“A night with the untouchables”: A response.

The occupation of Ottawa by the Freedom Convoy 2022 is now in its 11th day, at this writing.  The downtown core is unreachable. Downtown businesses remain closed into the second week, because the convoy members refuse to wear masks, and many of them verbally abuse the people who work there. 

Although the Convoy is showing absolutely no respect for Ottawa’s and Ontario’s laws,  police enforcement is ineffective, enabling the occupation by default. The residents of Ottawa are being held hostage. And they have not one thing to do with the ostensible object of this protest, the lifting of COVID restrictions. 

Into this discussion comes an article by David Marbury, who identifies himself as a data analyst with the federal public service, and who states he lives in the core, where the truckers are camped out. Entitled “A night with the untouchables,” and written toward the beginning of the occupation, the article relates a walk he had and conversations taken with individual members of the convoy. The article appears to be getting traction in conservative Christian social media. 

He wants to put a face on the individuals there, the couple from Newfoundland, the indigenous person from Manitoulin Island, the older man from Cochrane Ontario. An admirable objective, to be sure. He asks them why they’re there. Are they Nazis? Do they sympathize with them? Hell, no, is the response. We just want to have our freedom to choose respected. 

It’s the jump into his conclusion that beggars belief, and breaks all the conventions of logic. It is also patently untrue. 

“...they see their government willing to push a class of people outside the boundaries of society, deny them a livelihood, and deny them full membership in the most welcoming country in the world; and they said enough. Last night I learned my new neighbours are not a monstrous faceless occupying mob. They are our moral conscience reminding us – with every blow of their horns – what we should have never forgotten: We are not a country that makes an untouchable class out of our citizens.” 

Denying people a livelihood is not the objective of COVID measures! Why on earth would any government want to do that? The objective of COVID measures is simple: to reduce its harm and eliminate its spread. That’s it. Marbury is a public servant, and was subject to mandatory vaccination to keep his job, which likely informs his opinions here. But this retired public servant knows that public employment must model public policy. It’s what we do. 

What is notable about Marbury’s walk in the rain is what he could have asked but didn’t. He didn’t ask what the participants knew about the organizers. Do they know that one of them is on record as advocating the violent overthrow of the lawfully elected government? Do they know that much of the money being collected comes from outside Canada with a view to interfering in our democratic process? Do they know that the vast majority of actual truckers do not support the convoy, and comply with the cross border mandate? Might they not realize that they are being used as pawns in an anti-worker agenda that doesn’t care about them in the slightest? (Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” Is a Front for a Right-Wing, Anti-Worker Agenda, Emily Leedham, The Jacobin, 02.05.2022) 

To examine the whole monstrous ideology behind the anti-vax movement and its documented ties to racist and white supremacist groups would take more time than we have here, and has been done in depth by others. See, for example, https://doris-blog.rnao.ca/post/inherent-racism-anti-vaxx-movements. Also see “Shocking anti-vaccine protests that plagued Canada’s election spawned resurgent far-right movement,”  By Caroline Orr | Analysis | September 19th 2021, in the National Observer.

Marbury’s piece tugs on our heartstrings and appeals to our basic sense of compassion for these individuals but wilfully ignores the larger issues at play in a protest that has crossed the line into attempted insurrection. The protest is holding Ottawa hostage, period. There are lawless acts being committed against its citizens daily; for example, there is a video of a truck attempting to run over a counter protester on a bicycle. The convoy accuses the media of cherry picking these incidents, but as someone tweeted, there are a hell of a lot of cherries to pick.

Not one person who wants these people gone has ever called them “untouchables”, or even “deplorables”, as far as I can determine. “Untouchables”, in this context, is a repellent word, designed to evoke strong emotions. 

Those listening in on the Convoy’s radio chatter are hearing that they are beginning to have symptoms that sound a lot like COVID. If, as is almost certainly inevitable, they develop infections, our overworked medical staff and and over crowded hospitals will treat them, regardless, because we are Canadians and it’s the right thing, the only thing, we can do.