It’s just as well that striking federal public servants didn’t use trucks to block roads, interfere with critical infrastructure, and cause Canadians major and lasting inconvenience if not harm. Someone might have said something. For instance, “seize their bank accounts.”
Just kidding. Not about blocking roads, etc. Those things really happened. But the only drawback if PSAC had used trucks is that it would have made the contrast that much more awkward. Or would it? These people don’t embarrass easily.
Had Tamara Lich said it, she’d have gotten handcuffed. These guys got raises.
The prime minister eventually, this February, professed to regret pre-emptively calling the Freedom Convoy a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views.” He told reporters, “I wish I had phrased that differently.” But the real question isn’t the wording, it’s the thoughts, emotions, and conduct behind it.
The truckers, after all, wanted more freedom. The public servants wanted more free money. And the response of the state was dramatically different in the two cases.
Trudeau famously refused to meet with the convoy, which was itself divisive because a major issue was that they felt unheard in Ottawa. And while he didn’t meet with striking public servants either, he kept insisting he was going to meet their demands in large measure. Indeed, behind the theatrics of oppressed proletarian office workers with cushy secure jobs squaring off, fists and jaws clenched under militant red banners, against a prudent fiscally responsible government under partisan red banners, both sides were basically in agreement that the public sector isn’t yet big enough or well enough paid and never will be.
He added, “It’s a very small group of people, but they take up some space.” And so “This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?”
Clearly not. “We” are too tolerant.
I’m not saying he’s about to start jailing Canadians for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” as in the Chinese communist dictatorship he incautiously admitted to admiring. Even though his internet censorship bill will, we may confidently predict, basically target unacceptable bigots who “take up space” that could furnish Sprachensraum for pleasant sophisticates inclined to vote Liberal.
What I am saying is that what you hear is what you get with Trudeau. His reflexive, sincere belief is that that everyone who disagrees with him is a knuckle-dragging bigot with twisted motives. If prompted to soften the message he will concede that there are exceptions who have been led astray by the devils among us. But then he will draw his shining sword and smite the evil-doers with an Emergencies Act.
Hola, amigos. Help yourselves to the Treasury.