The noisy anti-vax truckers didn’t speak for most Canadians

I feel compelled to inform the Herald-Tribune’s readers that the recent column written by Mary Dawood Catlin titled “Will we ever forget about the harsh toll of COVID policies? I won’t”  is not representative of the vast majority of her fellow Canadians.

More than 90% of Canadians are fully vaccinated, and most Canadians have agreed and complied with the national public health measures that have been taken throughout the pandemic. A small but very noisy minority in Canada have opposed these measures under the mistaken notion of what freedom means.

To compare the sensible measures to protect the population from a very deadly virus to the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows ignorance of both the dangers of COVID and the situation in Ukraine.

Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, did not invoke the Emergency Measures Act on peaceful

demonstrators, and the Canadian authorities did not arrest nonviolent individuals. The publicly stated purpose of the so-called Freedom Convoy was to demand that Trudeau immediately call off all public health measures – and to force Canada’s entire federal government to resign if he did not do so.

Over a three-week period, members of the Freedom Convoy attacked individuals wearing masks and vandalized private property. They also tortured neighborhood residents by running their powerful diesel engines 24 hours a day and honking their loud horns at all hours of the night.

The members of the convoy broke numerous laws and bylaws. They would not respond to any attempts at dialogue. And, like Catlin, they ignored the fact that dealing with this situation was the responsibility of Canada’s provincial government, not the federal government.

All of this took place while 90% of Canada’s truckers repudiated the Freedom Convoy and suffered a loss of income due to the actions of their supposed “colleagues.” The convoy was clearly a far-right endeavor that was pushing an agenda that went well beyond public health measures – as demonstrated by the many

Trump flags, flags with swastikas and Confederate flags (which are totally alien to Canada and Canadians).

For Catlin to imply that her unfortunate miscarriage was due to the actions of a visiting public health officer is preposterous. One wonders what acts of noncompliance caused the visits, phone calls. etc. that she received, because this was not standard procedure in Canada.

It is true that public health representatives would check to see if recent arrivals from outside Canada were in compliance with quarantine rules. Obviously Catlin’s family may not have been in compliance with this rule, or with the other procedures that she criticized in her piece.

These were not arbitrary rules; they were rules that were put in place to protect the rest of us. They were measures that worked very well for their intended purpose, and most Canadians were in favor of these protections.

Catlin should hang her head in shame for writing such a column about  a health- and life-saving COVID vaccine that was launched in the nick of time during a pandemic – but one that had been developed after more than a decade of scientific research. The anti-public health measures brigade seems to have a much more ominous agenda in mind, and too many poorly informed citizens have fallen for its rhetoric.

I am glad to live in a country where people are respectful of others and solve their differences in civilized ways. The ersatz truckers, along with the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers, are an aberration in Canada.

Elena Hannah is a retired Canadian academic who resides in both Sarasota and Newfoundland and Labrador.