By now you've heard about the disruptive Freedom Convoy protesting health restrictions and vaccinations.
The convoy’s rallying cry is freedom, a potent foundation of our democracy. But have truckers really been denied freedoms? So far, these are some of their actions:
• They hit up a soup kitchen for the homeless and demanded food.
• They urinated and defecated in public.
• They stormed malls and shops, forcing businesses to shut their doors and denied law-abiding citizens the right to make a living.
• They uttered racist and threatening remarks making innocent people feel unsafe.
• They blared air horns 24 hours a day in downtown Ottawa, creating so much noise that people living in the core described it as “torture.”
• They polluted Ottawa’s air quality with diesel fumes.
What infuriates me is the desecration of Canada’s war cenotaph in Ottawa. Even after an off-limits fence was strung around the memorial, protesters used it to promote their cause.
On Sunday, Feb. 6, CTV National News showed a video of a sign on a fence erected around the memorial. It read, “80 years ago, brave men and women went to defend it. Today we rise up to honour them.”
The protesters’ sign suggested that those brave veterans who suffered unimaginable horrors in the name of freedom would support the truckers’ cause. The Royal Canadian Legion responded stating, “Using this sacred site to advance an agenda, political or otherwise, is inappropriate.”
My Polish-born father, who enlisted in the British army during the Second World War, valued Canada's freedoms above all else, and would have been disgusted with the boorish behaviour and ignorance demonstrated at the capital.
At the Second World War's outbreak, my father was 14 years old, growing up on a mixed farm near the Russian border. In 1939, soldiers under Stalin’s command broke down the family's doors late one night, rounded everyone up, and locked them in cattle cars travelling to Siberia. Their crime: they were landowners.
In Siberia, families lived in dirt-floor huts. Each family member received a small loaf of bread to eat each day. Occasionally, guards threw them a chunk of pork fat and my grandmother made soup. In the summer, everyone rummaged for raspberries and mushrooms to supplement their diet. In return for being starved year-round, prisoners slaved away cutting trees in Siberia's forests.
A pact between Stalin and Churchill allowed many Polish prisoners to escape. At the age of 17, my father joined the British army, a journey that took him to Italy's bloody battlefields. After the war, he continued to suffer PTSD, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night with muffled screams.
It is impossible to quantify how much these men and women suffered during the big wars so my generation and others following could enjoy the freedoms they were denied. For convoy participants to denigrate soldiers’ efforts by equating their protest on an equal plane to veterans is laughable.
What freedoms are protesters demanding? The right to refuse COVID vaccinations? They are already guaranteed the right to refuse vaccinations.
Countries have reported close to five million deaths world-wide in two years. With a majority of unreported cases in vulnerable countries, the numbers double, triple, or even quadruple.
Humanity is at war with an invisible enemy. The only weapons we have are vaccinations. By refusing to control the virus through vaccination, the convoy risks themselves, their families, and everyone around them, not to mention sapping an exhausted health-care system and denying life-saving treatment such as cancer surgeries to others.
When will the Freedom Convey start caring about the freedom of other Canadians? Whenever the convoy denies others basic rights to live in health and peace, I see bullying and ignorance. Maybe it’s time the Freedom Convoy listened and considered the perspectives of fellow Canadians.
Anna Borowiecki is a long-time staff writer for the St. Albert Gazette.
