OTTAWA - Hundreds of truckers and their supporters and critics gathered in Ottawa on Saturday for a protest towards vaccine mandates, COVID-19 restrictions and the Liberal authorities.
Whereas many expressed concern with public well being restrictions resembling vaccine mandates, masks mandates and gathering limits, others attended the rally to counter-protest the convoy’s message and categorical help for measures to sluggish the unfold of the virus.
Listed here are some key quotes from the rally on Parliament Hill and response to the protest from throughout Canada.
Tom Pappin, Ottawa
“I can journey freely by the border, and never keep in touch with anybody. But I’m locked into my very own nation proper now. I can’t go on a vacation. I can’t go to a restaurant, I can’t go bowling. I can’t go to a film. You understand, these are issues that it’s simply gotten uncontrolled.”
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Karen Klus, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
“We’re right here now we have to repair this. We’ve acquired this quantity of momentum going.”
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Phil Haggart
“Masks are essential, vaccines are essential, and mandates are essential solely as a result of we want them to remain alive and never fill our hospitals up.”
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Eric Simmons, Oshawa, Ont.
“I feel all mandates must be ended. They’re not efficient, they’re not working. It’s not altering something. We are able to’t preserve residing like this. Persons are dropping their jobs as a result of they don’t need to get the vaccine. Truckers drew a line within the sand, which is sweet. I feel it ought to have occurred sooner.”
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Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, in response to protestors utilizing the Terry Fox statue to carry a protest placard with the phrases “Mandate Freedom,” in a tweet
“I’m the Mayor of Terry Fox’s hometown. He’s our metropolis’s hero, nationwide inspiration and a unifier. No matter your trigger, you don’t get to applicable his legacy and also you don’t contact his statue. Ever.”
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James Moore, nationwide vice-chair of the Canadian Most cancers Society and former MP and business minister, in a tweet
“Terry Fox died of most cancers that he exacerbated on his Marathon of Hope operating throughout Canada making an attempt to lift cash to battle a plague - fairly the alternative of what’s taking place right here. Have a protest, do your factor, don’t disrespect this monument of a Canadian hero.”
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Maggie Segounis
“I simply need you to allow you to guys know that you simply don’t need to reply to anyone. We're free Canadians.”
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Patrick King
“You guys are those that drove these boys right here,” referring to the truckers who drove to the nation’s capital. “To lastly see you guys get up, and say ‘No,’ is probably the most wonderful factor I’ve seen but.”
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Luke Winkels, Woodstock, Ont. Retired from trucking after 38 years attributable to vaccine mandate.
“This can be a lot extra than simply COVID. That is about management, tyranny. They’ve saved us all divided and afraid of one another. This has introduced folks’s true emotions out and it’s not going again within the field once more. You understand the guts of the folks is behind us.”
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Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre on Twitter
“The truckers I’ve met right this moment have been peaceable, variety and patriotic. I’ve not seen anybody dressed up in blackface or different racist costumes.”
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Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe in assertion
“As a result of vaccination isn't decreasing transmission, the present federal border coverage for truckers is mindless. An unvaccinated trucker doesn't pose any better danger of transmission than a vaccinated trucker. Nevertheless, the present federal coverage does pose a big danger to Canada’s economic system and to the availability chain.”
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This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Jan. 29, 2022.