We Unify Canada Commemorates the 40th Anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Victoria

Hundreds of Victorians answered the call of We Unify Canada and gathered at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And before you ask: Yes, there was a Freedom Convoy of honking trucks. VicPD didn’t bother with checkpoints this time.

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What I witnessed was a predictable evolution of the protests, from mere trucker honking protesting COVID mandates to an actual organised movement advocating for a broad range of freedoms and bringing the fight to the courts and even in elections. Just like the antiwar movement in the US was started by hippies, so is the civil rights awakening fuelled by hobbyist protesters rallying over the weekend to support truckers. It’s amazing how many of these protesters had barely heard of the Charter before the protests started in earnest. Well, this afternoon they could all listen to children reading passages of it from the steps of Parliament, interspersed with pleas for volunteers from various organisers to get involved in the fight to reclaim and protect those very freedoms, and indeed many are finding a new political calling that they would never have discovered without the pandemic.

The talks were followed by a march downtown, with a longer itinerary than usual; instead of turning back on Belleville Street, it continued into James Bay and reached Parliament from behind. Then the participants held a picnic on the lawn at that location.

Plenty of bystanders through the event wondered what the protest was about, and were even under the impression that COVID mandates had all been lifted, which is very inaccurate: while most provincial mandates are lifted, federal mandates largely remain in place, such as the restrictions pertaining to both domestic and international travel on planes and trains, and the bizarre 14-day mask mandate for anyone returning to the country (which nobody, not even the Prime Minister, seems to comply with). And states of emergency haven’t yet been lifted, which means mandates can come back overnight at a whim. Not only that, workers that have been laid off under these mandates haven’t been reinstated and are petitioning the courts for redress. It will be a long time, even after the last mandate and the last state of emergency has been lifted, before grievances stop flowing. And for many of those with grievances, the Charter is their only beacon of hope.