Emergencies Act did need to be enacted

By Lethbridge Herald on September 7, 2022.

Editor:

I must disagree with Jill Skriver’s view that the Emergencies Act did not need to be enacted. 

In my view, PM Trudeau was very patient after three weeks of allowing the Freedom Convoy to block Ottawa streets, harrass pedestrians (some of whom were just trying to get to their place of business or job), blow horns 24/7 causing residents to lose sleep and frighten children and desecrate the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a monument to those who fought in the Second World War to preserve our freedoms.

My father and two uncles were in the Second World War helping to preserve those freedoms. The Freedom Convoy had the right to protest but not to block streets, harrass people and cause businesses to close because customers could not get to them. 

One phrase that caught my attention was “protesters that were doing very little harm” – I wonder how the Ottawa people affected by the above would say about that comment. 

The other comment about living in a dictatorship was equally wrong. Ms. Skriver should look to Putin’s Russia and Kim Jong Un’s North Korea if she wants to see what a dictatorship looks like.

Putin’s detractors, including journalists, are shot or poisoned and Kim’s just disappear. As the members of the convoy would not agree to leave, the PM had no choice but to enact Emergency Measures as he was protecting the rights of Ottawa citizens not to be harrassed, not to be subjected to noisy horns and not to have business owners lose revenue.

Faye Van Deurzen

Lethbridge