Who went to Ottawa, why are they still there and what happens now?

Jordan

Elizabeth Simons

Jordan By now you have seen and you have definitely heard that Ottawa was a mess this weekend.

News Clip 1 What started as truckers convoy has exploded into a movement resonating with many more who say they feel oppressed by the measures put in place to fight COVID-19.

Jordan As I record this on Monday afternoon, the so-called Freedom convoy is still in our nation’s capital. 1000s of protesters who came along with them have left, but a smaller, nastier core remains, and plans to stay there indefinitely. How do I know they’re nastier? Well, they’ve shown us.

News Clip 2 Go home fake news go. They came into our soup kitchen demanding meals harassing staff and volunteers. And we had a person who’s using our services who was assaulted.

News Clip 3 Footage from this weekend showing a person that dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and vehicles parked on the site of the National War Memorial.

Jordan From defacing statues to throwing things at paramedics and journalists to shutting down a mall and allegedly assaulting a homeless person while taking food from a soup kitchen. It’s pretty clear that among the 1000s of people who may well have brought legitimate grievances to Ottawa, hundreds also came with hatred and with racism. So where does one end? And the other begin? Is it even possible to pick the bad apples out of this bunch? Or has it already spoiled? And why aren’t the politicians we supposedly chose to lead us doing anything but throwing gas on a dangerous fire?

I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is the big story. Elizabeth Simons is the deputy director of the Canadian anti-hate network, which has been watching the protests and cataloging exactly who went to Ottawa. Hey, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Simons Hi, thank you for having me.

Jordan You’re very welcome. I am hoping you can help shed some light on who is and isn’t involved. There’s a lot of rhetoric being thrown around by both sides. I’ll maybe ask you to start back at the beginning when you guys at the anti-hate network, heard of the so-called Freedom convoy? What was it supposed to be? What were you expecting?

Elizabeth Simons Sure, um, well, we first heard about it, probably a little over a week ago, we actually first heard about it when individuals that we recognize started speaking about it, so we saw it being promoted in spaces that we often monitor. And I’ll call you know, kind of contextualize that a little bit to say that, you know, since the the the start of the pandemic, every hate group network, and you know, propagandists, an individual that we watch, and monitor has really latched on to the COVID conspiracy, slash anti-mask slash anti-vaccine slash vaccine mandate movement, with a lot of interest. And so it doesn’t surprise us that this also picked up steam in those spaces. Because it’s really quite just an evolution of where it’s been going for almost two years now. So we first heard about it when we saw it being promoted in those spaces. We took particular interest when we saw that the GoFundMe itself was actually organized by individuals with connections to pass movements like the LMS Canada movement. And then we kind of watched as more and more groups and networks kind of glommed on to it, sort of promoting it, and also promised participation in it. So it’s kind of been picking up steam for, for the last, I’d say week and a half or so.

Jordan Why do you think this was the one that did pick up so much steam and ended up in Ottawa? I know, I mean, you mentioned the yellow vests. That was a few years ago, there have been a bunch of proposals for convoys to Ottawa since then, I’m sure you guys have seen them that that just kind of fizzled out. What was different about this one?

Elizabeth Simons Yeah, I think what’s different about this is that the amount of support that it has from folks who have legitimate grievances, like there, we don’t want to characterize this convoy, as nothing but people who hate because that is just not the truth. Like there are people involved who have legitimate grievances, and wherever you stand on the side of the debate of mandates and vaccines, they should be able to have like the adults in the room should be able to have that conversation. Yeah, it has picked up just because there are so many people with those grievances, but it’s also being used as a propaganda tool. It’s been used as a recruitment method. It’s kind of just picked up people with all kinds of grievances along the way, like there was an article before The convoy hit Ottawa from Sudbury, and one of the Ontario organizers. Jason LaFauci, who actually was a yellow vest, and at least was a member of the soldiers of Odin. He’s been photographed wearing the soldiers of Odin vest. And he’s been kind of a group hopper kind of going from movement to movement. And he’s been involved in the COVID conspiracy movement. So he’s he was working as the Ontario, one of the Ontario organizers. And he spoke to a journalist and said, You know, it’s not actually about mandates. It’s about the government. It’s about oppression. So really, like the issue depends on kind of who you ask. So it’s not just about mandates. It’s not just about vaccines. It’s not just about one thing or the other, like every people with all different kinds of grievances have latched on to it. And with that, we’re seeing this growth.

Jordan When you look at movements like this, and here, I’m speaking about the convoy as a whole, which to your point, may have begun with some legitimate grievances, and certainly had some well-meaning if perhaps misguided people with opinions on politics, which is why they go to Ottawa to protest. How do you try to discern those people from whether you want to call them the fringe or whether you want to call them the hate groups that, that infiltrate movements like this, like when you’re looking at their stated aims and their organizers, for those of us who are just kind of on the sidelines at home, it can be impossible to tell them apart.

Elizabeth Simons But I think at this point, there’s enough evidence out there to say that there is a sizable and concerning hate element in this convoy. We I mean, everyone has seen that the swastika flags and images associated with the anti-vaccine movement where it’s like it’s stylized, it’s intended to be it’s a criticism of the government, it’s anti-semitic. But we’ve seen that in addition to like, the actual Nazi, if at least one actual Nazi flag, in addition to Confederate flags, multiple Confederate flags, at least two that we’ve seen, there’s been reports of, you know, paramedics, having rocks thrown at them by convoy participants, racial slurs, or not them people have reported going into grocery stores and having racial slurs being thrown at them. So I mean, at the end of the day, whether or not you agree with racist ideas, if you’re standing with these people at some point, you know, when is it going to be enough? When are you going to say, Okay, enough, I can’t be part of that anymore. This is the movement that I signed up for.

And that we feel really bad for the truckers like the actual truckers who actually have issues with the vaccines or with the vaccine mandates, rather, because they can have this conversation. And that conversation is being completely overshadowed. And our understanding from individuals in you know, with trucking associations is that this did start out as with good intentions, and it just snowballed into what it is now, but I don’t think it’s been hijacked. I feel that this has been part of the movement, kind of since day one, you know, like, you’ve got Trump flags, you’ve got people but Trump hats, you know, on big rigs, you’ve got James botter, who I think it was journalist Justin link, said he was the architect of the convoy. Well, James Bauder, was the East Coast organizer for the yellow vests, you know, the B roll convoy in 2019. His social media behavior at the time showed Islamophobic and anti-Muslim content followed a lot of anti-Muslim and Islamophobic content creators and journalists. And so I don’t think it can be as simple as well, it was good, and then it turned bad. I think this as a whole has really attracted those people from the get-go. And this is really just, we’re seeing kind of like, we’re seeing the build-up to that. Now.

Jordan Can you tell me a little bit more about some of the main characters I guess, for lack of a better term in this protest? These are as you’ve kind of hinted at a couple of times already. These are people who are known to you guys from covering this stuff for years.

Elizabeth Simons So probably the most notable is Pat King, who this guy kind of an interesting story with Pat Kang, because, you know, he had put out videos in the in, you know, a week two weeks ago, indicating that he was very much involved. He put out Facebook videos with other regional organizer organizers for the convoy. And then, you know, suddenly the people that were writing the GoFundMe said he wasn’t involved. The very short lives because statement on the GoFundMe page, listening to him, it sounds like he’s been involved the whole time. And he put out a video last week that said it was a PR move, and then it had to be done. So Pat King, I mean, for all intents and purposes, like he’s still running logistics, he’s still you know, being looked at as a leader. He’s still on the freedom of Convoy website. As you know, a person to follow and one to one of the organizers. So, I mean that the attempts to distance themselves from him are interesting, but I think that they’re, they’re pretty, they failed. Basically, he’s got years like we’ve documented him for the last three, four years making racist remarks, anti-semitic remarks. He’s minimized the Holocaust, which is a form of Holocaust denial is questioned the number of people who died in the Holocaust, he said that Canada’s Anglo Saxon country, he’s referenced the great replacement theory in the sense of where he’s talked about how there’s a plan to depopulate what he calls Anglo Saxons, which is really just white Europeans. And he’s, he’s been repeatedly racist towards Muslim people. And so he’s got he’s got a real history there. And he’s he was also part of yellow vests, and he was also part of Wex it like the Western separatists, right? If he’s one of the figureheads of the movement, like what does that really say about the movement? You know, cuz he just goes from one thing to the next right? Like, it’s, it’s an opportunity for him.

Other folks that are involved that are what we would kind of characterize as, as bad actors looking to capitalize would be the network called Canada first, which is a network of young young men who are basically like kind of a newer version of the alt-right. Very anti-semitic, very racist. They’ve made comments in their chat before they arrived in Ottawa, where they were saying, you know, ah, ah, Hong Kong for the truckers, but to them, HGH means something very different, it actually means, you know, it’s present Hitler. So, you know, there’s, there’s been elements of that there was an image of, of a semi-truck with a three bears flag, like the three bears were designated as a terrorist group, terrorist entity in 2020. In Canada, there have been, you know, so many incidents of imagery, and, and altercations. And, you know, the residents of Ottawa or, you know, telling the city that they feel unsafe, they feel afraid to leave their homes, there’s been incidents of rocks being thrown human feces being sort of houses, there was one video of a son of somebody with a flame thrower. It’s, it’s really something you know, and, and I think that, even though this is not the majority of the people in Ottawa, it’s enough that it’s a huge concern. And it’s enough that it really just kind of begs the question, like, how much is too much? And if this is not representative of your movement, what are you going to do to get them out of it? And at this point, I don’t actually think that there’s much they can do to get them out of it?

Jordan Well, this is why we wanted to talk to someone from the anti-hate network, because everybody I think, who’s been paying attention saw scenes from the protests and saw some of the stuff that you just described, and whether or not they supported the convoy. Initially, a lot of people have expressed disgust, rightly so. Have we heard yet, from anyone who was in the convoy and still supports the convoy, who’s not actively siding with this awful element? Like I’m trying to get a sense of where we go from here, rather than kind of abandoning all those people to the dark side, as it were?

Elizabeth Simons I mean, speaking for myself at our organization, we have not seen anyone decide to denounce it. That was a part of it. By it, I mean, like the convoy as a whole, like, what we’ve seen is a lot of people saying, yeah, there might be some hateful elements. But that doesn’t mean it’s the whole movement, right? There’s been some, you know, people who have been saying, like, it isn’t happening, or it’s a plant or it’s not, it’s, you know, you’re lying, like there’s been a lot of, of accusations of us and others lying about it. Which is ridiculous, because, there’s so much documented, right? But we haven’t seen people say, you know, what, now that I’ve seen what’s actually out there, I’m not going to participate in this in this anymore. This is not, this is not what I want to stand for. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re not out there. Because I can certainly say that there would be a legitimate fear of retaliation if people were to speak out about it that were part of it. Right. But from what from where we sit, what we’ve seen this mostly people who are looking to just kind of dismiss the, the hate elements as not representative.

I think one story that really I think captures the entitlement of this protest is, is a story of the soup kitchen. So in downtown Ottawa, there’s a soup kitchen, I believe it’s named the Shepherds of Good Hope, who will do wonderful work in the downtown core. And there was a report online of the soup kitchen, being harassed asked by individuals associated with the convoy who were looking for food. I guess what had happened was based on recordings from their walkie talkie chat Zelo, which is like an app that they use to communicate with each other through voice messages. There was recordings of them talking about one member talking about how they didn’t want to use the restaurants in downtown Ottawa, because the restaurants wanted them to wear masks. So instead of just putting on a mask, getting takeout, they decided to go to the soup kitchen and ask for free food. But what ended up happening was the soup kitchen came out the next day and put out a statement saying that they felt harassed and that they had given out free food as a means to defuse the situation. And then it also came out that a client of the soup kitchen so somebody who was experiencing either, you know, lack of housing or food insecurity, they were assaulted by somebody with the convoy and the security guard who had tried to step in to defuse the situation, had racial slurs held up. But if you listened to the Zelo, Zelo audio, do you hear conversation of them saying, well, but I am in another city, and I am homeless, so I’m entitled to those resources. And then other people said, Yeah, Brother, you are entitled to that. So they feel that it’s perfectly fine to take food away from the resources to help those with food insecurity and homelessness, because they don’t want to put a mask on for five minutes to get takeout. And it was really upsetting to a lot of people to hear what happened.

Jordan I want to talk about where do we go from here? And maybe in order to do that we should speak about the politicians that are theoretically at least leading us through this. So first, and I don’t mean to pick on him. I’m literally just saying first I saw opposition leader Erin O’Toole meet with some of the actual truckers, which is what it looked like. And a couple of Conservative MPs were spotted at the protest on Saturday. What kind of message does that send? And? And how did they follow it up? When you know, Saturday night into Sunday morning, the reports began emerging, as we’ve talked about, about statues and assaults at the soup kitchen and etc, etc?

Elizabeth Simons Well, I mean, again, there’s there should be room there for the adults to have a conversation. But at the end of the day, that that isn’t even what happened on the political leader side, because I believe it was a tool that, you know, came out in support of it. And, you know, kind of dragged Justin Trudeau saying he was the real threat to democracy.

Erin O’Toole clip The convoy itself is becoming a symbol of the fatigue, and the division we’re seeing in this country. So I will always fight for the trucker, the essential worker, the Canadian who wants to work, and so will any member of the conservative caucus. The question is, why would Prime Minister Trudeau not stand up for working people.

Elizabeth Simons But you know, the leaders coming out in support of it are really concerning, because it’s causing the movement to feel legitimacy. And it’s causing the people who are being terrorized to feel abandoned. And it’s, it’s giving them kind of license to go around and behave just terribly. So. Even if O’Toole did say he was meeting with the truckers to hear their concerns. Well, that’s fine, but it was kind of framed in a way as, as a dig to to Ottawa, you know, so I feel that they’re likely trying to help to stem the bleeding of their base to the PPC, and to other kind of fringe movements. They see it happening. They see their base kind of going over to you know, Bernie and going over to Derek Sloane. And they’re trying to stop that from happening. So they’re kind of speaking their language and speaking to them, but we’ve seen how that’s played out. In the US, for example, when the Republicans tried to do that, and essentially lost in a party to conspiracy and hate. So I don’t think it’s going to work out very well in the end for them or for anybody else.

Jordan I’m also going to ask you about Justin Trudeau’s,response to this. We’re speaking on Monday afternoon, he gave a press conference in which he took questions and obviously addressed some of this.

Justin Trudeau clip So yes, the concerns expressed by a few people gathered in Ottawa right now, are not new, not surprising, are heard, but are a continuation of what we’ve unfortunately seen in disinformation and misinformation online conspiracy theorists about Microsoft about, you know, God knows what else that go with a tinfoil hats,

Jordan It seems like that was a moment to rise above.

Elizabeth Simons I feel that remarks like that are genuinely unhelpful because dismissing and mocking these people and this movement has really just led to its growth, right. So we know that when when we when we speak about into people and in who are susceptible to these conspiracy theories that, you know, mocking them can actually cause them to get further entrenched in those beliefs. It doesn’t provide them with a sense of a safe place to land if they choose to exit. And it kind of drives them into the community that’s going to tell them, Oh, no, don’t listen to that. They’re, they’re the bad ones, you know, stay with us. We’re the good guys. So it’s just going to kind of drive them further into it, it’s going to be harder to reach those people. And we’ve seen what’s happened since the onset of the pandemic, we’ve seen lots of mockery, we’ve seen lots of jokes. And I think at this point, we can realize that those jokes are not working, because the movement is just growing. And there are legitimate grievances to be made. There are legitimate concerns about, you know, people should be able to criticize the government’s decisions and approach to the pandemic, without organizing with hate groups. And they should be able to criticize without mockery of their positions. There is legitimate criticism that needs to be made and should be made. But it’s a matter of separating it from the hate elements, and also ensuring that we’re not dismissing the people with actual grievances as being insert ableist word here crazy, hear kooky or whatever, whatever have you.

Jordan Well, let me ask you this, lastly, and leaving the politicians who should be setting good examples for us out of it. I’ve spoken to some of my friends over the weekend who are not engaged in politics and certainly not, you know, hyper-focused on who’s involved in what and you know, a couple of them have expressed support and I know these people, I’m sure that I’m sure a lot of our listeners are in the same boat right now, which is why I’m asking you this question. And I know them and, and those people are pissed off with mandates or want things to go back to normal or, or all the bad stuff that’s happening now. And I guess I’m wondering if you know, one of your loved ones seems to be kind of sliding down that road. What can we do to give them that safe place to land without condoning going to Ottawa and hanging around with, with some of the worst folks in Canada?

Elizabeth Simons I mean, I think at the end of the day, it comes down to acknowledging legitimate grievances if, if loved ones or friends or colleagues or you know, anyone in our lives is, you know, saying, you know, I’m really tired of of the lockdowns and I’m tired, I don’t like the mandates. And you know, it’s okay to have those concerns in those grievances. Because I don’t think anyone loves lockdown. And I think there’s a lot of reasonable people who have concerns with mandates. So I think it’s a matter of letting people know it’s okay to have those feelings. And it’s okay to be opposed to government decisions. That’s a cornerstone of our democracy, we should be able to criticize government decisions. I mean, what are we if we can’t do that, right? What are we if we can’t protest? What are we if we can’t, you know, go to Ottawa and make our voices heard. The problem is that it needs to be disentangled from the hate elements. And I’m not actually sure if that can be done now. But we need to find a way to organize and voice those concerns. Well, you know, veteran who’s coming into our spaces and making sure that we’re not standing shoulder to shoulder with somebody who is waving a confederate flag, or feels that it’s perfectly acceptable to have a swastika. Because it’s critical of the government. Well, that’s anti-semitic. So I think we have to decide what’s acceptable and what’s not. And with people in our lives who have these views, I think we need to let them know you know, it’s okay to have grievances. It’s not okay to participate with hate groups hate movements and hate networks.

Jordan Elizabeth, thank you so much for this really helpful and insightful.

Elizabeth Simons Thank you.

Jordan Elizabeth Simons of the Canadian anti-hate network. That was the big story. For more head to thebigstorypodcast.ca. Find us on Twitter @TheBigStoryFPN. FPN talk to us via email[click here!].You can find the big story in any podcast player if you missed us. In Spotify yesterday, as much as I’d like to say we were protesting our feeds were down and our shows weren’t available for a few hours. We are as always, whenever we can in every Single podcast player you can find and of course you can ask your smart speaker to play the big story podcast thanks for listening I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings We’ll talk tomorrow.