Rouleau report really no surprise

BY JOHN MATHER

Well what did you do on the Sunday afternoon of a long weekend? For myself I spent the afternoon wading through the summary of the Report of the Public Inquiry into the 2022 Public Order Emergency.

This is the five-volume mega read on the Freedom Convoy and the Federal government’s use of the Emergency Act. The summary (Vol. 1) totals out at 276 pages.

In his report The Honourable Paul S. Rouleau, the commissioner of the Inquiry agreed the Federal Liberals and Justin Trudeau were justified in using the Emergency Act to quell the three-week protests that clogged Ottawa’s downtown streets last February.

Now it should come as no surprise that a Liberal appointed Ontario judge would find no issue with the Liberal deity Trudeau using a big bat to swat a flea.

After all, those mean nasty truckers were clogging downtown streets with their honking horns, bouncy castles and generally happy-go-lucky demonstrators protesting pandemic restrictions many of them disagreed with.

This fight had been festering in the Canadian public ever since the government started issuing various restrictions to try and combat the pandemic and forcing people to take a vaccine many were unsure off.

There were also many mixed messages produced. The vaccines worked… then maybe they just helped a bit, masks were good… masks didn’t do any good.

And Trudeau had no problem calling these people names and he and members of his government did refuse to meet with the demonstrators even though both Conservative and NDP elected members did.

Rouleau did call out Trudeau for this, suggesting his illadvised outburst didn’t help the cause of unity in the country.

But in fairness to Rouleau, he had a narrow set of parameters to make his decision.

He was to look at the Freedom Convoy and its effects on Ottawa. Did it pose a threat to Canada’s national security? Did it threaten Canada’s economic security? Did blockades, while not necessarily related but similar in cause, at border crossings at Windsor, Ont., and Coutts, Ab., pose similar issues?

For 2,000 pages of his report, Rouleau throws security forces from the Ottawa Police Service, the Ottawa Police Services Board, the OPP, the RCMP and the Parliamentary Protective Service under the bus for their lack of communications in coming up with a cohesive plan to remove the blockade.

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He also chastised them for failing to realize the size and scope of the oncoming protest as it made its way across the country despite there being lots of intelligence on it.

But Rouleau couldn’t really look at the underlying causes of the convoy in making his recommendations, even though the report does provide a good deal of background information on the build up to the Freedom Convoy.

For one and half years as Canadians were hamstrung by various restrictions levelled at both the provincial and federal level, truckers were free to move goods and services across the U.S, border without having to show proof of vaccinations.

Many truckers, because of the nature of their jobs, couldn't get vaccinations.

They were essential services to Canada bringing fresh fruit and vegetables from Florida, California, Arizona and New Mexico… trundling needed auto parts back and forth from manufacturers in Ontario to auto factories in the U.S.

But suddenly as restrictions were easing in 2021, they were forced to show proof of vaccination when they crossed the border.

This was a decision directly made by Trudeau and his henchperson at Health Canada, Theresa Tam.

That put many truckers out of work. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, leading to the convoy being formed from various locations across the country.

I hesitated for a long time before I took the vaccine that had only been developed in months. Simple research on most vaccines showed they take years of development and trials before being put into human bodies. But not with Covid. It was whisked out in less than a year.

Now having got the vaccine I have suffered no outward after effects. However, I know several people who have not had the shot to this day and they haven’t had so much as a headache in the three years since the pandemic began.

I had no problem wearing a mask when it was legislated to do so, but I can understand some people feeling that it also infringed on their rights.

And I understand the arguments from those who complied with all the restrictions quite readily and argued those who opposed them were selfish and not looking out for others.

It was a no win situation and I fully expect the Liberal government realized this. They used the pandemic as a wedge issue doing their very best to divide the country.

Rouleau actually points this out stating there was too much politics at play while the ultimate decisions about what to do were being made.

The result was they got a convoy which overwhelmed the nation’s capital.

The Federal govern- ment’s never had issue with railway blockades a few years earlier when protestors disrupted rail traffic across the country setting fire on train tracks in southern Ontario and Alberta. They had no problem with people demonstrating for Black Lives Matter and wanting to defund the police department which would allow total anarchy in the streets. They had no problem when pipeline construction projects were targeted by demonstrators resulting in damage and disruption.

On no! Those were righteous, lefty causes!

But damn, bring those stinky, noisy trucks into downtown Ottawa with the bouncy castles and hot tubs and something drastic had to be done.

Trudeau was the cause of this issue.

He’s been let off the hook by the inquiry.

It was no surprise. Trudeau seems to have a teflon coating when it comes to dodging controversy. He gets in positions of conflict yet comes out smelling like a rose.

So this voluminous report will now be pushed to a back corner office where it will possibly be studied by some academics in future years long after Trudeau is removed from the scene.

In summary, a lot of taxpayer money has been wasted in the time it took to hold this inquiry and write the report.

The appointment of a Liberal judge signalled a free ride right from the start.