Canada’s Epoch Times reported a couple of days ago that Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, two of the prime organizers of The Freedom Convoy of 2022, might possibly spend 7 and 8 years respectively behind bars for their crimes. Convicted in April of disrupting the public order, it was suggested 2 year sentences for each might be appropriate. But just recently Crown Prosecutor Siobhan Webster declared that the seriousness of the damage done to Canada, and particularly to Ottawa, merited far harsher repercussions. Yes, life in Ottawa was paralyzed for several days and there were some acts of violence. But 99.9 % of those involved were decent Canadians protesting what they considered the violation of their personal liberties entailed in the vaccination edicts levelled by the Trudeau government. Ludicrously validating their concerns, that government invoked The Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, giving it the highly questionable “right” to seize the bank accounts of many of the protesters. But why, you might ask, does this effort to maintain Law and Order within our country enrage a conservative such as myself who purports to be a staunch advocate of Law and Order? The answer is simple. It is the mindless double standard of the contemporary Left.
Demonstrations conducted on behalf of issues dear to “progressives” are habitually treated with empathy by the mainstream media and relative tolerance by most legal jurisdictions. How muted has been the outrage here in Canada over the burning of multiple Catholic Churches by Indigenous malcontents in the last few years! How equally tentative was America’s response to B.L.M.’s riots on behalf of career criminal George Floyd, riots which entailed 2 billion dollars in property damages, injuries to approximately 900 law enforcement officers and 19 deaths overall! Crown Prosecutor Webster’s demonizing of the Freedom Convoy is truly absurd. I have seen multiple videos validating the fact that the streets of Ottawa were relatively devoid of violence, indeed included children playing and the poor being fed by the protesters! So why, in a world where violent criminals are regularly released on bail, would any sane legal system seek to so harshly punish 2 individuals guilty of no violence whatsoever.
It was called the Freedom Convoy because its supporters felt the various Covid related restrictions imposed on Canadians by the Trudeau government entailed a fundamental violation of their Democratic Rights. A complex issue open to various perspectives, that espoused by the Convoy certainly seemed worthy of consideration. But to Ideologues such as Siobhan Webster, and indeed to the Left in general, any opposition to its authoritarian edicts is automatically dismissed as Anti-Democratic. Agree with us or go to jail! That this approach is itself ludicrously Anti-Democratic, is apparently lost on them.
The never-ending references to the events of Jan. 6, 2021 as an Insurrection intent on overthrowing the newly elected Biden government, fill me with disgust. It was a statement of protest against such things as the media’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, against the Democrats’ spurious attempt to destroy Trump by falsely accusing him of “Russian collusion.” It was a statement of protest against the smug, self-righteous duplicity of what we have now come to know as the Swamp! Yet in typical Leftist fashion, those intent on defending the Integrity of America’s Democracy are habitually denounced as monsters worthy of lengthy prison sentences, while rapists and murderers are frequently released on bail as victims of an unjust society. Truly Bizarre!