The depth of Freedom Convoyers’ discontent is misunderstood

It’s easy to dismiss motives of supporters of the Freedom Convoy that paralyzed Canada’s capital last January. Their grievances seem so inchoate, like a primal howl.

image: Vox

There must have been more to it than a lark; more than a fun time in bringing Ottawa to a standstill and blocking the Ambassador Bridge to the U.S. for six days resulting in a loss of $3 billion in trade.

What motivated so many to give up their time, energy and resources? They were so determined. The media’s reporting on their behaviour has been largely empty of meaningful explanations.

Some of the supporters felt that vaccine mandates were an imposition on their freedom; others wanted Prime Minster Trudeau to resign.

That’s all superficial -their anger is deep-seated.

Many Canadians supported the sheer audacity of the convoy. In a survey taken during the occupation of Ottawa, nearly half (46%) of Canadians said that while they “may not agree with everything the people who have taken part in the truck protests in Ottawa have said but their frustration is legitimate and worthy of our sympathy.”

The highest support came from18-34-year-olds (61 per cent) and Conservative voters (59 per cent).

A year later, support for the freedom convoy is still substantial at 25 per cent. Prime Minister Trudeau dismissed them as a “fringe group.” Some fringe.

In an attempt to explain the deep support for the freedom convoy, Conservative leader Poilievre offered:

“I don’t like the flags, and I don’t like the rage,” said Poilievre in response to former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s tweet. “But I think we have to ask ourselves: ‘Why are people so angry?’ And the answer is that they are hurting.”

Poilievre was responding to O’Toole’s wish for fewer ‘f–k Trudeau’ flags. ‘These flags and the hyper-aggressive rhetoric that often accompanies them are slowly normalizing rage and damaging our democracy,” said O’Toole.

Indeed, we have to ask “Why are people so angry?” as Poilievre suggests. But his answer “that they are hurting,” doesn’t go deep enough.

Freedom convoy supporters are hurting because they feel disconnected and betrayed to society.

They are lashing out in a way they have seen effective. American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has attributed Donald Trump’s improbable rise to the U.S. presidency in 2016 to his mastery of the dynamics “in which outrage is the key to virality, stage performance crushes competence.”

The roots of these new forces are complex but ultimately laid bare by the collapse of shared prosperity and inclusive economics says pollster Frank Graves:

“Those drawn to this new movement are most likely to be males under the age of 50 who are lacking university educations and are experiencing an erosion of social status. They are dramatically more likely to lean toward an authoritarian, or ordered, populist outlook, be dramatically less trusting of institutions such as government, media, academics and other professionals, dramatically more disinformed – and they are also dramatically more economically insecure.”

For freedom convoy supporters, the middle-class dream has collapsed – the dream of doing better than their parents, buying a home, retiring with a pension and having their children inherit a secure middle-class future.

In the winter of their discontent, recognition of a lost future is the key to understanding their visceral anger.

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The new threat to health care is not privatization, it’s viral

The COVID pandemic has gone viral. I don’t mean the Delta variant. I mean the mania created by antivaxxers who have whipped up opposition to panic levels.

Potesters in front of Kamloops hospital image: CFJC Today

Antivaxxers are angry over their perceived loss of rights. At a Trudeau rally in Bolton, Ontario on Aug 27, 2021, dozens of protesters, some holding babies, shouted expletives, waved middle fingers, and made references to Nazis over megaphones. The rally was cancelled over safety concerns.

The viral nature of antivaxxers is not even about the disease –it’s about their purported rights and freedoms. Their rights are being infringed, they claim. They have the constitutional right to infect others with a potentially deadly disease because they selfishly refuse to be vaccinated.  

That’s the nature of viral crazes –they’re irrational.

Antivaxxers are mad as hell at the B.C. government for introducing vaccine cards. Some business owners have threatened not to screen customers for the card. But if they thought about it, they’d realize that customers are less likely to enter their premises if their health is at risk.

To be clear, I’m not saying that those who haven’t yet been vaccinated are antivaxxers. Most of the unvaccinated are not against the jab, they just haven’t found the time or motivation. Motivation was provided with the announcement of vaccine cards and vaccination clinics are suddenly busy.

In an attempt to invent a reason to call an election, Prime Minister Trudeau is trying scare voters into believing that the Conservatives will put an end to our cherished public health care system. He defended a tweet in his deputy prime minister that painted Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole as an advocate for private health care.

Twitter marked Trudeau’s retweet of the edited video of O’Toole as ‘Manipulated media.’

What O’Toole actually said was that that he wanted to find public-private synergies. Later, he said that he “100 per cent” supports the public and universal system and pointed to a promised $60 billion in health funding in his platform.

Nice try Prime Minister, but the immediate threat is not privatization but burnout of health care workers. Yes, privatization is a perennial threat but the urgent threat is the fatigue experienced by health care workers.

Nurses are suffering from burnout and frustration. They are tired of caring for COVID infected people who refuse to get vaccinated. Patients get sick from a preventable disease and then look for sympathetic treatment. Nurses are leaving Royal Inland Hospital at alarming rates.

However, the viral mania seems to have spread to some nurses as well. 

A group called “Canadian Frontline Nurses (CFN)” is advertising protests against vaccine mandates, which are slated to take place at Kelowna General Hospital, Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, and other cities across the country. The CFN website states their mission:

“To restore our freedoms and rights as Canadian citizens and reinstate the four ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice within nursing.”

A Royal Inland Hospital nurse told iNFOnews.ca that she is concerned about protests in front of the hospital.

Instead of investing reasons for an election, that is nothing but a power grab, Trudeau should address the immediate problems of our health care system.