Drawing the line

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With blockades of bridges, borders and city centres dominating the news these days, I am thinking much about lines — where to put them, how to draw them, and when to walk them.

We each have our limits. Some of us wake up one day with ‘enough!’ as our impetus for saying, This is where I draw the line. I must act.

Our life experience informs our politics and, in turn, those politics shape how we draw that line — privately, with an X on the ballot; or loudly, by joining a public protest. I’ve done both, but on Saturday when a friend asked if I was going to the counter-protest at the Manitoba legislature, I said no. While I supported the idea, I wasn’t going to engage in this debacle that way.

I have marched for issues clearly defined. I have voted for politicians who speak to my values and my priorities. But the ragtag bunch of individuals digging in for so-called ‘freedom’ speak neither to my values nor my priorities: their demonstration of ‘freedom’ looks too close to populist anarchy for it to represent me in any way.

So that is where I have drawn my line, for the moment.

I always have the greatest hope for progress when the line drawn moves towards closure, making a circle in the end. However, I fear that today’s lines on the borders and in Canada’s capital city are too cluttered with hot tubs, trucks and sound stages for a circle to be drawn. Though I hope to be proved wrong.

NB: Written and posted Monday morning, just as the news is reporting that the Prime Minister may be contemplating invoking the Emergencies Act, which is a whole other line to be drawn. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by Luís Eusébio on Unsplash

Comments

  1. Grace KoshidaFebruary 14, 2022 at 11:48 AM

    Amanda: I do hope the various "'freedom" protests across Canada will end peacefully. The purpose of the original trucker convoy has morphed into a disorganized chaotic movement with unreasonable demands.

    The Trudeau government is not going to resign, and the convoy co-organizers are not going to form government with the remaining opposition parties. The Trudeau government does not have the authority to end the majority of the vaccine mandates. These health measures are the responsibility of the provinces and territories. The addition of foreign influence and money supporting the protesters (i.e. 50% of the online funds raised are from American sources) is another troubling factor.

    I was too young to understand (or remember) what happened during the 1970 FLQ crisis that forced (then) PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. I have read that civil unrest, or threats of terrorism, are among the valid reasons that allowed the government to do so.

    It is truly sad that our current PM may have to do this to end the occupation in downtown Ottawa and other blockades that are occurring in Canada. We are going to have to live with the consequences of crossing that line for a long time to come.

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