toronto to the Hospital for Sick Children and back for cancer treatment. The mother, grandmother and 91-year-old great-grandmother wept at the pain and exhaustion the child suffered.
Others have had lifesaving surgeries postponed because ICUs are full of COVID-19 patients. Stop the protests now.
Leslie Ryder Toronto
Last weekend, it was disheartening to get a call from my wife, who is a surgeon and was on her way to the hospital, as she was stuck in the middle of a convoy making its way to downtown Toronto. The absurdity of it all: There she was, on her way to treat a patient in need of urgent care, delayed for more than two hours while surrounded by trucks adorned with upside-down Canadian flags.
What a collective punch in the gut these rallies are for our health care workers who have steered us through this pandemic in the most selfless manner. If we should be having any rallies, they should be to show our gratitude for the workers who risk their health and livelihoods to ensure that we Canadians (including the unvaccinated) have the freedom, and indeed the privilege, to be treated.
Jamie Topp Toronto
Meanwhile
Re Snowboarder Soars To Gold (Feb. 8): What I resent most are protesters who co-opt the Canadian flag. When I see the maple leaf on a vehicle, I don’t know if a driver is supporting our Olympic athletes or the protesters.
There is no question to me who are the true patriots.
John Rankin Burlington, Ont.
We watch our talented, brilliant Canadian athletes participate at the Beijing Olympics with awe and pride. At the same time, so-called protesters are taking up the oxygen and ruining this beautiful moment.
It feels like a few thousand people, in less than two weeks, have discredited our nation and all it stands for.
Roger Stein and Rozanne Stein Collingwood, Ont.
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