Rolling Thunder Convoy
 

What are we in for this weekend?

Just before 5 pm, I witnesses part of the convoy heading north on south Bank Street.

There are more than motorcycles. Lots of trucks again with flags and blaring horns.

I am nervous.

I am leading a public event on Sunday and I hope this does not spoil it.

We're in for noise and revving. A lot of noise and revving.

Sounds like it will be a lot of the same crowd. It seems to me that the plan is to keep them dispersed enough that they can’t cause the same kind of grief. Should be doable.

They can't be allowed to get entrenched like in February. From the livestreams it looks like there's a few vehicles (maybe 20+) out front the Rideau Centre. Hopefully the crowds can be pushed back enough for those vehicles to be allowed to turn around and leave the area or be towed out.

This weekend was nuts for traffic, even in Aylmer. Sunday morning traffic jams on Vanier/Allumettières, line ups at Champlain bridge on Taché from beyond St Raymond, and eastbound on Lucerne.

It's crazy what a few blocked streets can do.

That probably had more to do with the Ride for CHEO that took over the SJAM and GEC parkways.

Yes, that probably contributed too, good call.

During the February debacle, a lot of out of towners flooded the west end of Gatineau, so I may have some lingering 'misunderstandings'.

Critterfest has a habit of doing that to the City streets.

We are more known for our restos.

1 hour to get from St-Raymond/Tache to the other side of the Champlain bridge on Saturday. Witnessed some pretty awful driving behaviour at that intersection. Lots of cars cutting off peds/cyclists on the crosswalk.

If you're not watching the testimony of councillors Fleury and McKenney today live, watch the replay when you have a chance.

Yesterday was another display of the Police and Cities incompetence. Seems the Hotel Association, yes, that's right, the Hotel Association warned the Police that the truckers were booking hotel rooms for 30 to 90 days and were expecting 5k-15k. Police did nothing with that info.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eme...tawa-1.6618549

Another dumb City of Ottawa brain fart:

https://twitter.com/Gray_Mackenzie/s...Y77ZfJdwb1K7Bw

#1 these are self entitled morons who hold on tight to their big rigs and pickup trucks. #2 You don't want these people on transit because intimidation/vandalism and #3 the City is aware the stadium parking is underutilized could be used as a park and ride, bony won't let residents and taxpayers use it as such?

In positive (?) news, props to Doug Ford for giving credit where credit is due. He supports the Feds's use of the Emergencies Act. Good on him for not being ultra partisan like the Federal PCs, or Provincial PCs in the west. I disagreee with a lot of his politics and decisions, but I can respect his willingness to work and support with the Federal Liberals.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9204438/d...ar-protesters/

Only watched a few short snippets on the news. Pretty harrowing. McKenney having to help residents get out of their home. Fleury himself needed to pack-up his family and leave. We witnessed true leadership from Fleury and McKenney during those dark days, while Watson's only move was to fire head of the Police Board and try to negotiate in vein with the occupiers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJXEzhg0Hh0&t=1s

Keep in mind the source of this video, but this doesn't cast the two Councillors in a good light with Fleury claiming his english isn't that nuanced (I've found him to be completely fluent in english) and McKenney is coaching him to switch the discussion to french etc under their breath.

Oh no, a francophone spoke French at a Federal inquiry.

They've taken something pretty innocent and made it look like some sort of conspiracy (that's what they do, right?). It's possible to be fully bilingual but not fully understand a dictionary definition. I'm sure most people use words in a certain way that's not completely in line with their intended use (people have a lot of trouble with "ironic", for example). The examples he used to describe micro-aggressions are in line with my thoughts.

Guy questioning Fleury was condescending, asking a fluently bilingual person to wear a translation headset because he could not confirm one definition.

Don't read the youtube comments. (That's a good general life rule, but especially in this case.)

My wife and I lived in Centretown at the time and by week three we had barely slept and were losing it. We booked and room in Smiths Falls for the last 5 days, because we just couldn't take it anymore. If anyone says, "oh it can't have been that bad", "protests happen in Ottawa all the time" or "whatabout xyz?", I have zero respect for them, because that shows zero respect for me, my wife or the people of Ottawa. The merits of a group deliberately targeting residential neighbourhoods for sustained harassment is not a subject I want to hear any amount of debate on.

It wasn't innocent at all. Fleury obviously being purposely obtuse. He speaks English better than French. Now they think they are talking to lawyers at the Nuremburg trial but it's clearly a BS move. They were getting at the lack of actual aggressive acts that took place. But agree Fleury and McKenney are literally survivors of all this so tend to think they are entitled to game the system a bit.

As for backing Ford. He refused to participate in meetings and claimed it should be left the the police so essentially ran away. Yes the convoy is very unpopular so he can seem all bipartisan and given distance to an election it is a bit magnanimous but he's not the hero of this for sure.

This will likely not come up in the inquiry. One of the biggest reason why they implemented the Emergencies Act, was that the public was about to take matters into their own hands, and that could have led to violent confrontations.

We saw the spur of the moment protest at Billings Bridge the Sunday before the Emergencies Act was enacted. This was going to explode the following weekend if the Act was not enacted. The hundreds in the Billings Bridge protest would have grown to thousands and who knows what would have happened. I know that I was planning to participate in the 'next' anti-convoy protest. I was fed up with how the convoy had held the city hostage. The Monday following the first weekend, the mandates were already being loosened as planned, so what was the point?