If you’re like me, you have friends, family members and/or co-workers who participated in what has been called the Ottawa occupation. It has left you flustered and searching for answers as to why they would have gone there.
They are normal (well, OK, normal to you), average, everyday people and you can attest to the fact that they have no interest in toppling and taking over the government of this country.
Their Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs would include double-double coffees from Tim Hortons and maybe even some Bieber paraphernalia. But you would not consider them to be radical obstructionists who want to deliberately stand in your way to get their point across to you.
“They are just good folk,” you might say, “but right now they are off their rocker!”
So, you become angry and vow to never speak to them again. You can’t believe that they are mixing with an alleged criminal element who has also laid bare their agenda of exclusion and racism. These are not the kind of people you would associate with.
And neither would they!
This has been on my mind for the better part of three weeks now (unless I see a squirrel). Then, yesterday morning as I waited for my computer at work to update itself, I went outside my office to refill the bird feeder. I saw that the birds were already waiting for me. They were in separate trees, seemingly isolated from one another.
After I had poured the bird feed into the feeder, I stepped back and watched as a sundry variety of bird species suddenly enveloped the feeder. Each distinct type of avian were there for any one of a variety of seeds and nuts contained in the feed that I had set out.
The feed consisted of millet (red and white), a favourite of the junco bird. Peanuts (no shell), which is preferred by the blue jays; corn, for the beautiful cardinal, and various small seeds for the chickadee and nuthatches. All of the noise even attracted the squirrels. But we don’t want the squirrels. Do we?
There was something for everyone.
While watching this feeding frenzy, the answer to what was going on with my acquaintances and the whole mess in Ottawa shot through my senses like a meteor blazing from obscurity. Of course! Ottawa is a bird feeder, I thought. Then I looked about hoping I didn’t say that out loud.
But work with me on this!
The Freedom Convoy, as the movement was billed, left Vancouver in mid-January bound for Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates for truckers crossing the border between Canada and the United States.
Midway through the race across Canada, the protest came to include anti-masking and anti-vaccinations. By the time they reached Ottawa the movement leaders had included a manifesto in the form of a memorandum of understanding (MOU), which spelled out their intent to take over the government of Canada.
By the time the convoy drove into the heart of Ottawa, we could see that they flew upside down Canadian flags, a symbol of distress. There were also Nazi flags, Confederate flags, symbols of racial bias and hatred.
It was at this point that the trucker convoy also included pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans. Moms, dads, grandfathers, grandmothers, your friends, your neighbours.
The organizers of this movement had tapped into the anger and frustration produced from living in a lockdown environment for two years. Perhaps unknowingly, they had created a feeder for all to partake. A place where people could come and shout out their frustrations, albeit in an un-masked environment in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.
They encouraged protesters from all walks of life by keying in on what was making them irritable, to inflamed, with anger and frustration. Seemingly, the movement had something for everyone.
But as our acquaintances shouted out how they desperately wanted their lives back, they, ironically, became more invisible, as the truck horns and the ugly underbelly (racism, intolerance) of the movement took away their voice.
If the organizers had concern for their (our family, friends) message they would have amplified it and they would have turned off the noise of the dark forces that came to be in their midst. They could have simply asked them to leave.
I have experience with this. It was back during the Site 41 protest (Google it) in Simcoe County that our peaceful protest was about to be infiltrated and co-opted by a group advocating violence as the answer; the organizers asked them to leave. And they left.
We ensured that that particular feeder (Site 41 protest) would promote harmony.
Nature has a way of explaining things to us if we are willing to listen. I believe that the message from the bird feeder that morning was that the birds assisted me in realizing what our friends and family came to be involved in.
I now understand them better. And I will keep them in my life. I will also ensure that I will do more to keep the squirrels away.
Jeff Monague is a former chief of the Beausoleil First Nation on Christian Island, former treaty research director with the Anishnabek (Union of Ontario Indians), and veteran of the Canadian Forces. Monague, who taught the Ojibwe language with the Simcoe County District School Board and Georgian College, is currently the superintendent of Springwater Provincial Park.
