Hundreds of people gathered on Parliament Hill Saturday to mark the one-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy protest against COVID-19 restrictions last winter.
The day was festive, and reminiscent of the atmosphere when the convoy first arrived in the nation’s capital at the end of January 2022. Music was played, and people were seen waving the Canadian flag to commemorate the truckers’ movement that occasioned people of all backgrounds from across the country to call for the abolition of vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictive public health measures.
“Freedom is not easy,” Johnny Rowe, co-organizer of the event, said in a speech. “There will be roadblocks, and that’s okay.”
“We are gonna go up and over, we’re gonna go underneath, we’re gonna go around, but most of all, we’re gonna go through.”
Another speaker invited people to “tell their story.”
The event was co-organized by several different groups, according to Rowe, who told The Epoch Times he’s a member of “Wellington Street Regulars,“ a local group of “freedom people.”
The mood was upbeat as the crowd sang songs including “O Canada,” mingled with one another, and chanted “freedom.”
‘Witness the Truth’
Father Anthony Hannon, a Catholic priest, told The Epoch Times that he came to the event to “witness the truth and to support and bless everyone.”“Because they’re doing the right thing standing up for freedoms and opposing government overreach. That’s why I’ve been coming to all the freedom rallies since 2020, and the truckers’ convoy,” he said.
Hannon paid tribute to the truckers whose weeks-long protest was eventually quashed by the authorities.
“The mainstream media and the government are sending a message that there’s something wrong with the truckers’ convoy when it’s quite the opposite,” he said.
“Not only was the truckers’ convoy and the freedom movement peaceful [and] peacemaking, it’s uniting Canadians, and that’s what it’s about because Canadians are peace-loving, kind, gentle people.”
“I just think that a lot of the people who were complaining, a lot of the opposition, were informed by the mainstream media because they weren’t here, they weren’t seeing what was happening,” he said.
He said the convoy protest didn’t constitute an emergency even though there were “swearing and some angry voices,” but it had “never been physically violent.”
Bylaw Warning
A strong police presence monitored the event. Some attendees had altercations with the city’s bylaw officers on regulation issues.
On Feb. 14, 2022, Trudeau became the first Canadian prime minister to invoke the Emergencies Act, in order to quash the protest in Ottawa and similar ones in other parts of the country, and grant banks the power to freeze the accounts of convoy organizers and supporters without a court order.
