VOICES: WHY THEY’VE COME TO OTTAWA

Participants tell us why they joined the rally at Parliament Hill

Doug Vandervelde, Carp

“I’m here to support friends from Alberta, and to support the Canadian economy and the Canadian industry. I’d like to see deregulation and less taxes, and I’d like to see the country doing a lot better than it is right now. I lived in Calgary, Alberta, for 10 years. I have lots of friends still out there and I’m living near Ottawa now, so I thought I better come down to show some support while I’m here and close by. Time to get people out West back to work again and get that economy going and get Canada’s economy as a whole going.”

Nicola Timmerman, Hawkesbury

“I’m a part of the yellow vests. I’m from Hawkesbury and I came already to one rally ... today I thought it would be fantastic to meet all of the truckers. I’m basically very against the United Nations migration compact and irregular migration of open borders, and very mad that we’re not getting a good price for our oil. I think it’s really unfair and it’s the United States that’s getting the discounted oil. I don’t know how that is happening and there are all sorts of issues, and I’m working to defeat Trudeau and hoping that the election is soon. We seem to be just spending, spending, spending and our grandkids are going to inherit all of this. We’re already paying so much interest on our debt so we need to reverse that.”

John, Ottawa

“I’m here just to support the world pipeline and a few other issues that need to be addressed in Canada that aren’t being addressed because people don’t want to talk about it. They decide as people to use psychological warfare by calling them racists, xenophobes and everything else under the sun. I am not involved in the organizing (of the protest) or anything like that. My parents were immigrants way back and I’m tired of people saying you’re racist. Excuse me, I was willing to die for the Afghan men, women and children when I was in Afghanistan, and for people to say, ‘Yeah, you’re racist,’ no, I was willing to die for people that are not my skin colour, not my religion and that is no different than going up to a person and being like, ‘You’re a pedophile,’ no I’m not, that’s disgusting.” Max Conn, Calgary

“I’ve just driven five days to get here. We want our country back. We want our future for our children. This government has absolutely destroyed the resource sector, the education sector, the open borders and carbon tax. So, all the bills we need to kill, C-48, C-69, C-75, M-103; everything that has been damaging this country allowing mass migration and the United Nations migration pact. We have over 10-per-cent unemployment in our province (Alberta), and we have hundreds and thousands of people unemployed, and it’s not just the oil sector. That (has a) trickle-down effect, so all of our industries are affected. Everything, I mean everything. There has been more bankruptcies, more people losing their businesses, their vehicles, their houses, and it’s just been a disaster for us. We spent $19 billion last year in Ottawa. We got nothing in return.”

Sabrina Guzman Skomitsky, Halifax

“I’m here because I want to stand in solidarity with Indigenous folks who are on the front lines, who are fighting for their territories or their lands and their waters. I think it’s really polarized right now and scary some of these thoughts, but I think all of us are looking for good jobs, a livable climate and social justice. I think we’re not going to get there unless we keep showing up to things like this and showing our support for the future that we want.”

Brock Lewis, Ottawa

“We are here to negate the protest that they’re here for. We’re anti-pipeline, we’re anti-consumerism, we want to live a different way of life, we want to live a quality of life that is more than this, and we want a quality of life that helps bring the degree of temperature to a standard that is going to help sustain us for generations. We want people to realize that what they’re doing is wrong. The convoy polluting carbon into the air from Alberta is only projecting carbon into the air that’s going to be there for thousands of years, so we want to make sure that they know that. The pipeline is only going to make things worse, it’s going to make the climate worse and what they’re doing is just projecting hate toward us.” Wanda Lawrence, Red Deer, Alta.

“I want to see Canadians united. I’m tired of them being divided. I’m tired of politicians and the media cutting down our fossil fuels and farming. Things that are good. We’re intelligent in Canada, we’re smart. Why are we not promoting it? Why are we not saying the positive things and letting other countries influence our culture here? It needs to stop ... I need the oil and gas. There are some things I’d like to see less government in, but we’ve got to pull together because if we don’t we’re going to destroy this beautiful country. Because there are too many fractures.” Marlene Oliver, Thunder Bay, Ont.

“I’ve been behind this movement since Day One. My husband has made his living in the oilfield for 30 years. We’ve raised six kids on it. We used to live in Alberta, and what’s happening is wrong. We have great Canadian oil and gas. It’s clean, it provides jobs, which provides the transfer payments that go to everybody else. Why are we using foreign oil? Why are we sending billions and billions of dollars overseas? Excuse me? We’ve got homeless people freezing on the street, we’ve got vets that can’t get medications for PTSD, we’ve got Canadians that need to be looked after. I know, old saying, shoot me: charity begins at home.” Truman Gillingham, Ompah, Ont.

“There are a lot of things going on in the country that are fundamentally wrong. It’s against what Canadians voted for. There’s out of control spending, spending in the wrong places. Canada in general is being put in second place, whereas Trudeau is spending untold millions overseas to support his own pet projects, and to win favour with the United Nations. He’s trying to get a seat on the security council, and we’re systematically shutting down the goose that lays the golden egg, that being the oilpatch. Tremendous revenue comes out of the oilpatch, which is for the benefit of all Canadians. It has to be addressed, and that’s why I’m here supporting the oilpatch. I don’t work in the oilpatch. I’ve never worked in the oilpatch, but I can clearly see what’s going on here ... I think the prime minister has to figure out that he’s there to serve Canadians, not to rule us like a dictator, which he is doing.” Justin Long, Hamilton, Ont.

“I came here to see the convoy rally and the yellow vest protest on Parliament Hill to try to raise awareness and be heard about all the problems that are going on with Canada and our corrupt government . ... There are so many issues with Canada right now, but if I had to say the most important one, and this has been going on for many, many years, it would be our financial system, our banking system. We produce money out of debt, and it costs us trillions and trillions of dollars to pay these international bankers to print our money out of debt when the Bank of Canada should be printing our money, interest-free, for the government to use for the people. That’s a huge problem ... the people are becoming aware of the fact that the government is corrupt, and they keep trying to infringe on our rights, and we’re not allowing it anymore. We want to be heard. We want accountability in our government.”

I’m here to support friends from Alberta, and to support the Canadian economy and the Canadian industry. I’d like to see deregulation and less taxes, and I’d like to see the country doing a lot better than it is right now. Doug Vandervelde, Carp