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mousmeI am literally living at the office this weekend. The Truckers' "Freedom Convoy" is in town this weekend, ostensibly to protest the vaccine mandates that are forcing truckers entering Canada to prove they are vaccinated or else to quarantine for two weeks. This was announced January 15th, and the USA followed suit a few days later, and apparently following public health ordinances is an affront to personal freedom, or whatever.
So a bunch of right-wing extremists took advantage of this to organize the "Freedom Convoy," and their stated goal was to gridlock the entire city using trucks in order to get Prime Minister Trudeau to resign immediately, and then get all vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and public health ordinances rescinded so we can "go back to normal." I say right-wing extremists because that's what they are. One of the organizers is Tamara Lich, a known Alberta separatist and part of the "Maverick Party." Another organizer, B. J. Dichter, declared that the Liberal Party is "infested with Islamists," which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about him. A third organizer, James Bauder, is a QAnon supporter who has called for Trudeau's arrest for "treason." There have been calls online for this weekend to turn into Canada's "January 6th," calling back to last year's events in Washington when right-wing extremists stormed the Capitol and attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government (and outright murder members of Congress and any other politician they disagreed with).
Knowing that they planned to shut down the city, and because we work in a 24/7 emergency operations centre, we had to plan accordingly. All of the employees scheduled to work this weekend were ordered to report to work earlier than usual and to plan to stay here the entire time. So I boarded Peggy and Pixie until Monday (they are a lot of work for KK to manage on her own), packed up several changes of clothing, toiletries, and enough food to last until Monday at least, and reported to work yesterday morning (I'm working nights). It's like camping, only WAY less fun, because all I'm doing is working all night and sleeping through most of the day, without being able to leave the office.
So far today the protests were mostly peaceful. All of the people in the convoy have been, of course, completely unmasked and generally being unpleasant to the people just trying to do their jobs in the city. They insisted on being served in the few places still open despite mask mandates, they harassed people at the Shepherds of Good Hope Soup kitchen in order to be served food (because demanding food meant for the homeless to serve your own needs first is definitely the way to help your fellow countrymen, as they claim they're doing), and of course blocked off most of the city. Their less popular moves included dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, desecrating a Canadian flag with swastikas, and hanging a Canadian flag upside down on the statue of Terry Fox, all of which has predictably generated criticism on social media.
Obviously, personal inconvenience aside, I am not a fan of the convoy. I do understand why some truckers are angry, and I myself am very sympathetic to how hard they've had it during the pandemic. The problem here is that they're mad about the wrong thing, and their anger is being used by unscrupulous assholes to further their own agenda and line their own pockets (there is a GoFundMe for the convoy that has depressingly enough raised over 6 million dollars, although right now most of the funds are frozen until such time as the organizers can present a proper distribution plan, at least). Our entire economy of goods is built on truck deliveries, but the system has broken down badly over the past few decades because of greedy fucking corporations who moved away from warehouses to just-in-time manufacturing and then put extra pressure on truckers (particularly single owner-operators) to work ridiculous hours and compete in a market of artificial scarcity, and the whole thing left them incredibly vulnerable to the economic repercussions of the pandemic.
I agree that they should be mad at the government. They just need to be mad at the government for allowing corporations to run roughshod over their well-being in the name of the almighty dollar, not because of perfectly reasonably public health guidelines. The vaccine mandates aren't the problem, end-stage capitalism is the problem.
So now it's nearly 3am and I am tired and cranky because I've been sleeping on an air mattress since yesterday and will continue to do so until Monday at the very least. Today the police blocked off access to where I work (for safety reasons), which not only means that people can't get in, but also that we can't get out. It's like the Hotel California all up in here. We're the usual tiny skeleton crew, and we're making the best of it, but there has been quite a lot of work generated by these asshats.
The lemon juice in the paper cut is that the convoy organizers have been encouraging people to report Trudeau for "hate speech" and "treason" and "hate crimes," and they've posted the toll free number for the National Security Information Line, which is actually a tip line meant to gather information about terrorist activity (be it ideologically motivated, lone wolf domestic terrorists, incels planning to go on killing sprees, etc.), and of course it's my team who answers that phone (among many other duties). I think my eyes may fall out of my head from rolling them too hard at this point, but I am super tired of these people wasting my time by trying to report the Prime Minister for "hate speech." There is a very specific definition for hate speech, legally speaking, and none of what he's said falls into that definition. So no, we will not be investigating or prosecuting him, even if the callers are "law-abiding, tax-paying citizens." That by itself is not reason enough to open up an investigation. To be fair, we've received a couple of calls denouncing the convoy members as terrorists too, and that also is not going to make us launch an investigation (the convoy is obviously being looked at by law enforcement, I don't think that will surprise anyone).
I'm just tired, really. I will be glad when this is over and we can go back to our regularly scheduled exhaustion due only to the pandemic and overwork.
So a bunch of right-wing extremists took advantage of this to organize the "Freedom Convoy," and their stated goal was to gridlock the entire city using trucks in order to get Prime Minister Trudeau to resign immediately, and then get all vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and public health ordinances rescinded so we can "go back to normal." I say right-wing extremists because that's what they are. One of the organizers is Tamara Lich, a known Alberta separatist and part of the "Maverick Party." Another organizer, B. J. Dichter, declared that the Liberal Party is "infested with Islamists," which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about him. A third organizer, James Bauder, is a QAnon supporter who has called for Trudeau's arrest for "treason." There have been calls online for this weekend to turn into Canada's "January 6th," calling back to last year's events in Washington when right-wing extremists stormed the Capitol and attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government (and outright murder members of Congress and any other politician they disagreed with).
Knowing that they planned to shut down the city, and because we work in a 24/7 emergency operations centre, we had to plan accordingly. All of the employees scheduled to work this weekend were ordered to report to work earlier than usual and to plan to stay here the entire time. So I boarded Peggy and Pixie until Monday (they are a lot of work for KK to manage on her own), packed up several changes of clothing, toiletries, and enough food to last until Monday at least, and reported to work yesterday morning (I'm working nights). It's like camping, only WAY less fun, because all I'm doing is working all night and sleeping through most of the day, without being able to leave the office.
So far today the protests were mostly peaceful. All of the people in the convoy have been, of course, completely unmasked and generally being unpleasant to the people just trying to do their jobs in the city. They insisted on being served in the few places still open despite mask mandates, they harassed people at the Shepherds of Good Hope Soup kitchen in order to be served food (because demanding food meant for the homeless to serve your own needs first is definitely the way to help your fellow countrymen, as they claim they're doing), and of course blocked off most of the city. Their less popular moves included dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, desecrating a Canadian flag with swastikas, and hanging a Canadian flag upside down on the statue of Terry Fox, all of which has predictably generated criticism on social media.
Obviously, personal inconvenience aside, I am not a fan of the convoy. I do understand why some truckers are angry, and I myself am very sympathetic to how hard they've had it during the pandemic. The problem here is that they're mad about the wrong thing, and their anger is being used by unscrupulous assholes to further their own agenda and line their own pockets (there is a GoFundMe for the convoy that has depressingly enough raised over 6 million dollars, although right now most of the funds are frozen until such time as the organizers can present a proper distribution plan, at least). Our entire economy of goods is built on truck deliveries, but the system has broken down badly over the past few decades because of greedy fucking corporations who moved away from warehouses to just-in-time manufacturing and then put extra pressure on truckers (particularly single owner-operators) to work ridiculous hours and compete in a market of artificial scarcity, and the whole thing left them incredibly vulnerable to the economic repercussions of the pandemic.
I agree that they should be mad at the government. They just need to be mad at the government for allowing corporations to run roughshod over their well-being in the name of the almighty dollar, not because of perfectly reasonably public health guidelines. The vaccine mandates aren't the problem, end-stage capitalism is the problem.
So now it's nearly 3am and I am tired and cranky because I've been sleeping on an air mattress since yesterday and will continue to do so until Monday at the very least. Today the police blocked off access to where I work (for safety reasons), which not only means that people can't get in, but also that we can't get out. It's like the Hotel California all up in here. We're the usual tiny skeleton crew, and we're making the best of it, but there has been quite a lot of work generated by these asshats.
The lemon juice in the paper cut is that the convoy organizers have been encouraging people to report Trudeau for "hate speech" and "treason" and "hate crimes," and they've posted the toll free number for the National Security Information Line, which is actually a tip line meant to gather information about terrorist activity (be it ideologically motivated, lone wolf domestic terrorists, incels planning to go on killing sprees, etc.), and of course it's my team who answers that phone (among many other duties). I think my eyes may fall out of my head from rolling them too hard at this point, but I am super tired of these people wasting my time by trying to report the Prime Minister for "hate speech." There is a very specific definition for hate speech, legally speaking, and none of what he's said falls into that definition. So no, we will not be investigating or prosecuting him, even if the callers are "law-abiding, tax-paying citizens." That by itself is not reason enough to open up an investigation. To be fair, we've received a couple of calls denouncing the convoy members as terrorists too, and that also is not going to make us launch an investigation (the convoy is obviously being looked at by law enforcement, I don't think that will surprise anyone).
I'm just tired, really. I will be glad when this is over and we can go back to our regularly scheduled exhaustion due only to the pandemic and overwork.
