Nation-wide protest comes to Swift Current...
Swift Current supporters of the yellow vest protest movement held another rally in front of City Hall on Dec. 29 and their intention is to continue their stand against the Trudeau government's support for the United Nations agreements on international migration and climate change.
Debora Voll, who has been actively participating in the local rallies, spoke to the Prairie Post while waving at motorists who honked in support of the protesters.
“We're just Canadians,” she said. “There's no organization. We just gather to say that we don't approve of Trudeau signing these agreements without having the feedback from Canadians.”
The number of rally participants have varied from week to week, and on Dec. 29 there were 10 people about 30 minutes after the rally started. Since early December a core group of five people have been attending the weekly rally on a Saturday morning at City Hall.
“They showed, and after that everybody kind of went, yes, Swift Current, we may be small and remote and distant, but we are for securing our borders, we are for no carbon tax,” she said. “It's going to affect our agriculture and our oil industry, and that has fall-out for Swift Current. We've received tremendous support. The signs are donated, there were yellow vests donated. People last week was very busy with the Christmas season and vehicles were stopping by with trays of coffee, thanking us and stopping and people joined in. We didn't expect a huge crowd this week, but we just want to be consistent. So it's just the core of us, showing up today, and starting in the new year we go full force again.”
According to Voll, their intention is to keep the weekly rally going in Swift Current as part of a nationwide yellow vest movement.
“All Canada wants secure borders and controlled immigration,” she said. “Nobody wants just everybody walking in and demanding free health care, free education, free housing. That's unsustainable. We're already in debt. Trudeau has already got our budget going into 2040 before it's balanced. He promised in 2019. So people are getting angry. They're realizing and now this is an election year. How many millions and billions is he going to give away to buy votes at the cost of the next generation?”
She noted that supporters of the yellow vest movement have no affiliation with a political party and they are non-partisan.
“There is no discussion of a political person here or a political party other than Trudeau, because he's enforcing these policies upon Canada,” she said. “It's completely non-partisan. We don't discuss who anybody votes for or who they're supporting when it comes to the election. We are about policies and the policies are the migration pact and carbon tax. That's the ones that are most important to us in Swift Current.”
Yellow vest rallies elsewhere in the country have taken place at provincial legislatures, at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and at city halls, which is the reason why Swift Current City Hall is used as the location for the local protest.
“We didn't want to interfere with customers going into the stores,” she explained. “We don't want to impair traffic. We don't want to be a hazard. Here we're out of the way, but where people can see us from afar, wave and beep without being a hazard. So safety of everybody is our first concern.”
The signs on display at the Swift Current rally highlighted two key issues that yellow vest supporters are protesting against – the federal carbon tax and the United Nations (UN) Global Compact for Migration.
According to UN documents the intention of the Global Compact for Migration is to promote a common approach to international migration. It is non-legally binding and is based on the principles of state sovereignty and shared responsibility between countries to address migration issues while upholding the principles of non-discrimination and human rights.
For yellow vest supporters the migration compact as well as the Paris Agreement on climate change reflect the influence of the United Nations agenda on the Trudeau government.
“It's non-binding, but it is an obligation and it is dictating to Trudeau,” she said. “That is what he's going by is the Paris Accord, the migration compact from the UN, and we just say he was voted in to approve 25,000 Syrian refugees. That's fine, but he wasn't given an open cheque to invite millions possibly into our border without any responsibility or accountability.”
She felt the reference to the non-legally binding nature of the Global Compact for Migration has little meaning because of Prime Minister Trudeau's attitude.
“Trudeau was just asked how he is going to do this, and he says we have an international obligation to accept these asylum and refugees without any question as to their origin or how many,” she said. “So he's not giving us the cost, he's not giving us the numbers and from what we've seen he's letting everybody just walk in. So we have no confidence that he's going to secure our borders for national security and safety.”
Voll emphasized the opposition of yellow vest supporters to the UN migration compact does not mean they are against immigration.
“That's a misconception that many people are using to try and shut us down,” she said. “Immigration has always been part of Canada's history and culture, but we want responsible, accountable and we want control of who comes in and gets citizenship. It just can't be handed out to whoever the UN imposes upon our country.”
She noted that yellow vest supporters are in favour of responsible immigration policies for Canada.
“Let's bring in people that want to integrate, embrace our lifestyles, cherish our cultures and learn our national languages and embrace what we stand for,” she said.
Similarly the yellow vest supporters feel the Trudeau government's carbon tax is not an appropriate policy for Canada.
“Canada is a carbon sink,” she said. “We're not a huge contributor, that's India, China, and they don't have a carbon tax, but the Canadian taxpayers are being punished. We should be rewarded for being a carbon sink. ... I think we all want to protect our climate and reduce pollution. What we're wanting to do is do it without harming our economy at the same time.”
She felt the rallies by yellow vest protesters in various communities across the country can make a difference in 2019.
“Let's look at France,” she said. “France got some concessions from their leader because he backed off on the taxes and we just have to be a strong voice, and it is uniting across Canada. I think when you see the election coming and in the spring and summer, I think that's when it's really going to be visible.”