Rupa Subramania is a regular columnist with the National Post and has been on the ground covering the protests in Ottawa for the past few days. She joins us to talk about what she's been seeing and what she thinks about what's going on.
00:05:50.680Thank God you're not Americans and so forth.
00:05:52.180But now I find like even sometimes corresponding with people or having family and friends who live abroad or people traveling abroad and coming back.
00:05:59.840And it's always like other places don't really have the things that we have.
00:06:03.920Like, yes, some places have some of the things, but there's very few countries in the world that have the combination of very aggressive COVID rules that we have here in Canada.
00:06:12.960You know, you look in the United States and it used to be they just say, oh, Florida, because Florida was the first to step away from all of this and all Republicans.
00:06:20.720And now it's like, no, some of the most aggressive things set against these rules can be Democrats, can be left-leaning politicians.
00:06:28.460The acting mayor of Boston, who was a Democrat, she gave a press conference.
00:06:34.020She kind of apologized for the remarks after.
00:06:43.140And she was talking about the vaccine mandates.
00:06:44.680And whatever you think of that comment, right or wrong, agree or disagree, it's like remarkable that that's the kind of stuff that Democrats are saying in the U.S.
00:06:51.660Exactly. I personally think this is my view and people can, you know, are free to disagree with that.
00:06:59.580But I think that our image has taken a beating during the course of the pandemic, whether it is our health care system, whether it is our restrictions, which have been among some of the worst.
00:07:12.620We've had some of the worst restrictions, barring Australia and New Zealand, of course, they were even worse.
00:07:18.800But, you know, if you look at school closures, for example, we were, you know, the only major advanced country with schools still shut in early January.
00:07:31.860I think it I think if I'm not mistaken, I think it was Ukraine and a couple of other countries that still had their schools closed.
00:07:42.680But but, you know, just think about the damaging effect this has had had on children.
00:07:48.160I don't have kids, but I can still relate to that.
00:07:51.640I have small kids and I got to say, I've gotten increasingly frustrated over the months as the very rigid rules that our children have had to endure when we have always known, even when when COVID was more severe Delta variant 12 months ago, it's always been acknowledged.
00:08:07.540I spoke to the head of Sick Kids Hospital a long time ago in the pandemic, and he said, thankfully, one of the silver linings, if there can be a silver lining, is that children are spared.
00:08:17.580Back when Facebook was banning posts for misinformation, if someone dared to write COVID is just the flu, well, pediatricians were telling me that, yes, it is actually much worse than the flu in seniors.
00:08:29.300But when it comes to kids, it is less severe than the flu.
00:08:32.360Leading pediatricians working in the top hospitals in Canada.
00:08:35.560That's what they were telling me many months ago.
00:08:38.100And yet successively, they said my kids hockey game has to be shut down.
00:08:43.600I mean, I know, you know, all of these reports that showed the mental health crises that teenagers and youth were enduring, all of these problems, the suicide attempts.
00:08:58.460The damaging effects of this pandemic, especially on children, you know, is something that we're going to be dealing with for for a very, very long time.
00:09:08.560And I don't know where the accountability is.
00:09:12.720I mean, we can we can vote our politicians out of power.
00:10:37.860That's scary stuff, although you may be right.
00:10:40.320If you look at the roadmap, now, I could be mistaken and feel free to correct me.
00:10:44.820But based on the roadmap that I looked at a couple of weeks ago, you know, it did seem like we were not going to be that much different from where we were in the fall.
00:10:53.660The point is, you know, you've got to compare that with where all of these other countries are.
00:11:21.440And, you know, all these conversations we're having, I mean, we're obviously doing retread of all these previous numbers.
00:11:26.740I'm referencing studies that we've known for like well over a year now.
00:11:29.900But I guess the frustration is, I think what a lot of people are saying and why, yes, the convoy began with a frustration about a trucker's vaccine mandate, one very specific thing.
00:11:39.320But to your point, it's become a broader symbol.
00:11:41.600It's ballooned into so much more is because, yes, for so many of us internalized a year ago, the harms of lockdowns internalized a year ago.
00:11:48.620OK, fine, you know, people have one dose, two dose vaccine.
00:11:51.420All right, let's get on with the show.
00:11:52.800And yet there's so there's a there's a real split in that there are a lot of people who are who are not accepting that, who have been downplaying or denying the harms of lockdowns.
00:12:02.540I want to read to you a now infamous tweet by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted on February 1st when he said today in the House, members of Parliament unanimously condemned the anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-black racism, homophobia and transphobia.
00:12:18.140Yeah, that we've just listed all that we've seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days.
00:12:23.740Together, let's keep working to make Canada more inclusive.
00:12:26.340This is a tweet that has been mocked all around the world.
00:12:29.300Not, of course, not because anybody would disagree that those list of things are bad things and we don't want those things in our society.
00:12:39.480Like, maybe I'm not I don't know where he's getting the transphobia and homophobia from.
00:12:43.820Maybe there's one person who said one inappropriate remark or had one sign amongst it all.
00:12:47.780I'm sure you could cherry pick and find all of that.
00:12:50.140The anti-Semitism, I guess he means that that one nutjob loser who was on the periphery with the Nazi flag.
00:12:56.000We still don't know what that guy was all about.
00:12:57.940By all means, say those things aren't appropriate.
00:12:59.600But he's he's he's obviously just trying to characterize all of these things as very massive, huge and the primary motivation of what's going on.
00:13:09.060And at the same time, I saw a video of a bunch of people in a holding hands in a circle singing that song.
00:13:14.100We are the world in like a kumbaya dance circle thing.
00:13:17.340And that's what he's saying is this rally that you got to bring the military in for.
00:13:21.980Yeah. No, there's a complete disconnect.
00:13:24.140I feel between our elected officials and what is actually going on the ground.
00:13:31.000And and, you know, to some extent, actually, you know, also the media.
00:13:36.920Much of the reporting has been driven by, you know, folks in the media who've staked a position here.
00:13:43.460They staked a position on this protest even before it arrived in the Capitol.
00:13:48.300And that's telling you something. Right.
00:13:50.360But but they also got it wrong because they said it was going to be a nothing burger.
00:14:01.940And of course, they suddenly had to flip once they realized that that was not the case.
00:14:06.620So, well, yeah, what's what's interesting, Anthony, actually, you know, before I forget this, because I do, you know, it addresses something that you mentioned regarding the prime minister's comments yesterday.
00:14:18.500You know, he's starring everybody with the same brush, whereas what what one sees, if you just you know, if you live in Ottawa, I urge you to go and actually talk to some of those people.
00:14:31.920So the fact of the matter is, remember, Prime Minister Trudeau went out of his way to support the farmers protests in India, if you remember that back in December 2020.
00:14:44.440And he basically, you know, he said, we stand with the farmers of India.
00:14:50.420We're very concerned about the situation there and so on and so forth.
00:14:55.060And the Indian government did not take too kindly to that intervention.
00:15:00.780What was interesting is how the Indian government played the farmers protest.
00:15:04.420They they characterize the farmers who mostly live in the North Indian state of Punjab and they're mostly Sikh farmers.
00:15:12.620And he and the Indian government and it's, you know, the powerful ecosystem portrayed the farmers as being tied to the Khalistan movement here in Canada and essentially portrayed them as a bunch of terrorists.
00:15:26.100And but, you know, Prime Minister Trudeau supported the farmers protest, but he, you know, and he but he he refuses to even reach out to the protests that are happening right here in the nation's capital.
00:15:43.460And so there's a little there's you know, there's a disconnect here, as I mentioned, our elected officials just don't seem to understand the power of what is happening on the ground.
00:15:54.800You don't have to identify with the cause. You don't even have to agree with what they're saying.
00:15:59.460You you know, I'm triple vaccinated. I believe in the science. I think boosters help.
00:16:04.580I think my messages go out and get vaccinated. But but I ninety one percent of people have.
00:16:12.580And then that remaining nine percent, you know, there's this bizarre people say, why are they all holding us back?
00:16:17.680And then you're also like, well, OK, well, why are you letting that be your mental hang up for why we are being out back?
00:16:23.360Like if you're triple vaccinated and you believe in it, just go live your life.
00:16:27.180And in a world where Omicron is so highly transmissible and studies have shown at least two studies, I think one of them from the UK show that its effectiveness wanes in about 10 to 12 weeks,
00:16:41.940which leaves the question, which raises the question, are we going to be on a carousel of boosters?
00:16:48.020Are we? And so then how do you then how do you justify this mandate?
00:16:53.020You know, are we going to keep updating these mandates every 12 to 15 weeks?
00:16:57.520It makes no sense. But here's another point, which which is worth making, which is that, you know, we have put all of our faith here in vaccines or nothing.
00:17:11.100And that vaccines are the only way out of this pandemic.
00:17:14.880In fact, every every politician has said that everyone from the Greens to the NDP, to the conservatives, to to to the liberals, that vaccines are our only way out.
00:17:27.500Now, we've had two years. A lot of stuff has happened in two years.
00:17:30.540We've had therapeutics come on the market. We've had we have testing capabilities.
00:17:36.140We have so much going on. We and we don't even recognize infection, immunity acquired through infection.
00:17:47.440If you've seen these studies coming out of the CDC, unvaccinated people who've recovered from covid continue to carry these antibodies.
00:17:58.240And I think there's a split. There's there's talking about all the nuances and laying it on the table.
00:18:03.060And then there's a little something called public health messaging, which has always been so blunt and so sort of, you know, this single sentence and everybody has to repeat them like mantras.
00:18:12.660And it's like, OK, fine. I appreciate that. You need the tweet.
00:18:15.940You need the thing to put on the billboard to encourage people to stay six feet apart back when that mattered the most, you know, year and a half ago to get the vaccine when the first vaccines were rolled out.
00:18:25.080But now they stick to these mantras when, you know, we're adults. We've been doing this for two years now.
00:18:31.040And I thought when Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced that they're pretty much going to get rid of all these rules now.
00:18:36.120I mean, he acknowledged like, look, people know how to make their risk assessments now.
00:18:40.320It's two years into this. We've all been talking about this to no end.
00:18:43.460People who never looked at a medical report before have read, you know, 100 different studies like, you know, we're not all going to be in 100 percent perfect agreement.
00:18:50.700But let's just figure it out. We can proceed accordingly now. Respect us like adults.
00:18:55.100Absolutely. So that's an important point. We've mostly been treated here.
00:19:00.860There's been a very paternalistic approach to our to how we've handled the pandemic here in Canada.
00:19:08.220A lot of European countries have, you know, as opposed to European countries.
00:19:13.440And that's that's a good benchmark because they're they're more like us in many ways.
00:19:20.280And and and and and, you know, their their citizens have not been treated like their kids and they don't know what they're doing.
00:19:29.600And, you know, what's what's also striking is I feel that most people here actually like that approach.
00:19:35.440They like they like they like the government telling you micromanaging every detail of your life.
00:19:41.200I do think that at some level people actually feel like they're safe if they if they if the government does this.
00:19:49.440So it goes both ways. And yeah, I mean, I just I just find that the public messaging has been poor.
00:19:58.500If you remember, if you remember, in in in in December over the holidays, the someone from the science table said the vaccine effectiveness is melting like snow.
00:20:10.520Now, what does that tell you to tell that to someone who's double?
00:20:14.200I know there were people who were panicking hearing that they were panicking.
00:20:19.040Right. And I and I actually, you know, went to, you know, I listened to that interview and he didn't qualify it in any way.
00:20:25.160He didn't you know, he could have said, look, they're not holding well against infections, but hey, look, they're still going to keep you out of the hospital against severe disease.
00:20:35.880Had he said that, that would have been a completely different messaging.
00:20:38.680But no, that wasn't the case. And then two weeks later, he says, yeah, it protects you against severe disease.
00:20:45.640So, you know, it's just the public is just tired.
00:20:48.940You know, they get they get told one thing one day and then a few days later, it's something else.
00:20:54.360We're still we still have these, you know, idiotic measures in place of plexiglass, you know, which probably do more harm than good.
00:21:04.480You know, and, you know, I think you're about people getting tired.
00:21:07.900They're also getting tired of believing this sort of, quote unquote, listen to the experts mantra only because to your point about that one Ontario person talking about the melting with snow.
00:21:18.120I mean, people are really making up as they go along.
00:21:53.340She has stayed firm in that vision, whereas others are just flipping and flopping nonstop.
00:21:57.820And I think this brings us down, brings us back to, you know, what's been going on in Canada, both the protests in Ottawa.
00:22:02.980And of course, they're going to other parts of the country all over now.
00:22:06.160People are just saying enough already to this constant kind of revolving door of random rules that that that as Omicron gets milder, as we're confirmed by public health, it is as, you know, more and more people.
00:22:20.120Obviously, most people, the vast majority are double vaccinated.
00:22:22.860We're getting to about 50 percent triple vaccinated.
00:22:25.320Just stop with the revolving door of wheels.
00:22:27.680Now, it's like the people who have gotten so used to micromanaging our lives, they can't stop doing it.
00:22:33.980See, it's there's a very simple solution to this.
00:22:37.220You want to get you want to, you know, basically you want to see these protesters go home.
00:23:16.460Experts often get it wrong, by the way.
00:23:18.440But here we've treated our experts as basically, you know, that everything that they're saying is the gospel truth and that you cannot question them.
00:23:29.000Or if you question them, you're an anti-vaxxer or you're promoting anti-vax sentiments or you're.
00:23:36.280And some of these things aren't even expertise things.
00:23:38.280I mean, I have never gone on any radio show or in my columns written about genome sequencing a virus because I would look like an idiot because I don't know how genome sequencing works and I don't know how to do it.
00:23:48.900But when I say my kids' school shouldn't be closed, you say, well, Fury, how dare you?
00:25:23.420But I find that the public response here has been, you know, quite extraordinary, you know, or has been different from other places that I keep track of.
00:25:48.400Um, and, um, and, and, and there's been no accountability so far.
00:25:53.180Uh, and that's, uh, that's, that's very unfortunate.
00:25:56.480We'll be back with more full comment after these quick messages.
00:25:59.000Well, on speaking of accountability, and I want to bring this back to what you're seeing on the ground in Ottawa, because I guess a lot of people making their appearances there, whether they are more the traditional truckers convoy.
00:26:12.180Or as you mentioned that, that, that diverse and broad constituency of people who have more, more sort of wider frustrations and grievances in all of this.
00:26:20.260One thing that we've been told is Ottawa is a city under siege.
00:26:23.680And we've been told that there is, there is, uh, improper things being done to the citizens of Ottawa by people who are converging, uh, in the city for the protests.
00:26:32.980And you're hearing conflicting stories about all of this here.
00:26:36.840I mean, Rideau Center, the largest mall I lived in Ottawa, uh, for a while, it's a nice mall.
00:26:41.320It had to shut down for a week, but then I'm calling my friends and I'm going, well, what streets?
00:27:11.580I know you live in the epicenter of in the byword market.
00:27:13.580So I know you hear those horns and they actually have been frustrating for you, the nonstop honking.
00:27:18.060Well, it's, I mean, it's, you know, I, I've lived in, I've lived overseas where protests and, uh, you know, honking is, is just a part of everyday life.
00:27:29.540Um, and, uh, so for me, this, so I, I, I, I get it, you know, everybody's tolerance level for these things is different.
00:27:36.820So maybe mine is, you know, definitely I'm used to this sort of thing, but, um, but the, uh, the mall.
00:27:48.240I walked around yesterday in the market and I went down on Elgin, I, uh, walked all those streets and all the restaurants are all open, um, barring a handful of restaurants that are closed.
00:28:01.440And some of these, uh, um, establishments are in office buildings that are closed.
00:28:07.140Um, and, and, and a couple of them are right where the truckers are parked.
00:28:13.280And so I, I understand from, you know, it would be hard for them to open, open them up, given all of the noise from the honking, but by and large, most, most restaurants, most independent businesses are open people.
00:28:26.760I've, I saw people dining, uh, dining in, I saw people shopping.
00:28:31.340Um, so I'm not quite sure why the mall would be closed.
00:28:35.360Um, except for the reason that, you know, when I was at the mall on Saturday, um, and I did, you know, take a video of this.