Remembering the convoy
It was our very own January 6th insurrection. Everyone thought it was the worst, except those at the party.
I was, like most Canadians, deeply upset by the truck convoy that descended on our capital, Ottawa, between January 22nd and February 21st, 2022. I tried to draw my way out of it, which seldom works, but whatever...
The truckers were ostensibly there for a peaceful protest rally to be held on January 29th against mandatory Covid vaccinations. What happened was a circus of chaos, trucks blockading downtown Ottawa, air breaks locked and air horns blasting while the occupiers boozed it up in hot tubs. The preposterous political “demand” that somebody eventually cobbled together was ouster of the governing Liberal Party.
No law enforcement agency would act. They were all paralyzed. That was truly terrifying and the government mercifully stepped in before the whole country went into cardiac arrest.
Somehow, I think my original drawing (below) is funnier than the above finished drawing. I’m really struggling to understand what a finished cartoon is. The fantastic New Yorker cartoonist Edward Steed in an interview about his work said something a lot of artists would likely agree with, inking is when you take a sketch that is fresh and suck the life out of it. Actually, I just re-read that interview and he didn’t say that. It’s a fantastic interiew though, laced throughout with his hilarious drawings.
I was so relieved when the whole fiasco was over, and am very disappointed by a recent court decision calling into question the government’s right to have ended it. I wish on those two Federal Court judges, a hundred tractor trailers air-braked in front of their homes with air horns blaring night and day for a month.
The worst of it for me was the truckers coöption of the flag. They flew it so much that to this day I can’t see a waving flag on a lawn without feeling a twinge of fear. That is just so wrong.
Anyway, here’s to all you trucker dudes, you crazy monkeys. No hard feelings eh?
The more or less complete suite of my good, bad and ugly convoy drawings are on my website.
If I may just point out that many of these same people had protested for two years straight in their respective cities against COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates, only to be either utterly ignored or arrested for having a "public gathering". When the state effectively bans freedom of expression by banning protests in the name of public health, it was only a matter of time where things would escalate. And escalate they did.
If the government had been sane and actually followed science (like not locking down societies and implementing pointless vaccine mandates), the convoy would not have been necessary and would not have occurred.
Sadly, folks like yourself refuse to see it that way. After all, you were likely all in favor of lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
Just wait until the state impacts your own personal life in the same way the state did theirs and you, along with many others, don't like it. What logical end do you think you'll reach?
Just be thankful it did not end of violence. That you had a group of peaceful and loving Canadians protesting in that very fashion (I'm sorry, but trucks and horns blaring are not violence) is a truly remarkable thing.
You'll never see a more beautiful and peaceful protest ever again in your life. I can guarantee it.