The weekend in 2022 the truck rolled into downtown Ottawa. The Freedom Convoy would occupy the city core for three weeks, causing considerable disruption and a collective official shrug. There are anniversary demonstrations this weekend, but there will be no trucks parked in the Parliamentary precinct – the authorities have learned from last year’s protest. Todays post and pictures were first shared after I spent a couple of hours at the protest, to get a feel for it first-hand.

The city councillor for my ward (who is also chair of the police services board) was on the radio Monday talking about the “insurrection” in downtown Ottawa. The former governor of the Bank of Canada has labeled the ongoing truckers’ protest as “sedition.”

What the media fails to mention in quoting these two politicians is their strong ties to the ruling Liberal party. Do you think they might be a little biased in their evaluation of what is happening?

I suspect neither of them has actually been in downtown Ottawa in the past week. I have. And for the next few days I am going to focus on what the truckers have been calling Freedom Convoy 2022.

I have seen good, and there has been bad – and a lot of misunderstanding. Laws have been broken, and police have stood by while it happened. Positions have become entrenched, and no-one knows how it will end.

In January 2021 demonstrators took over the U.S. Capitol. People died in the assault. You can make a case that was an apprehended insurrection. In Ottawa, when the police, with snipers positioned on nearby buildings, moved in Monday to close the truckers’ fuel depot, they were met not with violence but by cries of “Shame.” This is insurrection?

Today, a few pictures that I haven’t seen in news coverage that has focused on trucks blocking streets with their horns blaring. We’ll save the reflections for tomorrow.

It really looks like these people are preparing to overthrow the government, doesn’t it?