Instead of exhibiting sangfroid, unfortunately, many of Ottawa’s grandees reacted as if they’d become history’s witnesses to a military invasion. That single aforementioned whack job with the Confederate flag was held up as evidence that Ottawa had become Danzig-on-the-Rideau. “Watching what is happening today, I am not sure if I am more worried that this will be similar to Charlottesville or the January 6 (Capitol) insurrection,” tweeted Liberal MP Anthony Housefather. “Either way, it is something I hoped never to see on this side of the border.”
Horrified by the possibility that this earnest-seeming Liberal’s apocalyptic fears were being realized, I surfed a few news channels, all of which were broadcasting images of what was essentially a combination traffic jam and street party. If a bunch of dudes in horned fur hats had conquered the House of Commons in the name of Incel Roganistan, it wasn’t being reported.
In true Canadian fashion, protesters even began policing one another’s behaviour. This included setting up ad-hoc litter patrols to clean up everyone else’s mess — leading to the unintentionally hilarious spectacle of CBC reporter Hannah Thibodeau trying to drum up outrage with a tweeted picture of neatly arranged garbage bags. Her CBC colleague Falice Chin, meanwhile, complained that protests were negatively affecting residents’ ability to do weekend “errands,” while also somewhat breathlessly reporting that a truck was “literally” parked on the street outside her home. Other complaints seemed positively Victorian, with one Ottawa architect tweeting at great length about truck-driving yobs perpetrating “all manner of rudeness.”
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