Truck protests seem like a sign of dark times but trust in vaccine science remains a bright spot

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/02/2022 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the way back from visiting Windsor over the holidays, we pulled off Highway 401 and into Chatham to get the third booster vaccination. Appointments in Windsor and Toronto were all booked up for weeks, but Chatham had lots open. We felt a bit sheepish getting vaxxed in another town, though. Were we taking someone else’s spot?

The scene inside Chatham’s convention centre, part of the former Wheels Inn resort that many southwest Ontario folks remember fondly, was busy. Teenagers and retiree-age workers directed people through the maze of screening stops and to the nurses with the needles. Beach Boys songs were playing, children’s art was on the wall, and the atmosphere was festive and happy. Everyone working there was lovely.

I told the nurse about our apprehension about getting vaccinated in Chatham rather than Toronto, a sentiment she immediately dismissed. “It’s OK,” she said. “We’re all Ontario.”

The rest of the drive up the 401 was buoyant after such a positive civic experience. As images and videos of the “freedom convoy” have dominated the last weeks I’ve repeatedly remembered that nurse’s words.

We are all Ontario.

The vaccination efforts of public health units across the province and country has been the greatest collective mobilization in my lifetime. When divisions are being created and inflated around COVID-19, remember the numbers: 85 per cent of eligible Ontarians over 5 are fully vaccinated. Over 12 years of age, that rises to 90 per cent. Many of those who aren’t vaccinated aren’t overt anti-vaxxers either, but rather vaccine-hesitant, an important difference.

As the convoy rolled into Toronto on Feb.4, I also kept a tweet by the chair of Toronto Public Health, Joe Cressy, in mind: 15,000 people were vaccinated that day. And another 15,000 on the following Saturday. And so on. That’s like a sold-out BMO Field getting vaccinated every two days. It makes the convoy seem minuscule. Toronto Public Health is also mounting focused campaigns in areas where there are more hesitant people, so the mobilization continues.

These relentless and successful efforts, and tremendous support for vaccines, is something to hold on to especially as other things seem to disintegrate.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Jane Jacobs’s 2004 book, “The Dark Age Ahead.” Her final book, it wasn’t universally received well at the time but now it seems prescient. Jacobs argued five pillars of our society are eroding: families and community cohesion, higher education focusing on credentialization rather than education, the erosion of science and technology, regressive taxes and government, and the learned professions failing to police themselves around ethics. Today’s events are like echoes from the book.

There was a time not too long ago when any political party, regardless of stripe, would be dead in the water if ever seen to even entertain people associated with Nazi or Confederate flags, or with those who desecrated a war memorial, yet many Conservative Party of Canada members haven’t been shy about doing so.

Government communications have become so politicized, here in Toronto and further afield, that they’re rendered untrustworthy by not being ethical. That’s a real crisis when trust is needed now more than ever. The Ottawa Police Service hiring the well-connected crisis communications firm Navigator, as they admitted last week, is perhaps the nadir of this phenomenon. It’s rotten for democracy, transparency and trust. How do we know we’re not being spun by our own governments?

The inability of our political leaders and the institutions they run to deal with these protesters, versus how they’ve dealt harshly and violently with so many other groups, is another failure everyone sees. This is not a call for police to bash heads now, but the double standard remains a stench, and the jurisdictional punting between various levels of government while doing nothing is institutional damage that will take a long time to repair.

The convoy, purported to be a working-class revolt, hurt countless actual working people. The Rideau Centre in Ottawa has been closed for nearly two weeks, putting around 1,500 mostly low-paid people out for work. In Windsor, the Ambassador Bridge blockade closed auto factories and affected supply lines and even more jobs, with hundreds of working truckers stuck in traffic jams.

Working people have been co-opted by the convoy and the politicians who supported them. On Wednesday of this week, the Canadian Labour Congress finally issued a joint statement saying, in part, Canadian unions are “unequivocally opposed to these vile and hateful messages and condemn the ongoing harassment and violence.” More of this kind of thing is needed.

There are many details around the restrictions and COVID response we can differ on and debate — that’s healthy and fine. But the overwhelming support of baseline vaccine science and of the public health efforts, an institution that remains strong, is faith that maybe the dark age Jacobs saw coming can be avoided.

It won’t be easy though, when you don’t have to be a member of the convoy to have reasons to doubt our government and institutions.

Shawn Micallef is a Toronto-based writer and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @shawnmicallef