Posted on 02/12/2022 8:29:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
OTTAWA—The center of Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, was flooded by thousands of protesters on Feb. 12 demanding an end to COVID-19 mandates and restrictions.
Many more joined the ongoing trucker-led protest with the arrival of the weekend. Numbers grew from the night of Feb. 11 into the next morning as supporters seemingly poured into the city.
Greater masses of people were particularly noticeable on Parliament Hill and then later on the streets, where they spilled out from the immediate vicinity of the truck blockade.
Around 10 a.m., several thousand protesters were marshaled into groups to form the word “freedom.”
Then, they waved their red and white maple leaf flags and sang the national anthem “O Canada” with passion and rousing volume.
On finishing, they burst into loud cheering and the maple leaves waved again.
The effort helped rouse the spirits of the protesters on what was a very cold winter’s day, as the morning temperature was on its way down to -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) and snow was being whipped around in the air by a gusty wind.
Denis Cadieux, a carpenter from Orleans, told The Epoch Times that he liked almost everything about the protests and the way people had behaved.
If there were one thing he would change, it would be to cut out the negative signs and messages.
“They make us sound violent,” he said.
Cadieux said the main phrase he didn’t like was the one that said, “[Expletive] Trudeau.”
“Trudeau is a human being like anybody,” he said. “He makes mistakes and, unfortunately, he is making such a big mistake he needs to step down. And that we understand, but we cannot hate him for that. Hate is a big word.”
Cadieux went on and said, “I think we all need to be respectful of everybody. I respect Trudeau for what he did. But for us, it doesn’t work and he needs to step down. But take down the signs. As supporters, we need to take [expletive] out of the equation.”
And there were other things Cadieux saw that he rated as negative.
“This morning, I saw a video of gentleman who is against the truckers. What I didn’t like about the supporters was that instead of being positive, they were burying him with chanting ‘Freedom, freedom.’
“The poor man was overridden by these people and that was negative. So now, we are losing viewers as well.
“If we had treated this gentleman with dignity and honest, respect, he would probably have said, ‘OK, well they were nice.’ Instead we lost that gentleman for good.”
But overall, Cadieux said he expected that protesters will win people over by the way they behaved.
“We won’t win everybody, but honestly, I think this is great.”
He added that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and “the mainstream news had made it sound like we are disrupting the economy, but actually, it is their delays in not sitting down to speak with us that are disrupting the economy.”
The mass gathering on Feb. 12 had a carnival atmosphere along Wellington St., near Parliament Hill, and spirits were sent soaring as people stood and sang along in unity with a very well received song list.
Speeches were made throughout the day, during which key words and phrases—such as freedom—earned cheers and whistles from the packed-in crowd.
Regular cries of “Freedom” were screamed out and answered in similar fashion, while vehicles with national emblems fluttering above their flatbeds honked their horns as they cruised the snow-covered streets.
At one restaurant at the edge of the city center, a small group with a Canadian flag came in without masks and were asked for proof of vaccinations. They didn’t have them and were told they could not be served.
“We didn’t want to eat here anyway,” one said as they left.
The server said of the protests, “This is killing our business.”
Less than a month ago, they had eight servers. “Now, we have two.”
The eatery has been very careful about taking COVID-19 restrictions seriously. But just two weeks ago, they were reported for not checking for a woman’s vaccination card. She was a regular customer who had left her card at home.
A customer reported the incident and the restaurant was fined $1,000.
I guess the government’s Next Step will be to pass an ordinance forbidding the singing of the national anthem, clapping, and cheering, now that they outlawed truck horn honking at the protests.
The word “freedom” will be outlawed and those shouting it (or even whispering it) will be arrested.
And Justin Trudeau
No FBI agents posting on this thread, no sir.
Meanwhile in Australia, tens of thousands turned out in Canberra to support their Freedom Trucker Convoy. Some very impressive video on RebelNews.
The freedom genie is out of the bottle now, thanks to the courage of those glorious Canadian truckers.
“It’s like some of them just want to get out and -10 degrees doesn’t matter.”
When I lived in Alaska, the partying always took precedence over below-zero temps. Just another day to have fun.
Exactly. Most establishments closed. The open ones were booming. The idea is to protest against the mandates. If a store is acceding to the mandates they get what they get.
You’d think a restaurant could pivot to take out and sell out the front door. Maybe not.
It’s sad the Epoch spent so much time with the Cadieux guy. I’ve watched many hours of livestream and seen a number of interviews of people noting how absolutely wonderful all the protesters are. Crime is down 90%, the homeless are well fed, streets are cleaner than ever, statues have had all the bid poop cleaned off of them and the signs telling Trudeau to do something physically impossible are accurate.
TRUDEAU, where are the masses of unmasked Canadians flooding the emergency rooms with Covid-19?
The truckers at Coutts had a meeting with the RCMP on Friday where the RCMP basically tried to lay down an enforcement warning. One of the truckers yelled “come and try”! He was immediately shouted down by the rest of the truckers.
The truckers are well-organized and are carefully playing their hand. The provincial & Ottawa governments are prodding them toward violence, or something they can characterize as violence. The truckers, so far, are resisting taking any action that could be interpreted as aggressive.
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