TL;DR
In October,
I wrote that I hoped the Public Order Emergency Commission looking into Trudeau's use of the Emergencies Act to shut down the FreeDumb Convoy Ottawa occupation and border blockades should answer five questions:
1. Whose side were the police really on?
2. Whose side are the media really on?
3. Whose side is the public really on?
4. Conservatives, WTF?
5. Are the hearings going to be a clown show?
Paging throgh the
POEC Final Report released today, I wanted to see if any of these questions were considered, either directly or indirectly.
Commissioner Paul Rouleau found that Ottawa police were inept and unprepared, but I haven't come across any discussion of whether some police were acting as Convoy supporters or enablers. I couldn't find discussion of how many Canadians actually supported what the FreeDumb Convoy was trying to do. Pandering to the Convoy by Conservative politicians isn't mentioned, even though it is noted that the Ford government dropped the ball. Also not discussed is whether Canadian media gleefully embraced the Convoy initially because it was an embarassment to the Trudeau government.
But at least Rouleau ensured that the hearings were not a clown show, though Ford refused to testify.
One point that Commissioner Rouleau does make clear in the report is that the outrage at Canadian border vaccine requirements - the rationale for the Convoy's entire existance - was based on a lie. Maybe the truth will never be believed by the Freedumbers, but at least the truth is in the report:
...on October 12, 2021, the government of the United States announced [emphasis mine] that, starting in January 2022, all inbound foreign national travellers crossing United States land or ferry ports of entry would be required to be fully vaccinated. This included those travelling for essential purposes, including commercial trucking. Then, on November 18, 2021, Canada announced that its border rules would also change ...
The effect of these new rules was that foreign truck drivers would be barred from entering Canada unless they were vaccinated. Canadian truckers, who have a constitutional right to enter Canada, would not be barred from entry. However, if unvaccinated, they would no longer be exempted from the requirement to quarantine, which would have a significant impact on their ability to engage in commercial trucking.
In practice, they were more impacted by the American rules that barred them from entering that country entirely. However, as I mentioned earlier in this chapter, several protest leaders believed that the American authorities decided to impose their vaccination requirement only after Canada did so.
This was not the case [emphasis mine] but does go some way to explaining why protesters may have focused their anger toward Canadian authorities and believed that a repeal of the Canadian requirements would have allowed unvaccinated truckers to continue cross-border work ...
Rouleau continues:
In some circles, “the trucker” became a symbol for hard-working Canadians who, despite their contributions to society, were having their lives and livelihoods upended by government COVID-19 regulations.
This narrative was a contributing factor that helped to animate the Freedom Convoy.
(Volume 2, page 98-99)
