Roundup: The grifters make nice for the cameras

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The first part of the grifter convoy arrived in Ottawa yesterday, probably 80 trucks in total, and they largely blocked the street in front of Parliament Hill and made a bunch of noise, but that was it so far. Much of the day appeared to be devoted PR—the organizers swearing up and down that they wanted this to be peaceful, engaging with the police to that effect, who are on the lookout for “lone wolves,” telling reporters on the scene the fiction that they were frustrated with vaccine mandates (until you scratched the surface, and they insist that they are tired of the “tyranny” of the current “dictator” Justin Trudeau, whom you will all recall just won a free and fair election).

It’s all bullshit, however. All of it. This whole thing was organized by extremists, some of whom have ties to the Sons of Odin. If anyone with “genuine concerns” is really along for the ride, it’s because they’re a hapless moron who can’t do their due diligence before they got swept up into the grift. We don’t know where a lot of the money collected by the GoFundMe is coming from, but it’s a good bet it’s not all domestic—especially as this has been picked up by agitators in the American media ecosystem, who are seeing this as some kind of mobilisation effort (while repeating the bizarre falsehood that this is somehow 50,000 trucks and 1.4 million people headed to Ottawa, which defies credulity). They have a stated aim of overturning democracy and eliminating all public health orders (never mind that 99 percent of them are provincial or municipal), and it’s never going to happen because it’s impossible, but nevertheless, there are more and more Conservative MPs who keep giving them legitimacy while trying to play cute and insisting that they denounce extremism, even though the gods damned extremists are behind it. Erin O’Toole went so far as to stage a photo op with a supposed trucker family while in an RCAF jacket, which is a pretty dubious statement to be making considering this convoy’s goal is to overturn democracy, which includes him.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1487211790765338628

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney wonders how we deal with the impossible task of marginalizing the extremists, and proposes we actually start fixing the things that can be fixed to show that the system can work. (Not mentioned: Calling out the opportunists who feed the extremists’ irrational anger and the politicians who court them because they think they can use their energy and dollars). Colin Horgan, on the other hand, speaks for all of our weariness, as we are subjected to these conspiracy theorists who are all playing hero in their own minds, and believing their own juvenile bullshit, while even those with “genuine concerns” only make it worse by feeding into it all the same.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau is, unsurprisingly, concerned of the possibility this grifter convoy could turn to violence.
  • Dr. Theresa Tam says that it looks like omicron cases have now peaked.
  • It’s the five-year anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting.
  • Rideau Hall paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in confidential settlements and legal fees in the same year that Julie Payette resigned her post.
  • Paul Wells calls out the government’s largely unserious actions as compared to their rhetoric on the situation in Ukraine, particularly if they term it as existential.
  • My Xtra column looks at recent guideline updates a the Immigration and Refugee Board for LGBTQ+ claimants, and what more needs to be done.
  • My weekend column looks over the latest hot mess of a report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and why it’s a problem that it keeps happening.

Odds and ends:

Colby Cosh casts some scepticism on Neil Young’s attack of conscience in pulling his music from Spotify over Joe Rogan’s podcasts.

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5 thoughts on “Roundup: The grifters make nice for the cameras”

  1. These neo Nazis have exchanged highways and streets for Munich beer halls. The gullible stupid then have been supplanted by these stupids now. The only thing different and this will change, is the poorly educated mega maniac sociopath hasn’t yet emerged to lead them. We have some names of Partys and their spokesmen but the “One” hasn’t emerged. Notice how many screaming women seem to follow? We are in big trouble. But we have Pollievre and the great Lying Tool sucking at the right wing populous tit.

  3. Canadian media is as white and blinded as conditions in an Arctic blizzard. This is why representation in newsrooms matters, and not just diversity of background but diversity of, well, just *anyone else* other than the same tired “pundits,” party strategists and washed-up party leaders being interviewed for the past 20 years. And *pollsters*. Ye gods, *pollsters*? This is a national security incident and they’re still running their damn trackers? “If an election was held tomorrow, would you vote for the party of the ‘friendly sausage makers’ or the party of the guy they want to kill?” Get Evan Balgord on this, Bernie Faber, the guy who just restarted the Yellow Vests investigative Twitter account. I think his name is Tony. Who the f**k cares what Tom Mulcair and David Huertel think of anything??? Why are the cozy networks asking them to opine instead of Erica Ifill or Shree Paradkar or, heck, Dale Smith???

  4. I read an article in the North Bay newspaper last night about how several thousand people set up a meeting place at the side of the highway to cheer on the convoy, and they prepared hot food for them and extra water etc etc and they waited in the cold for several hours and then the convoy took a different route and didn’t pass by this group after all and they all had a sad as they trudged back to their cars after dark and drove home.
    I found the whole article very sad — that so many people in a small town in Ontario, represented by a Liberal MP yet, could get so fired up about border vaccine mandates that they would consider a random bunch of Alberta yahoos to be a credible and worthwhile organization, worthy of their support.
    Before reading this, I had been thinking that many of the people lining the highways watching the trucks go past were just watching the spectacle, it was something to do during the most boring part of our Canadian year. But this article worried me -what were they thinking?

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