Uncivil society: Ottawa's vaccine protest could be a sign of things to come

Call it a protest. An occupation. A siege.

Whatever your word of choice, downtown Ottawa continues to be the site of a huge demonstration. Its participants, those in the trucks and in the streets, are issuing conflicting demands, ranging from calls for the Trudeau government to capitulate on the vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers to demands for an end to all pandemic restrictions everywhere in the country — whether they're a federal responsibility or not.

"I haven't taken any vaccination or any medicine, not even a Tylenol, not even a cough syrup, not even aspirin, not even a Pepto-Bismol, nothing," said Maninder Singh, a truck driver at the protest who told CBC he's now unemployed.

"And today, someone is telling me to take something. That's a violation of my beliefs."

For city residents who've endured a full week of this now — the blocked roads, the constant cacophony of airhorns day and night, the verbal abuse from some people who refuse to leave — one of the biggest concerns is how authorities let it come to this state.

"This is an unprecedented and a new set of circumstances," Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly told a Friday news conference called to announce a new "surge and contain" strategy. Police say they're putting more officers on the street with strict orders to enforce a wider exclusion zone around Parliament Hill and to prevent crime.

Sloly described the protest as a well-funded, well-organized movement that includes multiple command posts — in Ottawa, across the country and even overseas — that finally compelled his force to adjust, one week after the protest started.

"We are literally learning lessons every day," he said.

One of those lessons-learned is that this protest is so big and so scary, police aren't even confident it could be controlled if they tried to break it up.

25:01Policing the protests

With protests still going strong in Ottawa, former city police chief Charles Bordeleau explains the reasons behind the police response earlier this week, then professors Michael Kempa and Kathleen Rodgers discuss what it might tell us about the future of protests in Canada.

A 'textbook' approach that failed

University of Ottawa criminology professor Michael Kempa is an expert on policing techniques. He joined CBC's The House this weekend for a panel discussion on how the Ottawa protest — now spreading to other cities — will shape both future demonstrations and how authorities respond to them.

"It came to this, largely, because this is the way that police agencies have been moving for the last 10 years," he said. "A strategy of containment and hoping the protests fizzle out enough that they can then be dealt with. So this has been very textbook."

But it didn't work.

"The problem is we've spent six days hiding, trying to pretend this isn't a confrontation and they're so far behind that we're going into another weekend where things will step up quite a bit," said Jeffrey Monaghan of Carleton University's Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

The protest organizers haven't accomplished any of their goals either. Prime Minister Trudeau isn't bending on the vaccine mandates. Those in the crowd — some of whom have been spotted waving symbols of hate, such as swastikas — haven't forced him out of office.

Garbled messaging

Kathleen Rodgers is an associate professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. She told The House that the groups failed to present a coherent message to the public or to each other.

"And when you have that, it's much more difficult to develop a message that appeals to a very broad range of people," she said.

"And I think at this point, it's very confused. It's very clearly angry. But now we're in a holding pattern. And it's a waiting game to see what happens next in terms of what is now just a very well-funded occupation."

Kempa said he believes this protest is a sign of things to come. He compared it to political rallies intended to fire up disaffected people and get them to join a cause.

"Unite them, lather them up and also get access to their wallets where they can continue to raise funds that the organizers can direct towards political influence," he said. "This is a strategy to put together a coordinated political movement and back candidates in the long term."

A double-standard in policing

Many observers, such as environmental activist Molly Murphy, see a sharp contrast between the tolerance shown to the largely white protesters in Ottawa and the way police treat Indigenous and racialized groups.

Murphy was arrested twice for violating a court injunction against blocking a logging company from cutting down stands of old-growth forest at Fairy Creek in British Columbia.

Hundreds of protesters have been arrested there. 

During her arrest, Murphy said, a Mountie bent her hand back violently even though she wasn't resisting. Others were thrown to the ground, she said, where officers kneeled on their backs.

"I'm seeing an obvious, blatantly obvious difference between the way enforcement is happening in relation to the trucker convoy and an attempt to prevent old growth logging on Vancouver Island," she told The House.

"I feel kind of sick to my stomach because of the way that I know that the RCMP have treated Indigenous people for trying to protect their lands and settler allies trying to protect forests and waterways."

Rodgers said she also sees merit in the argument that police are treating the Ottawa convoy more leniently.

"If these were people of colour that were … perceived to be so dangerous as this current convoy is, then the reaction by police would be different. I think that's a legitimate conversation to put on the table," she said.

"On the other hand, there are different circumstances. I'm not apologizing for reactions to the Fairy Creek protesters at all, but there are different circumstances where that reaction to, or that response to the protesters would have been easier to carry out than it is in downtown Ottawa."

Ottawa police now say that the stand-back approach in the capital is about to change. It's not a moment too soon for Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi, whose riding includes Parliament Hill and the adjacent Centretown neighbourhood.

"This is not a peaceful demonstration. It's an occupation," he told the Commons on Friday.

"Enough is enough. This needs to end now, so my community can live in peace again."

• Listen to CBC Radio's The House: Protesters stay, a leader goes