As far as large protests go, the Truckers for Freedom protest at Parliament Hill in Ottawa has gone remarkably well. Thousands of upset people have converged in one spot and demonstrated with no reports of violence or vandalism. No clashes with police, no windows smashed.
If you watched nothing but legacy media coverage of the event, however, you would think that the demonstration was dominated by neo-Nazis and other assorted hate groups. The coverage has been nothing less than appalling.
Let’s review what has been making headlines since day one of the protest was held on Jan. 29.
A photograph of a person carrying a Nazi flag has been circulating. It was never actually seen among the protesters but it has been used to try to claim the protest has been dominated by Nazis.
Some fools had parked on the steps of the National War Memorial and an idiot danced on the top of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This video is being constantly replayed by mainstream outlets, but they neglect to mention that this took part well outside of where the demonstration was held and it was only a handful of people. Those people were draped with Quebec flags by the way. Why isn’t the media trying to claim it was part of a Quebec nationalist movement?
A few twits draped a flag and put a mask on the Terry Fox memorial statue. The items were removed within minutes and the statue is unharmed (unlike many statues destroyed in past protests). It was disrespectful but hardly a capital offence. Still, we are barraged with images of the “desecration” continually on mainstream channels.
A Member of Parliament was photobombed by a jerk who had drawn a swastika on a Canadian flag with a felt pen. Ridiculous demands have been made that the MP apologize, though he clearly didn’t even know the flag was being waved behind him. Media is eagerly working to keep this story alive.
That’s about it. That’s all. That is the worst that the mainstream media could find after thousands of demonstrators spent an entire day in Ottawa.
Why couldn’t the media report on the thousands of Canadian flags being waved proudly through the demonstration? Why couldn’t they at least note that despite a week of predictions from “experts” that this demonstration would turn into another “January 6” event, not a single violent incident happened?
If we are going to pick winners and losers from the demonstration in Ottawa, the clear losers are the members of the mainstream media.
Trust in legacy media outlets has been in decline for years along with their viewership. The slanted coverage of news coupled with government bailouts has driven people to seek news from alternative news providers. The reprehensible behaviour from the mainstream media this week truly exposed to Canadians just how rotten that institution has become.
Nobody expects the media to support the trucker’s protest, but people expect coverage to be fair at least.
Yet, we are witnessing an incredible event unfolding before us.
Despite the most vociferous efforts of Canada’s political and media establishment, an unprecedented nationwide movement and protest has emerged. The organizers didn’t need mainstream media coverage in order to bring together tens of thousands of people. They didn’t even need establishment banks in order to raise over $8 million from over 100,000 people.
This is what is at the root of the desperate and almost hysteric opposition to the Truckers for Freedom protest from the Canadian establishment. Canada’s political and media elites have lost control, and it scares the tar out of them. They don’t know what to do and are responding by hysterically lashing out.
Time will tell whether the protest will have the effect of actually pressuring authorities to drop pandemic restrictions. Even if it doesn’t, the convoy has already been a grand success.
The convoy has shown that citizens can and will stand up for themselves when pushed too far, and that the establishment isn’t invulnerable.
Canada’s political and media elites needed a good dose of personal insecurity, and they just got it. They now can choose either to change their tune or get left behind. I suspect that they will choose the latter—and we will all be better for it.
Friends Read Free