Even Canada was utterly unprepared for this Canadian uprising
You go, Canada. Welcome to the pointless, stupid, dystopian world. I quite honestly didn’t think you had it in you.
Even Canada was utterly unprepared for this Canadian uprising. They’re all standing around going, what? Who? Us? Any normal nation could sweep a bridge clear of truckers in about three seconds, but Canada has no experience handling protesters, because it has no experience protesting.
Conflict historically has not been their bag, at least not compared to the U.S. Even after the death of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who was caught on video smoking a crack pipe, they proposed naming a park after him. No hard feelings, eh? They don’t get up in arms over anything that doesn’t involve hockey or maple syrup.
So who could have predicted a convoy of Canadian truckers would cause such mayhem. Who’s their union boss, C.W. McCall?
Sure, they botched the whole thing and wound up hurting their blue collar brethren in America more than Ottawa bureaucrats, but who cares? This is like someone coming out of a 20-year coma with a fusillade of swear words. Might have been better if they hadn’t, but you’re so grateful for any sign of animation that tears run down your face.
I vividly remember a conversation with a young woman who owned a bed and breakfast in Nova Scotia, where I was staying about 30 years ago. America at the time was in one of its semi-monthly taxation hissy fits, and she was mentioning that Canadian taxes were higher than America’s, and the provincial government was at that moment raising them again.
I had seen no backlash against this tax hike in the news. “Don’t people care?,” I asked her. She said they cared, but causing a stink “isn’t what we do.”
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So in the meantime, the internet has happened. Now Canadians get to enjoy the same anger, hatred and malice that Americans savor.
Now, if you want civility, you have to go all the way to New Zealand, where they dispersed a gathering of protesters on the statehouse lawn by turning on the water sprinklers and blasting Barry Manilow. Somebody get that country a shipment of tear gas, stat.
One thing I’ve never heard explained about the Canadian protest is this: What does a truck driver care about mask and vaccine mandates anyway? You’re in a cab all day, you couldn’t be a super spreader if you tried.
Maybe they just felt left out. Like, everyone else gets to be outraged, what about us? And again, I chalk this up to inexperience, but bless their hearts, someone needed to tell them that the way to win the hearts and minds of the public is not by causing a traffic jam.
Way to go guys, you’ve set the anti-vax movement back about 18 months because everyone hates you now.
Sheesh, this is Protesting 101, guys. Don’t stop traffic. Even the Jan. 6 protesters knew that. You can storm the U.S. Capitol, attack law enforcement and threaten to execute the vice president of the United States of America, but as long as you don’t block people’s route to the 7th Avenue Starbucks, everything’s going to be pretty much okie dokie.
We’ll put up with a lot of nonsense, but commerce is the one thing you can’t jack with. Because protesting is different now than it was in the days of the French Revolution, when people saw it as their only way to survive. Today, we have most everything we could ever need, so protesting has become a sport.
We have so much time and disposable income on our hands that we have the luxury of going to the barricades over how an obscure clause in the 15th Amendment is taught in public schools. If Patrick Henry were alive today he’d be saying, “Change the wording on page 42, paragraph six from 'shall' to 'may' or give me death!”
That should get him a “like” on Facebook.
Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Canadian protests leave everyone, including Canadians, surprised
