“Canada will always be ready to defend the right to peaceful protest.” This is what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had said about the farmers’ protest in India. Without flinching for a second, Trudeau interfered in India’s domestic matter and members of his government like Jagmeet Singh, did the same without a care for the facts on the ground, further denting relations with India which were already on a rocky path.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t start also by recognising the news coming out of India about the protests by farmers. The situation is concerning. And we all are very worried about family and friends,” said Trudeau perhaps in a bid to woo a certain constituency of Canadian voters.
This was in December 2020. More than a year has passed since. Now the tables have turned. The farmers’ protest in India has ended after nearly a year of holding New Delhi hostage, and now it is Ottawa that is facing a similar situation at the hands of Canadian truckers. While Canada’s truckers call their protest the ‘Freedom Convoy’ as they slam vaccine mandates, a section of farmers in India, started their protest on the premise that the three farm laws passed by the Indian parliament at the time would be counter-productive for farmers and drain them of their incomes. It is another thing that many of these ‘farmers’ were the richer ‘Arhatiyas’ or middlemen and the farm laws were indeed not as much in their interest as they were for small farmers all over the country.
But let’s not get into too many details about why both protests originated, because that is not the question here. The question is about the right to protest and whether it holds different standards for India on one hand and Canada on the other.
Canadian Truckers have blocked border roads connecting with the United States disrupting trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars. While New Delhi tolerated blocked highways and a loss of over US$8 billion to the economy in a span of a year, Canada’s Justin Trudeau has remained hostile towards the truckers since day one and has refused to meet with the organisers. He has declared the blockade ‘illegal’, and the whole protest an ‘occupation’.
https://twitter.com/justintrudeau/status/1491967267390869505?s=21
Such terminologies were never used by PM Narendra Modi even when Delhi was choked by protesters at the highways, or when it was laid siege upon on its Republic Day by an unruly and lawless mob. In fact, sexual harassment, rape, violence against cops, murder and even a blasphemy-related lynching were reported out of the protests, but for the sake of ‘right to protest’ India was forced to keep its hands tied. Even death threats against the Prime Minister himself were brushed off. Supporters of Khalistani terrorist Bhindranwale roamed freely. In the end, the government capitulated and the farm laws were rolled back after a year of active protest and blockade at New Delhi’s outskirts.
In fact, Trudeau’s crackdown on the Freedom Convoy reeks of rank hypocrisy. This is a politician who supported the Black Lives Matter protests even when they took an anarchic and violent turn in the United States. This is a politician who spoke on protests in India with brazen disregard for the economic loss incurred by Indians or the lawless streak of the protest. So be it violence, extremism, ‘occupation’ or economic tribulation— none of it mattered to Justin Trudeau when the protests were not against his government and the right to protest remained supreme, even above the discomfort caused to common people.
In came the truckers, honking their way into Ottawa, ‘occupying’ its streets, protesting against Justin Trudeau and deeming him a ‘coward’ for going into ‘hiding’. Given the magnitude of these protests, their capacity to raise funds and how they have proliferated across Canada, it was quickly anticipated that Trudeau was in for a long, bumpy ride. This is where the ‘right to protest’ packed its bags and exited Canada.
At first, Trudeau called the protesters a ‘fringe minority’ but went to a ‘secret location’ when the honkers entered Ottawa. The peaceful protest was deemed racist as the confederate flag and the Nazi hooked-cross were spotted in the hands of some protesters. ‘Nazi Swastika,’ said NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. But the truckers pressed on. They had raised over $10 million in funds. This fundraiser was the mothership that would have helped prolong and proliferate protests across the continental nation.
Here’s where the west’s simulation of democracy started glitching. American company GoFundMe, that hosted the fundraiser, seized the funds and deleted the campaign at the request of Canadian authorities. The Truckers called this a daylight robbery but have moved on since, and are raising funds through another American company, GiveSendGo, which offers a ‘Christian crowdfunding’ platform. Now, GiveSendGo too has come under pressure from the Ontario court and the provincial government to freeze the funds. It has rejected the order and plans to continue the transfer of funds to the protesters. But it doesn’t stop here. The Canadian authorities are also confiscating the fuel supplies of the truckers amid freezing temperatures.
In a nutshell, the liberal government in Ottawa really wants to send the protesters home and if that means seizing legitimately raised funds or snatching fuel supplies in the dead of winter, so be it. The ‘right to peaceful protest’ comes with a huge caveat in the Western Hemisphere and the self-proclaimed guarantors of democracy are the ones enforcing it. But it won’t be easy. To a continental country like Canada with two major oceans on both sides, Truckers are an economic lifeline. And as for India, which is watching this duplicity unfurl, perhaps this ironic lesson was destined to be delivered by none other than the ‘liberal icon’ Justin Trudeau.
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