Campbell: The Freedom Convoy blockades were never about COVID-19 – Calgary Herald

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The recent blockades in Canada were not about COVID-19. They were about white supremacy and extremism. The blockaders are not patriots nor are they oppressed. The blockaders are an irrational mob of thugs upset about injury to their individual entitlement and panicked about the erosion of their white privilege.

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Attending a protest to whinge about job loss resulting from a refusal to meet fitness to work requirements (i.e. vaccination against COVID-19) is the ultimate in privileged griping. Those who attended the blockades merely to bring about the end of COVID-19 were absurd one cannot protest a global pandemic to a conclusion. The blockade was never about COVID, vaccines, jobs, trucks, public health measures or anything remotely tangible. Worse, the blockaders, in my personal view, behaved like domestic terrorists.

Those paying attention will observe that the 2022 Freedom Convoy resembled and had similar participants as the 2019 United We Roll Convoy. That convoy, complete with yellow vests, chants of Make Canada Great Again, Confederate flags, hate speech and on-stage appearances by Faith Goldy and then-Opposition leader Andrew Scheer, rolled up to Ottawa to shout at the government about carbon taxes and other grievances. In Calgary, the United We Roll Convoy was preceded by regular Saturday protests throughout 2018. Those protests were characterized by signs that read Trudeau for Treason, some with a picture of the prime minister and a noose, and others with misogynistic, sexually violent language about Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus mother.

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Down in Coutts, Alta., the blockaders barked their grievances and demands for respect of their rights from their truck cabs, recreational vehicles and pickup trucks. Things these blockaders professed had been violated were not rights but rather entitlements. White privilege, while the norm for many since birth in Calgary, is not actually normal. It is, rather, the outcome of long-standing, legislated, racist norms that have existed for so long some now believe that a life lived under the benedictions of white privilege is indeed normal and that the resulting entitlements are God-given rights.

Anti-vaccination, anti-mask, anti-public health measures, anti-adulthood and white supremacist marches have occurred every weekend in Calgary since March 2020. Every weekend for 101 weeks. In some of the earliest marches, Calgarians saw tiki torches, yellow stars, Nazi flags, f*ck Trudeau flags, Confederate flags, anti-Asian coronavirus conspiracy posters, posters that disparaged the mayor, posters that disparaged the provincial chief medical officer of health, and deliberate displays of alt-right extremist and hate insignia. The marches featured hate speech and the physical presence of terrorist groups like the Proud Boys, Soldiers of Odin and their ilk. These marches continued and grew for two years and were policed by the Calgary Police Service at a cost of approximately $2 million in 2021 alone. This excludes the costs of investigating hate crimes and hate incidents that were inspired by each of the rallies.

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Canadians dont treat this white nationalism and alt-right extremism with the same pressing urgency as we treat terrorism that may manifest in racialized communities. Police across Canada try to avoid the radicalization of youth into terrorism, however, little focus is paid to white children being radicalized into known terrorist groups like the Proud Boys. Frankly, its all about youth engagement to prevent crime until a bunch of privileged white kids with full entitlement rock up to city hall with their f*ck Trudeau flags, Nazi flags, Three Percenters white nationalist flags and Confederate battle flags. Thankfully, in Calgary, the polices ReDirect program has increased its focus on preventing youth radicalization into alt-right extremism and white nationalism.

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The blockaders were treated differently than any other group that had marched for racial or social justice. When did Black people ever, in the history of Canada, while marching in the streets for racial justice, receive pamphlets and multiple notifications from the police kindly advising them in advance of their potential arrest? In contrast, Black people marching for racial justice, having experienced centuries of actual oppression, police brutality, street checks and inequitable application of the law, are met with police officers wearing Thin Blue Line patches on their uniforms, a visible challenge to a racialized community who are then left feeling unsafe and unserved.

Police officers across the country will react to this column with assertions that policing is really hard right now. Yes, it is, but so is nursing and nurses arent seen clanning together in solidarity and wearing racist insignia on their scrubs or uniforms while working to save the lives of the provinces COVID-19 patients. It is rather the opposite, given that front-line nurses with boots on the ground in Alberta were faced with the potential of both layoffs and pay cuts while continuing to work in debilitating conditions on the front lines of the pandemic.

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There is a distinct culture in policing and that culture was exposed in a transparent fashion during the blockades. Academic research has found that core pieces of police culture include suspicion, isolation, solidarity, conservatism, machismo, racial prejudice, pragmatism, sense of mission, cynicism and pessimism. This culture is further reinforced by the political ideology in Alberta.

The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act came into force in 2020 after some Indigenous people were protesting a pipeline. This legislation was therefore available to police for enforcement during the blockades. Police, aware that the blockaders were by all reports known agitators, majority-white, and pleading a cause that may have aligned with the shared values and culture of police members seemed hesitant to enforce the act, perhaps, I believe because of those same shared values and culture. It was not surprising when it was reported that the blockaders had negotiations, entente cordiale style, with the Alberta RCMP in the warmth and comfort of the Smugglers Saloon in Coutts.

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The blockades were never about COVID. These protests were laced with extremism, white nationalism, populism and racism. The blockaders, privileged and entitled, were nourished, nurtured and coddled in Canada. The blockaders are my neighbours and your colleagues and family. The alarm has been sounded for everyone to urgently eradicate white nationalism to restore peace, order and good government in Canada. And its loud and clamouring, like a deafening wailing truck horn.

Heather A. Campbell is a Calgary-based licensed professional engineer with a masters degree in energy law and policy. Ms. Campbell is a board director with Arts Commons, a member of the Advisory Council for Western Engineering, a commissioner with the Calgary police commission and the peoples warden at St. Stephens Anglican Church. She is the former co-chair of the Alberta Anti-Racism Advisory Council. The views expressed in this column are her own.

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Campbell: The Freedom Convoy blockades were never about COVID-19 - Calgary Herald