From Freedom Convoy to Fifth Column
Whatever happened to the principle of self-determination?
It was like the cavalry had come to save us. Reviewing those days from January and February of 2022, in the online database that is this site’s Telegram channel, moved me with powerful reminders of this spectacular and monumental phenomenon. Everything seemed to change, and the dominoes began to fall. These are not opinions of the Freedom Convoy that I will ever revise, at least not what it was back then. Masses of Canadian flags everywhere, and remember that the truckers blocked border crossings with the US that impeded trade: in Coutts, Alberta; the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario; and border crossings in Sarnia, Ontario. Access to three border crossings in Michigan, North Dakota and Montana, were thus cut off. The Freedom truckers were accused of launching an economic blockade, with Ford and Toyota plants claiming large losses and the need to cut back production. That was then, and there were no apologies because truckers were defending their rights. But we live in Upside Down World, and everything has been inverted and reversed.
On the eve of what could be a trade war between the US and Canada plus Mexico, we notice that once again a remarkable symmetry has emerged between the two supposed polar opposites in Canadian politics: Trudeau’s Liberal government and those associated with the former Freedom Convoy. Trudeau, who once proclaimed Canada to be “post-national” and lacking an identity, has now picked up the Canadian flag and is rallying Canadians to unite in fighting the US. Leading members of the former Freedom Convoy, a movement that practically appropriated the Canadian flag all for itself, are now cheering in support of Donald Trump, justifying tariffs, and damning Canada for even thinking of retaliating. Globalists turned into nationalists are now pitted against nationalists turned into imperialist force multipliers.
It is really intriguing to see those who were patriots* just moments ago, turn into fifth columnists for an aggressor threatening to cripple the Canadian economy.
The Problems
First, let me state this right at the outset: I fully understand why Canadians who were discriminated against and vilified by their own government, in addition to being suspended or fired, and then banned from all long-distance travel, would think twice about being called upon to demonstrate their patriotic devotion to Canada. They already fought for Canada, and were spat upon by Canada. However—and this is the first problem—what I do not understand and therefore cannot support, is how this experience means that we support US imperialism (led by a regime that also championed lockdowns and of course “the vaccines”). To me that is the same as being brutalized by the Italian government in the 1930s—and then fleeing to one of the other Axis powers. I wonder if their fundamental mistake is in thinking that, in order to escape from Trudeau, you must also escape from Canada. But then a second problem sets in: they want to escape from Canada, but with Canada in tow.
Those are the two core problems I face in understanding how key figures associated with Canada’s Freedom Convoy and associated oppositional media, are out there cheering for Trump and condemning Canada for even thinking of retaliating in a trade war initiated by the US. Besides advocating surrender, some of them are also pushing for annexation.
Basic Principles that You Stand By
When one lets opportunistic and partisan ideological tribalism serve as the soil of freedom, one gets soil that is barren and will never bear fruit for freedom. Freedom is not the preserve of a party, or the property of one single ethnic group or class.
Acting on principle means that wherever and whenever you encounter the same basic problem pattern, you take the same approach. If the principle is that of sovereignty, or self-determination, and you uphold the freedom of persons to make their own choices, then you defend that principle everywhere it may apply: personal medical choice; bodily autonomy; freedom to self-identify; and, national self-determination. If, instead, you can defend self-determination on medical matters, but oppose self-determination for the society in which you live—then you are not acting on principle: you are either not aware of the principle, or, you are acting in bad faith. Either way, I cannot be allied to people who claim to be defenders of freedom one day, and the next day are cheering for imperial annexation or economic warfare against Canada. Likewise, you cannot wrap yourselves in the Canadian flag one day, and the next day throw it down and raise the US flag, exactly as some in Canada are now doing.
About that “So-Called ‛Freedom Convoy’”
One of the things I resented most about regime media in Canada is how persistently they referred to truckers and protesters in Ottawa in January–February of 2022, as “the so-called ‛Freedom Convoy’”. I thought it absurd. Was there a real Freedom Convoy elsewhere, such that this one was some fake, a pretender? Was it not about freedom, but was perhaps really about slavery? Or was it not an actual convoy, but rather just an accidental line of trucks? In other words: what was the problem? The language struck me as inordinately petty and snide, and made the regime’s scribes sound like adolescent hacks. The intent was to deny the identity of the movement. It was symbolic counterinsurgency: by denying the movement its identity, and arresting its chosen name, the media thus denied the nature and content of the protest. There could be no real complaint of any validity from a “so-called,” sort of “movement”. Dismissal was the order behind the media assault.
Instead, I took the name of the protest movement very seriously, particularly the FREEDOM part. Everyone was also struck by the patriotic, nationalist theme of the protests, which were festooned with dozens, hundreds, thousands of Canadian flags, some of them utterly vast in their dimensions. A student “journalist” at Concordia University at the time went to visit the protesters in Ottawa, and returned to write in complaining terms about all their “nationalist flags”.
It was as if Canadians were not allowed to have either freedom or a nation, while the truckers defended both. Now that has been totally inverted.
This is why I have been floored these past few weeks to see that some of the major figures associated with the leadership of the Freedom Convoy, and some among the alternative/opposition media that gave them voice, openly considering all of the “good reasons” for Canada to become part of the US—and chastising Canada for daring to retaliate against a trade war threatened by the US, not to mention Trump’s recurring emphasis on annexation.
Some of them even pretend that this trade war is all Canada’s fault for not having done anything, or enough, to meet Trump’s demands to secure the border with the US—which is absolutely false. Canada’s government announced a whole range of measures, plus new spending ($1.3 billion)...and what was Trump’s response? Silence, for a while, followed by renewed tariff threats, insults, and talk of annexation. We have gone from Freedom Convoy to Stockholm Syndrome.
Questions
“Freedom” for some has now become the freedom to live under an even bigger, much more powerful master with a horrific history of war, segregation, atrocities against human rights, corrupt politics, and massive inequality.
This left me with questions.
One can certainly despise and resent Canada, and decide to leave it too, but then why do you have to drag the rest of the country with you as if it were your personal carry-on bag?
You will never get unanimous Canadian support for joining the US (in fact, it’s a small and diminishing minority that supports this position), so why would you even consider imposing this new order on fellow Canadians, if you are so devoted to freedom?
You can absolutely hate Canada, but how does it follow that living under the dominion of another (a bully at that) is achieving freedom?
If Kamala Harris had been elected president, would you still be clamoring to join the US? Where were you when President Biden signed the Declaration of North America?
If your desire to join the US is driven by your excitement over Trump being in office, do you imagine that Trump is immortal and his regime eternal? What will you do when you find yourselves under a government that resembles Trudeau’s?
Then there are those who have even voiced support for the US just taking Canada, by force. Where do they find “freedom” in such a situation? How does “freedom” survive under imposition? Is “freedom” something that is to be given to you (“we will now have the same freedoms Americans have,” is what I commonly hear), or something that is inherently yours as a right, and which you materialize on your own?
Just as disappointing is that even those Canadians who rebelled against the conformity and compliance of fellow Canadians during the lockdowns and mandates of 3/11, are themselves so afraid of freedom that they seek some sort of shortcut to salvation by turning their own country over to the US.
I can certainly identify with Canadians who wish to leave the country that they feel not only abandoned them, but which actually attacked them. Never would I presume to lecture them that they must remain in Canada. What I do not understand, however, is why they would need all of Canada, or even a part of it, to go with them. Is it not your aim to get away from everything you disliked? If so, why the need for their company now?
What you should instead do is seek entry to the US, on your own—as an individual. You won’t be allowed to migrate permanently? You mean that your Trump will not recognize a kindred soul in you, and welcome you with open arms? Then maybe you should take time to reflect on that—and why you apparently need to use Canada as a battering ram (or bait) to gain access into the US for yourself.
The argument by some who wish to become Americans is that the US has many more freedoms. The US certainly has much more than Canada, of almost everything except snow—and that, I’m sorry, includes mass shootings at malls and Walmarts, and people bankrupted for life over a hospital procedure. The culture wars we have in Canada these days, were imported directly from the US.
But why would Freedom protesters want to depart for a country and a leader who implemented Operation Warp Speed? In the US they would have re-encountered lockdowns, masks, social distancing, and vaccine mandates—plus censorship on a massive scale, added to firings, purges, and expulsions. The myth pushed by some is one built on some terribly naive romanticism, where the US is described in almost idyllic terms.
Faced with oppression by an overly empowered state, why would one want an even bigger mega-state, especially one dominated by a panoply of billionaires armed with high tech? Who in their rational mind goes from Crummy to Dystopia, and calls it “freedom”?
What comes to mind is the quote often attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”. I would add: “Canadians who want to surrender their country to gain more freedom and prosperity, will neither gain nor deserve either”. Still, some keep dreaming about becoming the 51st State. If Trump were to actually annex any part of Canada, what would be his motivation in granting statehood? Why would Canada get it, and not Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands, or Guam, etc.? Is the unspoken assumption that “Trump has to grant us statehood: we’re white!”?
Symmetry: Two Sides of the Same Loonie
The above shows us that there is incredible symmetry in Canada, on all sides of a (superficially) polarizing conflict. Canadians were afraid of the freedom to make their own choices and engage in self-determination, and chose to go with the vax and the mandates. Thus they hoped that they would regain their pre-pandemic “freedoms” (permission). Other Canadians are afraid of the freedom to chart their own independent paths, and choose to rush to Trump’s US, deceiving themselves that this is freedom.
Red pill vs. Blue pill? The trick is that it is the same pill. It’s laughable now to hear one side of the mirror image mock the other side as “normies” and NPCs.
TDS: Trudeau Derangement Syndrome
One can only conclude that freedom was never the core concern of many of the right-wing anti-mandate, anti-lockdown, anti-mask, and anti-vax crowd, both in Canada and the US—regardless of what they profess. For too many, their opposition was rooted in a mere tribal, partisan, point-scoring exercise motivated by ideological spite. It’s true that the pandemic was politicized, on all sides. If Trudeau wanted vaccination, then they wanted the opposite. If Trudeau wore a mask, then they had to do the opposite. Whatever Trudeau wanted, they rejected it because Trudeau wanted it. This is the other TDS: Trudeau Derangement Syndrome. For them, “right” and “left” are still meaningful constructs. Trudeau was this “communist” (this charge being a testament to the political illiteracy of his opponents), and some seemed to really believe that he was in fact Fidel Castro’s son. (Even if it had been true, so what? Is “communism” passed on through the genes?)
I was therefore shocked to learn (when it was late) that what Trudeau said about the “so-called ‛Freedom Convoy’,” actually possessed a substantial kernel of truth. As a totalizing description (he later insisted he did not mean everyone), it was clearly rubbish. But his charges that the protesters were racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and far-right extremists was certainly true about a significant core. How did Trudeau know them so well? Was his intelligence service, CSIS, that effective in penetrating the group, such that Trudeau knew and understood much more about them, and sooner, than I did? I was a vocal supporter and donor, and knew less about the movement than Trudeau did—quite embarrassing.
You can tell what the ex-Freedom Convoy really stands for, by noting with whom they never stand. Let me give you a parallel example: in the US, some on the pro-Trump right rejoiced—opportunistically—over “Blacks for Trump”. They cheered every TikTok sermon from the passenger seat of some car, by a black voter who promised to support Trump. Black people were suddenly good....
That is, until black migrants were falsely accused of eating dogs and cats, and the Vodou (“voodoo”) religion was lambasted as evil and barbaric. After the presidential election was over, and the “Blacks for Trump” phenomenon largely fizzled out, they went back to ignoring African Americans and bashing Africans in general.
There is an astounding paradox here. If you were in fact driven to oppose the Covid vaccines, the lockdowns, the mandates, and so forth—then why would you not make common cause with those who were most resistant against pandemicism? As a continent, Africa had the lowest Covid vaccination rate, and did the best in terms of evading what was alleged to be Covid mortality—I went through this in detail here. In the Western Hemisphere, Haiti was by very far the least vaccinated country; lockdowns existed only for a few moments; masks were not worn; social distancing was dismissed—and the country had the lowest Covid mortality of any other. Yet you never hear of this from the “health freedom movement,” whose top example always reverts to Sweden. They cannot possibly praise a “black country,” let alone one like Haiti, so Sweden is their go-to, their favourite. And this was one of those instances when I realized that the so-called “health freedom movement” was deeply compromised by racism and ethnocentrism: common cause be damned, apparently.
Incidentally, none of the organizations to which I belonged made an effort to incorporate people from the largest bastions of resistance to the mandates and skepticism of the mRNA shots: black and indigenous Canadians, not to mention recent Haitian and African migrants, which would have significantly strengthened our organizations through increased numbers and a broader range of perspectives.
Imperialism ≠ Freedom
Imperialism is always the opposite of freedom, liberty, and democracy. Not enough people seem to understand this very basic and quite fundamental concept. Being a member of the Freedom Convoy, draped in the Canadian flag, is not compatible with being one of Trump’s force multipliers in Canada, serving as de facto operatives of a foreign regime. Fifth columnists acting in the interests of an alien superpower, lose the right to ever say anything again about freedom. When faced with a test, you too failed.
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* The intention here was not to start an online battle with specific persons. Thus, even at the risk of being accused of making a straw man argument (which I can demonstrate to be false), I would prefer not to personalize this. One can easily verify what this article says of those persons by touring Twitter and seeing/hearing their public statements. I have generally minimized the extreme nature of some of their remarks.
See also: Whatever Happened to the “Health Freedom Movement”?
And: Force Multipliers: The Instrumentalities of Imperialism (free e-book)
“There are all kinds of courage,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
In my opinion, the freedom convey (or at least the idea behind it) was never a coalesced political group but rather were different people from different backgrounds in Canada who briefly aligned politically due to a common threat. It certainly did seem however that most supporters seemed to veer right of the political divide (or were driven right by the circumstances ... which is to completely ignore the fact right leaning conservative/CAQ provincial governments were complicit and even more directly responsible for the attacks on personal freedoms than the federal government was but I digress). There was of course an organization behind the Freedom convoy, but they do not own the idea it was born from. That said I can of course understand the desire to push momentum forward behind such an organization given what was achieved. But the Trump contingent was always a strong element of that group, and it's hardly surprising to see unfettered support from those that import their ideals and values from a megalomaniac and follow him in blind faith.
My point here is, those "leaders" of the freedom convoy that may be advocating for their own country to be annexed, are not the owners of the movement. They didn't create the movement, they just happened to successfully channel what was already there. For all the hype that the Freedom convoy got there were multiple protests in Montreal alone that had hundreds of thousands of supporters marching, protests that had almost no media coverage at all (or what coverage it did get downplayed the numbers of protestors and of course slandered their reasoning). The freedom convoy was simply another protest that happened to catch wildfire in media and went viral. But I never viewed it any differently than any of the other protests e.g. people aligned by a common threat. As such, any of those organizers that now, without irony, advocate the elimination of freedom by a foreign power, have no rights to claim the movement as their own or speak for anyone but themselves so far as I am concerned. The rest of us will have to find a new rallying point.