Letter: Trudeau was right to not meet with protesters

By Letter to the Editor on March 22, 2022.

In response to John MacLaren’s March 15 letter to the editor, “Freedom Convoys have lit a fire in the west”

Dear editor.

Mr. MacLaren criticized our Prime Minister because he did not “… meet with the demonstration organizers and amicably settle the issue, …”

With whom should the Prime Minister have met? Perhaps with Mr. Pat King who, at a bail hearing on four Criminal Code charges after the Ottawa occupation ended, was shown by the Crown to have 18 prior criminal convictions, at age 44. He also suggests on his website that the problems he perceives with the Prime Minister can be solved with “… a bullet,” and that the Anglo-Saxon race should prevail. Not exactly citizen-of the-year material, is he Mr. MacLaren?

Perhaps the PM should have met with Mr. Chris Barber, who decorates his property with a U.S. Confederate flag but maintains that symbol of slavery, genocide, racism and hatred is merely “… a piece of cloth.”

An analogy will show that our PM was correct in not meeting with the convoy organizers. Have you ever been grocery shopping with a three-year-old child? That child operates purely on satisfying their wants, and will unconcernedly fill the shopping cart with candy and all manner of dietary junk, with no regard for, nor knowledge of, family finances, a budget, nor healthy eating.

Those who besieged Ottawa for three weeks, and those who blocked the border at Coutts and at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor simply wanted what they wanted and applied no deeper analysis nor considered understanding to the choices they made. They acted at odds with our law, and at odds with the functioning of our political system, both of which, together with facts, truth, good solid science and common decency became irrelevancies.

Yet, a basic understanding of all these things is a requirement to meaningfully participate in our society. It is not up to the prime minister, nor any politician, to educate citizens on this required knowledge, the attainment of which is incumbent on each citizen.

It was the organizers and protesters who, on so many levels, did not meet the standards we all properly expect on proper public behaviour and comportment. As to “… amicably settling the issue,” Mr. MacLaren wants the prime minister to let the three-year-old do all the grocery shopping.

Gregory R. Côté

Irvine Alberta

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