Yesterday, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons warned Members of Parliament that individuals associated with the anti-vaccine-mandate truck convoy nearing the nation’s capital have been trying to suss out the location of their Ottawa residences.
Also yesterday, Jason Kenney used a news conference supposedly about COVID-19 to defend the demonstrators.
Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell, whose other title is Director General of Protective Services, advised MPs that, starting today, they should avoid mixing with demonstrators, lock the doors of their homes and offices, and “if the situation becomes volatile … call 911 and consider evacuating your location.”
You have to know the former RCMP assistant commissioner was directing his warning to Liberal, NDP and Bloc MPs, because their Conservative counterparts will be out in force schmoozing with the rebel truckers, maybe even the one who says they want to start a civil war and have the guns to do it.
Alberta’s premier, meanwhile, engaged in a rambling discourse at times reminiscent of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s very-fine-people-on-both sides commentary about the deadly 2017 “unite the right” riot in Charlottesville, N.C., while responding to a reporter’s question about the trucker protest yesterday.
“I do hope that those organizing the convoy do everything they can to make sure that it’s safe,” Kenney told Calgary Sun political columnist Rick Bell during the news conference’s abbreviated Q&A section, cut short so that he could skedaddle off to Washington D.C.
“I hope that they dissociate themselves with anybody in the convoy who might have extreme or hateful views, but I acknowledge that in any big social movement there are going to be some people with fringe views.”
“You know, whenever the NDP shows up at some of those, uh, so-called environmental protests in front of the Legislature, uh, there are people who hold what I would call eco-terrorist views,” he rambled on. “I don’t see the media running all over their social media accounts trying to throw a spotlight on them. And I don’t see the NDP dissociating themselves with everybody who might show up with … extreme views at a protest.”
So there you have it, even if it isn’t really true – equivalence! – bad people on both sides.
You can find a clip of federal Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre saying almost exactly the same thing yesterday, so apparently it’s a Conservative talking point as they try to woo far-right extremists back home from the People’s Party of Canada.
Regardless, Kenney then descended into a diatribe about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, basically accusing him of siding with terrorists, not real Canadians like the gathering convoy crowd.
“One thing that really concerns me, is the divisive comments of Justin Trudeau, where he said, he characterized all of the thousands of people involved in this as, uh, he said that we should not tolerate them, and he said that they’re, uh, ‘they are holding unacceptable views that don’t represent the views of Canadians.'”
This, needless to say, is a misrepresentation of the PM’s remarks, and if reports today that there are a total of 113 large trucks in the convoy are accurate, a misrepresentation of the protest’s size as well.
“This is the same prime minister who famously said about Canadian citizens convicted of terrorism, that, quotes, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Kenney continued, most likely a reference to former child soldier Omar Khadr. As federal immigration minister, he introduced a bill that would have allowed Canadians to be stripped of their citizenship for engaging in terrorism.
“Well if he’s willing to defend convicted terrorists as Canadians,” the premier huffed, “why is he condemning thousands of people who feel strongly about COVID policy in this country?
“I, I think, uh, the prime minister’s job is to unite Canadians, not divide them,” he went on, seemingly agitated. “I think his divisive approach to this makes the situation a whole lot worse, as does his quarantine policy on cross-border truckers, which is forcing up food prices and making life even more difficult.”
Well, given Kenney’s own history as a divider and the reasons food prices are rising, there’s enough gas-lighting in that last sentence to satisfy any student of demagoguery.
The premier also used his response to Bell to tout his $18,425 trip to Washington D.C. with two aides to attend the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, a gathering of U.S. state governors from both sides of the American political divide. You have to suspect, though, that he’ll be spending most of his time with Republicans, perhaps even a few who turned a blind eye to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I agree with those who are protesting the, I think, pointless quarantine rule being applied to cross-border truckers,” said the guy who sent provincial officials to Alberta airports in 2020 to take temperature scans of arriving passengers when he saw a chance to embarrass Trudeau. “That’s why I’m going to Washington D.C. today, to raise this with top American leaders.”
A statement from Kenney’s office yesterday said he is going to Washington “to discuss energy security, key bilateral trade issues and urgent cross-border supply chain issues.”
Neither Kenney nor the statement from his office gave any hint who will be in charge in his absence.
Alert readers will recall how that became an issue last August during the fourth Delta wave of COVID-19, when Kenney disappeared to a still-unknown holiday destination, apparently leaving no one with the authority to make decisions for three weeks.
Kenney used the opening moments of yesterday’s COVID news conference to tout a series of economic benefits he claimed his United Conservative Party government has brought to Alberta. “There’s something remarkably crass about a Premier who spends the first 10 minutes of a COVID-19 update bragging about the economy when 76 people have died of the virus since Friday and we are seeing record numbers of hospitalizations,” observed political blogger Dave Cournoyer.
But Kenney did talk a little bit about COVID-19. He said he wants to eliminate the provincial COVID passport system as soon as possible, and that he’s confident we’ll see relaxed restrictions in Alberta by the end of March.
Are you ready, Alberta, for the Best Summer Ever 2.0?
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