LETTER

LETTRE

None of my business, but ....

 

The situation of truck drivers in Ottawa has become terrifying for many city dwellers. 
    The decision to impose mandatory vaccination on cross-border truck drivers, dates to November, 2021, and it copies a decision of the US government. I am not able to judge the relevance of this decision in relation to truckers, taxi drivers, UBER drivers or bus or train drivers, or subway drivers, or pizza and chicken home delivery drivers.
     However, I would have thought that the police forces of Ontario and of the City of Ottawa and the RCMP (Federal Capital) would have anticipated the arrival of these huge haulers that they were expecting for a week past, in order to plan a route and mark it so that the convoy could not block the streets, two or three vehicles wide, and that the police would have posted guards and concrete bollards at  strategic locations, that they would have warned the public and allowed everything, but for no more than 48 hours of demonstrations and turmoil on Parliament Hill and surrounding streets;  subsequently, they would have explained to the population what an "apprehension of insurrection" is and prohibited access to the site and to Parliament Hill to pedestrians, noted the license plates of trucks, distributed notices of offense for disturbing the peace, blocked all refueling assistance, prevented the construction of a hut and the installation of BBQ stoves on the streets, laid charges, seized the account of "GO FUND ME" to pay the costs related to the deployment of police officers, prohibited truckers from getting out of their truck (you go out with your truck or you don't go out). If on the one hand there is occupation, on the other hand there must be a blockade and sanctions. 
    This is a sad example of ill-prepared police forces who realized too late that their winter numbness has caused hundreds of citizens to be taken hostage by lawless truckers who can only harden in their position in the face of their triumph that is confirmed and amplified daily. Faced with a hostage-taking in 1970 and that apprehended insurrection, a certain Prime Minister did not hesitate to impose the War Measures Act on his own citizens.Antoine L. Normand
Aylmer