Dear Editor,
Even if the truckers and their convoy to Ottawa get what they are asking for, they would effectively still get nothing, for two reasons:
1. Most of the COVID-19 mandates are provincial, not federal (even if they blame Prime Minister Trudeau and the federal government). The feds can do little for the truckers; and
2. Even if the federal government removes the requirement to be vaccinated in order to cross the border, it wouldn’t give the truckers anything, as the Americans have the same rule, so the truckers would be “one and done” with border crossings.
And then there are the racists, Trumpites, far right types and vandals who are piggy-backing the convoy. That may not be the fault of the truckers, but they also do not appear to be definitively distancing themselves from those “supporters.”
In the meantime, there are some right-leaning politicians supporting the factually useless convoy.
Are those politicians wilfully blind to the facts or breathtakingly cynical? Either way, it looks awful on them.
The easy answer is for the truckers to just get vaccinated and follow health protocols, in order to protect the health care system from collapse and protect themselves and their neighbours and families from serious disease.
But that would require that they both get informed on the facts about the dangers of COVID and the efficacy of vaccines and that they care about someone other than themselves — probably too much to ask for.
Ian C. MacLeod
RICHMOND
