The scope and organization of the “Freedom Convoy” protests in Canada have raised concerns about the possibility that a populist appeal to persons frustrated by the COVID restrictions may be the surface of serious attempts to undermine democracy on both sides of the Canada/US border.
Populist Manipulation
A report on CBC News by Judy Trinh includes a photo taken by a drone on Monday Feb 7, 2020.
It shows an overview of a logistics camp set up by protesters in an Ottawa parking lot on Coventry Road between the RCGT baseball stadium and the Courtyard by Marriott hotel.
Experts say the co-ordination of protesters shows they may have military, police or survivalist training. (Eric Laporte/Ottawa Drones)1
As Omicron recedes, an Ipsos poll shows Americans are unsure on how to live with the COVID pandemic in the long-term.
The detailed planning of the Ottawa occupation would have seen an opportunity in this trend to rally support around a lessening of restrictions that the poll indicates the population is moving toward.
New Axios/Ipsos poll shows two-thirds do not believe it’s possible for the U.S. to eradicate the coronavirus within the next year2
Wesley Wark, a national-security expert and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, offers the opinion that the Ottawa Occupation shows that democracy under extremist occupation isn’t democracy at all.
Online propaganda, social-media disinformation campaigns, and fundraising websites ranging far beyond our borders have transformed the Ottawa occupation into an international affair, with a motley assortment of U.S. Republican politicians and far-right and white-supremacist figures jumping on the digital anti-vax bandwagon. American flags are in evidence to symbolize the idea that the Ottawa occupation follows in the bloody footsteps of the January 6 Capitol Hill riot.… The occupation will fail, but its denouement has yet to be written and sadly may not be entirely peaceful, owing to enforcement failures in the initial stages. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may ultimately have to summon the ghost of his father — who, when asked what he intended to do in the face of the FLQ crisis in 1970, famously said, “Just watch me,” declaring an apprehended insurrection, then sending the military into the streets of Montreal. Signs claiming the occupiers are on the right side of history will be banished to the wrong side. The sooner this happens, the better. When the smoke clears, we will see the occupation for what it is — an assault on democracy and on our collective rights.3
NPR News reports, from the Associated Press, that Ontario premier, Doug Ford, is calling on COVID restriction protesters to end their 'occupation'.
Demonstrators rally against provincial and federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates and in support of Ottawa protestors on Friday outside the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg.4
The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 demonstrated the danger to democracy of populist movements initiated and supported by individuals and organizations who manipulate public concerns to promote deeper anti-democratic objectives.
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