Why the freedom convoy has captivated a nation
Thousands of Canadians in Ontario, especially Toronto, gathered on highway overpasses yesterday to support truckers as they head to a rally in Parliament Hill in protest of vaccine mandates.
I was one of the tens of thousands of Canadians across Toronto supporting the Freedom Convoy.
Though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the truckers are just a “small, fringe minority” with “unacceptable views”, there were probably 5,000 people at the overpass that I was at yesterday.
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One of the people on the highway was an elderly woman from a formerly communist nation. I was standing on a snowbank on the overpass when I saw her struggling to climb up. So I extended my arm to help her up, giving her a better view of the convoy.
On a bitterly cold day in Canada, the elderly woman eagerly climbed on top of a snowbank on a highway overpass to watch trucks drive by.
She had a smile on her face the entire time.
She was probably thinking what one man later said to me: “I’ve been waiting for something like this for 2 years — for 2 years!”
COVID has killed many people — including a friend of mine named Alan. He died after he became infected with COVID pneumonia. I cried as soon as I heard the news. Alan loved me, and I loved him.
I don’t want anyone to suffer from COVID. And I don’t want anyone to suffer from vaccine mandates either. The two are not mutually exclusive.
COVID has killed many people. However, that isn’t an excuse for the government to kill our spirits.
Canadians are suffering through a virus that threatens some of us and a government that threatens us all.
We’ve suffered through multiple — and in some provinces ongoing — lockdowns.
Canadian pastors have suffered criminal charges, millions of dollars in fines, and even time in prison for disobeying the government to obey God.
And especially, we have one of the most extreme vaccine mandates in the world. It’s almost impossible to maintain a job or attend a post-secondary school — even if a person works at home or takes online courses — without getting the vaccine.
In Quebec, unvaccinated Canadians are banned from shopping at Walmart and other large grocery stores. The Premier of Quebec has also announced unvaccinated Quebecois people will be penalized with a “significant” tax.
Across the country, unvaccinated Canadians are banned from restaurants, movie theatres, concerts, gyms, some trains, and planes.
Many of you know the vaccine mandates for air travel is the reason why I was forced into wrestling with my conscience and getting the vaccine just days after I had COVID. Justin Trudeau essentially gave me an ultimatum: if I didn’t get the vaccine, I wouldn’t get a wife.
In some ways, the most depressing thing about the vaccine mandates isn’t the vaccine mandates themselves — it’s the overwhelming support or apathy for these oppressive mandates, even while many Canadians suffer over them.
For 2 years, Canadians have been instructed to trust the experts. Though they violate the truth, facts, and justice — many people continue to religiously devote themselves to “experts”.
But it’s become obvious that when many people say “trust the experts”, they actually mean “trust the elite”.
They really mean we should trust people who are not members of the “small, fringe minority”. They mean we should trust people with the only “acceptable views”. They mean we should trust the supposedly select group of people in our society with superior intellect and superior abilities.
They mean people like Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party. They mean people like Erin O’Toole and the Conservative Party. They mean people like Theresa Tam and public health officials.
That’s why a group of Canadian truckers have captivated our country and the rest of the world. They are not the “experts”. They are not elitists. They are just a “small, fringe minority” with “unacceptable views”. They are just average Canadians.
In other words, they are like thousands of weary Canadians who gathered on highways to support them. They are like the millions of unvaccinated Canadians who have been betrayed by elitists.
They want what that elderly woman and I immigrated to Canada for — they want what Canada used to stand for: freedom.
Originally published at Slow to Write.
Samuel Sey is a Ghanaian-Canadian who lives in Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto. He is committed to addressing racial, cultural, and political issues with biblical theology, and always attempts to be quick to listen and slow to speak.
