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The banner on this interview is a fine example of fake news. “Terry Fox statue disrespected.” This is supposedly evidence that the anti-mandate protest in Ottawa is dangerous and out of control.
The “disrespect” as the videos show, is having draped the Fox statue with a Canadian flag.
If CTV or the Ottawa mayor consider the Canadian flag a mark of disrespect, what does this say of their attitude towards the Canadian flag?
Are we belittling our war dead by draping their coffins with the flag? Are we disrespecting our public buildings by flying it?
Is it that they are disrespecting a statue by clothing it? This is a traditional sign of respect for the subject of a statue world-wide. Many statues of Mary in Latin countries are given a new dress on important feast days. Statues of Csitigarbha (Jizo) in Japan are given mittens and wool hats that devotees weave themselves.
What right, then, does the mayor of Ottawa have to declare the practice disrespectful?
And how much did CTV or Ottawa’s mayor have to say about the recent pulling down or spray-painting of statues of Sir John A. Macdonald or Queen Victoria? Or the renaming of the Langevin Block? Isn’t their concern now the height of hypocrisy?
Hizzoner is also critical of the protesters as “disruptive” for entering local businesses without masks, and beyond their mandated covid capacity.
But this is demanding they observe the very restrictions they are protesting against. The whole point of civil disobedience is that you disobey. It is like allowing that Rosa Parks had a right to protest segregation, but she was being disruptive by refusing to yield her seat on the bus. Or that Gandhi had the right to his salt march, but only if he paid the salt tax. Yes, they may be breaking the law and be subject to arrest; but the mayor is missing or ignoring the point of the exercise.
Sadly, the mayor of Ottawa is not running for reelection. This deprives Ottawa’s citizens of the opportunity to vote him out of office.
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