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I don’t want to excuse or debate or even really dwell on the Ottawa occupation or border blockades.

But I do want to talk about something underneath these incidents that is worth our attention.

Regardless of the precise motivations of the organizers – and I fully concede there are extremists, seditionists and an actual fringe to these groups – I want to focus on why ordinary Canadians lined overpasses to cheer on the convoy across the country.

It’s more than just anger about COVID-19 restrictions; on the whole, Canadians have shown great solidarity with public-health measures.

Rather, I suspect and worry we are fully in an era of tension and of disparity that our politics seems dumbfounded about. Millennials are now in our thirties, and many feel homeownership is an impossible dream of a simpler time. Retirees worry about the rising cost of living. Gen Zers fear climate change. A Russian president speaks of imperialist ambitions that sound more fitting to a century ago than the modern world.

Again, this is not to excuse bad actors; I am not writing a column about “economic anxiety” as some sort of culpability panacea.

But I do take as a very fair and important point what Jeet Heer wrote recently in The Nation: “The Freedom Convoy is speaking to discontent that is widespread… Those who have sympathy for the convoy tend to be poorer, younger, and less educated…”

He goes on to say, “The burden of the pandemic has fallen on the working class… As the pandemic enters its third year, many Canadians have become more pessimistic and feel that governments are dealing with the problem by imposing duties without offering economic relief or a path forward. This is producing stress and anger. The Freedom Convoy isn’t a working-class movement. But it will be able to harvest and exploit working-class anger unless the plight of poorer Canadians improves. The Freedom Convoy should be a wake-up call for not just Canada but the wider world as well.”

Our politics feels broken, unable to get important things done. I’ve commented before favourably about Ezra Klein’s writings and interviews on this subject, and agree with his thesis that we’ve built up processes that make improving transportation systems, building housing and other key infrastructure projects we once considered nation-building harder and delayed or reduced in scope or cancelled.

As Klein said recently on his New York Times podcast, “You have a country in which it is… harder and harder and harder to get anything done. And I think one of the unhappy equilibriums of that is that you end up with representation, but not action. Because representation is fairly cheap.”

No wonder identity and polarization have become such potent forces in our politics; we can debate and fight over beliefs, rather than coming together to get things done.

Our politics needs a reset, a focus on persuasion and getting things done and less on animating a sliver of the left or right that can be reved up into a motivated voter base, and more of a focus on getting important projects delivered. Our politics needs to be about results, not animus, making daily life easier and more affordable and restoring a sense of ambition, a belief that we can actually get ahead, what Tony Blair used to call “aspiration”.

Or, as Alexandra Ocasio Cortez recently told The New Yorker“That is the work of movement. That is the work of organizing. That is the work of elections. That is the work of legislation. That is the work of theory, of concepts, you know? And that is what it means to be in the arena.”

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


If this column is ever read by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or by one of his CBC minions, it’s possible my bank account might get frozen.

After all, I plan to express an opinion that many in the Liberal Party and in the mainstream media might find offensive or even dangerous.

Yet, I’m taking the risk because I’m concerned about how the principle of political anonymity is coming under attack in this country.

Yes, let me be clear, I think it’s OK for a citizen to keep his or her political views confidential.

To me, it’s a key principle for any free and democratic society; it’s why we have a secret ballot.

Political anonymity also has a long tradition. The Federalist Papers, for instance, were penned anonymously.

Yet, in the past few weeks some people have gotten their knickers in a knot because many of the online donations to support the “Freedom Convoy” were anonymous.

To them, such political anonymity is both worrisome and frightening.

Indeed, a panicked CBC even suggested that one of those anonymous donors to the trucker protest was none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin!

Consequently, I’m sure it won’t be long before demands will arise to ban anonymous donations for private causes in the name of “transparency.” (We already have such a ban in place, by the way. for people donating to political causes during federal elections.)

I think that’d be a really bad idea.

Why?

Well, the way I see it, making anonymous donations illegal is a direct attack on free speech.

And yes, making a financial donation to a cause you believe in is a form of free expression.

I know all about this issue because once I worked for a conservative advocacy organization called the National Citizens Coalition, which kept the names of its donors confidential.

Some in the media criticized us for such a policy, calling it “secretive,” but we knew the NCC had a lot of powerful enemies, enemies who could certainly make life extremely difficult for anyone they found supporting us.

As a matter of fact, after the NCC became involved in supporting a unionized teacher who was legally challenging the right of unions to use his forced dues to finance the NDP and other left-wing causes, an Ontario labour leader threatened to tear up the union card of any unionized employee found donating money to the NCC.

Anyone losing their union card, would also lose their job.

Of course, you don’t have to go back in time to see why confidentiality is important when it comes to political donations.

Just consider what’s happening to those unfortunate people who donated to the “Freedom Convoy” and then had their names made public after a cyberattack on a crowdfunding site leaked the names of donors.

To take one example, a woman who made a $250 donation to the truckers had to close her business after someone threatened to throw a brick through her window.

Please note, the media has also been gleefully tracking down anyone on the leaked donor list.

All of this is too much even for left-wing Congresswoman Ilhan Omar who tweeted, “I fail to see why any journalist felt the need to report on a shop owner making such an insignificant donation rather than to get them harassed. It’s unconscionable and journalists need to do better.”

Let’s hope nobody gets hurt or faces financial ruin because of a donation.

Mind you, there are those who’ll argue that anyone who supports the truckers deserves to be threatened and persecuted.

As Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former principal secretary, tweeted, “These guys think you should be able to donate to an insurrection anonymously. Give me a break?”

I’d only respond to that by saying, I seriously doubt anyone who donated to the “Freedom Convoy” did so thinking it would topple the Trudeau regime. I, for one, can’t remember any insurrection in history that featured bouncy castles and hot tubs.

At any rate, I fully realize I’m probably fighting for a lost cause here.

It’s depressing to ponder, but our democratic rights are easily sacrificed on the altar of unfounded fears.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to check my bank account.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


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One odd feature of the 2022 Siege of Ottawa is how the Ottawa Police Service stood watching for a couple of weeks then suddenly imploded. We don’t really know what happened, on the familiar Canadian principle that the public shall be provided with reassurance rather than information. But since the OPS is not the only institution to crumple on contact with reality lately perhaps it’s both odd and typical.

When Chief Peter Sloly abruptly resigned, we got that Jedi mind thing about “you don’t need to see that information”. The chair of the Police Services Board, councillor Diane Deans, declared it a “personnel matter” on which no further statement would be made, so one promptly was, in the form of a resignation letter from the Chief that said what a great job he was doing without any effort to explain evacuating in his moment of triumph, not even “to spend more time with my family”.

Then Deans herself imploded, discussing her fantasy of going to the protest to “poke that hot tub myself and let the water flow out of it and unplug that [expletive deleted] bouncy castle”, accusing the almost equally paralyzed mayor of “a horrendous decision to negotiate with terrorists” during “the biggest crisis in this city’s history”, then getting turfed as chair of the Police Services Board at the behest of that mayor, as skilled in the underhanded arts of politics as he seems to be unacquainted with the above-board ones of governing and who is fast running out of fall persons.

The mayor also used the phrase “the biggest crisis in this city’s history”. Which not only indicates unfamiliarity with either World War, the Spanish Flu or the October Crisis, but also makes his petulant inaction that much worse. And Deans also apparently made some sort of ataxic lunge to hire a new chief she favoured with no competition, part of the general meltdown of our governing institutions.

Then City Council had a meeting with many members on the verge of tears, exactly the sort of leadership we weren’t looking for at this critical moment. But perhaps the sort we ought to have expected. As her chair wobbled Deans lamented “You know what makes me the saddest of all? You’re unseating a progressive board that was bringing about important and progressive change in policing in Ottawa. And you’re going back to the 1950s… and old-school law and order.” Well yes, since the big issue in Ottawa for three weeks has been the incapacity of the police to enforce the law or uphold order. Which is kind of their job. As you’d expect her to realize this deep into the crisis.

Or would you? And is it? When Sloly stepped down, someone predictably tweeted about a black chief taking the fall for privileged white cops who hadn’t done their jobs. It’s not obvious that police are recruited from the private school upper crust, although I suppose whoever makes it onto the force does get public sector privileged salaries and job security. But I started poking around a bit trying to find out what proportion of Ottawa officers are at least white if not necessarily to the manor born.

Naturally I couldn’t. See “you don’t need to see that information” above. But I did stumble across a revealing Ottawa Police Service Diversity Audit. And what was revealing wasn’t the slogan “The Trusted Leader in Policing” although it has a certain savory irony today. It was the existence and absolutely predictable nature of this management consultant’s dream full of colourful flowcharts, buzzwords and vague good intentions.

It contained plenty of recommendations as full of virtue as they were devoid of detail, like “Explore and pilot innovative models for alternative entry paths”. “Redefine and modernize promotion criteria to explicitly value new skills. Formalize a career development program for members with diverse backgrounds.” And a judicious blend of praise and criticism, neither a whitewash nor a roast, holding nobody to account and impossible to act on: “Good efforts are under way to minimize barriers. Important concerns continue to exist in recruitment and hiring.” Mental mush a la progressive.

I don’t know how much they paid for it. Probably a lot. It’s the sort of thing they do. As opposed to, say, clearing rowdies from the streets.

Aha. There among the standardized graphics, in every imagine sense, I suddenly found an ace that I could keep. What got Chief Slowly resigned wasn’t failure to follow the directions of his superiors (and yes, politicians do direct the police despite the modern oleaginous habit of denying it in the name of thrusting accountability into the same void as information). It was precisely that he did so.

He was the walking, uniformed incarnation of progressive policing. He was “woke” and awakening the department. Exactly as progressive mayor Jim Watson, progressive chair Diane Deans and the whole progressive family wanted. He was all in on Diversity, Inclusion and Equity which, as Jordan Peterson has lately taken to warning, hollows out institutions. And so the Ottawa Police Force, the city, and Sloly himself were the victims not of his failings but of his successes.

OPS is obsessed with progressive policing, alternative paths, redefining skills, revaluing all values, fixating on race in the name of anti-racism and otherwise turning hard reality into narcissistic word salad. And one salutary if painful result of the convoy protests has been to reveal the extent to which Canada’s dominant institutions have wandered into this land of make-believe in the course of which they have become enervated, brittle and incapable. Including mainstream media still depicting this messy, momentous protest as a run-of-the-mill tiny fringe national Nazi-Confederate insurrection.

Not to digress, but when people on the grounds of the New Zealand legislature are waving Canadian flags and shouting freedom, something worth reporting has occurred. But, as Chesterton said, “When the real revolution happens, it won’t be mentioned in the newspapers.” And it mostly hasn’t been here despite it being, again, their one job in an old-fashioned sense.

It’s not just us, by the way. In the city disgruntled progressive Michael Shellenberger recently labeled “San Fransicko” in a book subtitled “Why Progressives Ruin Cities”, voters just “recalled” three Board of Education members including the chair for being so obsessed with race and indifferent to education that they spent months debating renaming schools instead of working to reopen them. And the bigots behind this vote were largely Chinese-American white supremacists, apparently.

It is characteristic that while fantasizing about a singularly feeble freelance assault on the protestors, Deans denounced “old-school law and order” precisely when even people sympathetic to the general message of the “Freedom convoy” were saying Ottawa desperately needed the police to stop standing around examining the racial composition of their navels and enforce the law. And that Ottawa’s only black councillor ever stepped down from the Police Services Board in solidarity with Deans, insisting that the board had asked the “toughest questions” during the three-week protest. Not including “When will you do any real policing?” apparently. Just as his resignation will apparently frustrate his efforts to do some vague thing with communities who have been “over-policed” which rather obviously doesn’t include either the persons of truck or inhabitants of nearby neighbourhoods.

So yes, Chief Sloly’s quick departure was odd. But in an absolutely typical way.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


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