You might have heard about the trucker convoy that came to Ottawa last weekend. In fact, you probably heard so much about it that you didn’t notice the other, arguably more legitimate assemblages that happened in Toronto on Saturday and Sunday.
On January 29, hundreds marched from Yonge-Dundas Square to the Israeli consulate in support of the Hands Off Palestine movement, protesting Israel’s recent expropriation of land in the West Bank; on January 30, land defenders assembled at Yonge-Dundas Square – which they renamed Landback Square – to hold a vigil following discovery of the possible remains of children at the site of the former St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School in Williams Lake, British Columbia.
Neither protest received anything close to the media attention enjoyed by the white-rage tailgate party in the nation’s capital, which raises a pretty reasonable question: Why? The aims of the Toronto protests were far more reasonable than the truckers’ stated goals of overturning international vaccination requirements and replacing the elected government with people friendlier to their increasingly incoherent cause, and there were plenty of news crews in Toronto, so what happened?
In the latest episode of the NOW What podcast, Ahmad Jarrar of the GTA Palestinian Movement and Mskwaasin Agnew of the Salt River First Nation mulled that over, as well as discussing what their respective movements hope to accomplish.
“I was listening to 680 News and they had mentioned the convoy in Ottawa,” Agnew says about Sunday afternoon. “They had mentioned something about sports and they had mentioned the weather, and that was it. Ninety-three children were tortured and abused and put in unmarked mass graves in this country, and we are more concerned about the sports and the weather and this convoy that’s being led by white supremacists – and people, everyday average Canadians, are sympathizing with them. It’s a very dangerous time, and it’s certainly harmful for the Indigenous community to see that.”
For his part, Jarrar isn’t angry that Saturday’s Palestinian solidarity march was ignored. He says he’s used to it.
“The fact that we did not get these media outlets to come and cover our grand protests is something that we have expected, something that we have gotten used to because that’s how it has been throughout all our Palestinian protests,” Jarrar says. “Our protest on Saturday was one of the largest answers to this emergency call [for solidarity] around the world. So it was actually crucial to get it covered through as many media outlets as we possibly can.”
Jarrar feels that marchers got the word out through social media, and of course NOW’s Nick Lachance was there to document the protest. “But having an official, large media outlet cover what we were doing, of course, we would have gained a much greater traction.”
But, again, most major media outlets were covering the truckers – and the lack of police response to their actions, which included hanging anti-vaxxer propaganda on a statue of Terry Fox and desecrating the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“I think that the media has certainly sensationalized what’s currently happening in Ottawa,” Agnew says. “I think that it’s dangerous and it’s harmful to communities that have been out there on the front lines for years. I know friends of mine personally have been criminalized for protecting their own traditional territory. And in comparison, the behaviour that’s being allowed to happen in Ottawa is a clear example of how what’s good for First Nations people does not necessarily apply to all Canadians. We’re seeing a direct example of how we’re being treated as second-class citizens.”
Listen to the entire conversation in the latest episode of the NOW What podcast, available on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or playable directly below:
NOW What is NOW’s weekly news and culture podcast. New episodes are released every Friday.
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