Manitoba man joins convoy, sees ‘unity’ at Ottawa protest

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This article was published 29/01/2022 (1098 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Caleb Brown drove from the RM of Springfield to Parliament Hill without a sense of how long he’d stay, or even where he’d be sleeping Saturday night.

But the Manitoba carpenter is certain the thousands who descended on the nation’s capital will push the country to what he deems a more balanced approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ll do it peacefully, but with resolve,” Brown said from the driver’s seat of his black Ford pickup truck, which was parked next to the National War Memorial.

“This is not a fringe movement; this is a grassroots-Canada movement, and we want our Canada back.”

Brown is unvaccinated. He said he supports immunizations in general, but feels the long-term effects of COVID-19 shots have yet to be seen, and make more sense for people at higher risk of bad outcomes.

“None of the other (vaccines) have been peddled like this, and the coercion doesn’t seem right to me,” said Brown, but he added he might eventually get the shot.

“So as long as there are other people saying they’re not doing it, I’ll stand with them.”

He feels the media has told a divisive, one-sided story, painting the unvaccinated as people who don’t care about others and should be cast out of society. To him, policy-makers aren’t doing enough to get Canadians to boost their immunity and limit restrictions to the most vulnerable sectors.

And so a Tuesday rally in Headingley convinced him to hit the road Thursday and join a convoy from Thunder Bay. His 2,100-kilometre journey ended Saturday morning just a short walk from Parliament Hill.

“I had been waiting for there to be something like this; some action to be taken and somewhere we can voice a different opinion than what’s been happening,” he said late Saturday afternoon, occasionally pausing to honk at waving passersby who cheered.

Brown had hitched his truck to a flatbed trailer, carrying a spray-painted lumber plank that reads: “If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.”

Over the steering wheel, he laughed as a few dozen danced in a windy -15 Celsius to techno music, on the blocked-off street in front of the Château Laurier hotel.

Up the street, the occasional protester held signs comparing vaccination mandates to the Holocaust, and flags used by white-nationalist movements. Some made blatantly racist remarks, and put signs on the Terry Fox statue.

While the convoy was organized by people with ties to the far-right, the vast majority of signs and chants focused on opposition to vaccine passports, mask mandates and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“It has been an uplifting environment; I haven’t seen anything but unity,” said Brown.

“Most people have friendships that are just shattered on each side of this (vaccination) divide. It’s heartbreaking.”

He feels his three teenage children have missed out on graduations, normal schooling and the character development that comes from hanging out with their peers.

When the province limited indoor sports to children who are either vaccinated or consent to regular rapid testing, a local volleyball club refused to accept the test results for which Brown was willing to pay $20 to $40 twice a week.

“It’s not the end of the world, but it’s damaging, and we see a lot of division happening in society,” said Brown, who reluctantly accepts not being able to sit in a restaurant or board a flight.

“If you’re unvaccinated in Manitoba at this point, you’re an outsider,” he said.

He contrasts that with the convoy’s warm welcome in towns across northern Ontario, where people offered food and waved flags on overpasses.

“Canada is an awesome place to live; there is nowhere better for opportunity, if you’re willing to work hard. But it has been transformed into something I can hardly recognize — until maybe this last week.”

Public-health officials argue the benefits of vaccination far exceed the risk of adverse impacts, and that when vaccine side effects occur, they tend to emerge within days. Multiple studies show that immunized people experience drastically less severe COVID-19 infections, and shed less of the coronavirus to other people.

Still, Brown argues society is making the wrong trade-offs in requiring schoolchildren to wear masks and shutting down gyms.

“Life is not without risk, and I don’t want to downplay anyone who has been hurt by this virus, because that’s terrible,” he said.

“(But) if we’re going to live in a bubble-wrapped room, is that the life you want for your family?”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca