Juno News - January 30, 2023Revisiting the Freedom Convoy one year later
Episode Stats
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Summary
On this day in 2016, the Freedom Convoy marked the one year anniversary of its founding in Ottawa, Canada. In this episode, we look back at the events that took place in the lead-up to that day and reflect on what went on in the past year.
Transcript
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We're at the one-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy first taking root in Ottawa.
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And I think if you were to sit down most Canadians and talk to them about what went on 12 months ago,
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I think they'd have a more sympathetic view of what the convoy was doing now than they did then.
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Of course, there were many Canadians who supported the convoy,
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but a lot of people who didn't, for whatever reason,
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because they had exaggerated fears about where the virus was at at that point in time,
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or because they heard things said by politicians or reported in the media
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about what was going on at the Freedom Convoy that just weren't true.
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Reports of violence or that the reason they were there was to aggressively overthrow the government
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or that they tried to burn down an Ottawa apartment building.
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That was being trafficked as one of the lies that was later exposed to be false.
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But I think a year later, Canadians step back and you say,
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hey, remember it was only 12 months ago that the schools in Ontario, at least, were shut.
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You couldn't go into a store without a mask on,
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and there were people who were being fired from their jobs
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because they didn't have two doses of the vaccine.
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People go, oh yeah, that was kind of something.
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And you put to them now, look, we had this virus, there are people dying of it,
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you want to help people out, you want to support the healthcare system.
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But do you not think that maybe some of that was just a bit too overbearing,
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And I think people now, now that they've had some distance from it,
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are able to maybe think through that, yeah, I think maybe it was a bit of overkill.
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You know, if there's one or two people who just didn't want to wear the mask for whatever reason,
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okay, fine, you don't need to lose your marbles about it.
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And ultimately, what I saw the Freedom Convoy symbolizing was people saying,
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give us some breathing space, give us some room, allow us our individuality, allow us our humanity.
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The idea that you need 100% of people to submit to these things,
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That was always a very authoritarian impulse that the government really seized and really ran with.
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And it was really frustrating to see that take hold.
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And it did gain a lot of public support at times.
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And it was kind of worrisome that no matter what happened in other countries,
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was one of the last holdouts for having severe COVID-19 restrictions,
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And I think looking back, the idea that some Canadians,
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and of course, one of the other falsehoods about the people who participated in the convoy
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was that they were monolithic in their demographic.
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It was really people from all walks of life and even all different political backgrounds.
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It was really interesting to see what happened there,
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hey, government, just give us a little space, give us a little breathing room,
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and just lay off on the aggressiveness of these measures.
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one of the main things that we can acknowledge as a society is,
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People are going to disagree on different aspects of this, that, and the other.
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everybody must submit to these different edicts,