"Passing" Thoughts
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So, over last two weeks I feel like I've had the same discussion a dozen times or more. So... I'm going to lay it all out here, and head off the two most common objections (because they really don't hold water) so as to not keep having the same discussion over and over, because frankly, I'm really done with having to fill in the blanks for people on this thing, and because I suspect others are exhausted too, and might just want a link that has it all in one place.

Common objection 1:

"There were only a few 'bad apples' with confederate flags, or Nazi symbols, and the protesters kicked them out".

That may be true, but it misses the point. The problem wasn't that a few bad actors showed up at a protest that was organized by good people with the best of intentions. The problem was they showed up at a protest organized by people JUST LIKE THEM.

Here are your organizers, where possible, in their own words:

So as you can see, it's not "a few bad apples" It's a tree with rotten roots. Some of the apples might be fine, unaware that the tree they're attached to is sick, but if they don't fall off soon, the rot will get to them too. Also, for the record, the full saying is "A few bad apples spoil the barrel."

There's been the saying going around:


It's getting a bit overused now, but it's apt. If you knowingly associate yourself with white supremacists, you're giving them legitimacy. The part "knowingly" is important there. Anyone who showed up thinking this was about "Worker's Rights" (remember that bit, we'll come back to it later) was just being used, and that's understandable, under our current situation. I get being frustrated with the mandates, they're inconvenient and when you have a privilege that gets taken away, even temporarily, it can feel like oppression. It's not oppression, but it can feel that way. So while I disagree that it's currently safe to remove the mandates, I understand the frustration with them.

The above information alone, once known, should be enough to turn any decent person off this movement. However, I'll continue, since there's some other bullshittery that's gone on.

Usually, after I've demonstrated that the people running this convoy shitshow, are racists, conspiracy theorists, and in most cases part of literal white nationalist groups, (who's main concerns aren't even the mandates, but we'll get to that) the true motivation begins to come out...

Common objection 2:

"Trudeau is a tyrant, and he need to be removed/put in jail/shot."

That's not how things work in a democratic society. If I'm being honest, I'm not a fan of Trudeau, at all. Not even a little actually. I think he's a terrible leader and I don't like that he's in power. The blackface incidents alone are enough to ensure I never vote for him. Here's the thing though, IT DOESN"T FUCKING MATTER what I feel about Trudeau. He's who Canada elected. Now I'm MORE than happy to entertain discussion about electoral reform, hell one of the main reasons I don't like Trudeau is that he reneged on his promise to institute electoral reform, but he was elected under the system we have, and re-elected, at time of writing, LESS THAN SIX MONTHS AGO. We had our chance to get rid of him the right way, and we didn't, it does not then follow that we should get to remove him the wrong way. Your candidate lost, suck it up buttercup, that happens in a democracy.

"They aren't trying to overthrow the government, you made that up."

No, I didn't. "Unity Canada", the organization representing the "protest", tried to submit a M.O.U. to the Governor General that included replacing elected members of parliament, with people of their own choosing, as a condition of ending the convoy blockade. Jason LaFace (see above), who is Canada Unity's Ontario organizer for the convoy, even said that the intent of the protest was to dissolve the government (Article). They've since pulled that document from their website, but you can find a copy here and it's in the public record now. (Wikipedia Article) . It should also be noted that this M.O.U. was written in mid-December of 2021, at least a good month before the protest was a reality. These demands would never have been given in to by any reasonable government, and not many unreasonable ones either. Do I think they expected this to work? I don't know, I'm not a mind reader. I doubt it, but I don't know, maybe they ARE actually dumb enough to think it would. What I DO know is that this would always further their goals whether it worked or not. If the government did cave to their demands then they've put white nationalists into positions of power, in the much more likely event that the government just rejected the demands as unreasonable, we get what we're seeing now, the organizers of the convoy telling people "See? The government's unwilling to even talk!", further riling up the frustration of the convoy members. Which leads us to:

"The Emergency Act is just a power grab by Trudeau"

Again. No. It's the only avenue left to him. We could discuss if action was left too late, and by whom, or we could debate how long the EA should remain in place after the convoys are cleared, but this isn't a "protest" it's an unlawful assembly (Justice Canada), not protected by our charter, so there's no debate to be had over IF something should be done to end it, just what and when. The Ottawa Police and the Ontario Provincial Police weren't enforcing the law, there's video evidence of them not doing their jobs, often shared by the protesters themselves as proof the cops were on their side.


There's even videos of officers actively showing their support while in uniform on their social media.


I know some L.E.O.'s, good ones, and one of the first things they'll tell you about social media is that in these political matters it doesn't matter who you agree with, you keep your damn mouth shut. It's not your job to take sides. It's your job to enforce the law. Before any one starts on the whole slippery slope of "I was just following orders...", that's not what I'm saying. If an officer is told to enforce a law they feel to be unjust, they should absolutely not go through with it, and take a stand, but what we're seeing here isn't a problem with the law they were being asked to enforce, but rather who they were being asked to enforce it on. The law has to apply evenly or not at all. Just look at the application of these laws on almost any Indigenous or BLM protest and you can see the disparity here. There is some interesting debate around whether or not the delay by the OPS to enforce the laws at play here was a tactic to oust Ottawa's top cop, who apparently wasn't broadly liked among the OPS, but that's a whole other discussion. That delay though, combined with the evidence that the convoy organizers were primarily interested with subverting our democratic process, really left Trudeau with no choice. As a good friend of mine said about the Emergency act being invoked, "I also don’t and have never liked Trudeau. But my only criticism of how he’s handled this is that it took him this long."

To anyone who's studied history, these tactics should seem familiar to you. Remember when I said we'd come back to the whole façade of "Worker's Rights" being the thing at issue? That's happened before. There was a political party in Germany once, who started off as the "Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" or German Worker's party, that was actually a front for people with white nationalist ideals. So at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, here's some reading about their rise to power: Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

Now, some of you out there may be inclined to argue with me on this. Here's my advice to you on that.
Don't.
Don't even consider it. I'm no longer entertaining any arguments on this matter that don't somehow paradoxically prove that the organizers of this thing aren't who they, themselves, say they are. (When someone shows you who they are, believe them). Instead, I invite you find the door and use it. If you want to defend these people and you think of yourself as my friend, I'm telling you now, no, we aren't friends, and I'd much rather you just remove yourself from my life than argue about it with you. If you come find me on my social media, know that my finger will be awfully heavy on the block/unfriend/unfollow button for anyone who tries. Because there are three types of people involved with the convoy.

  1. Those who knew that the organizers were white nationalists/racists/seditionists, and are ones themselves or active supporters thereof.
  2. Those who didn't know who they were being led by.
  3. Those who knew, but didn't care as long as the protest furthered their ends of removing the COVID mandates.

If you're the first type, fuck right the hell off. I don't care what you have to say on the matter anyway.

If you're the second type, great. Now you know. Change your associations with the convoy accordingly.

If you're the third type, then just be aware that, for practical purposes, the difference between you and the first type is absolutely fucking nothing.

Matthew Carvery is a Canadian mixed race writer, actor and film maker.
The opinions expressed on the Passing Thoughts website are his own and in no way reflect those of any employeer he may have now or in the future.