Protesters call for end to pandemic restrictions
SIMCOE There was a celebratory mood as several hundred people gathered in Simcoe’s Wellington Park on Saturday to protest what they consider the government’s over-reaching vaccine mandates and other public health restrictions.
“Who’s proud to be a small fringe minority?” rally organizer Ashley Wills asked the cheering crowd, referencing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s description of a truck convoy that arrived in Ottawa on Saturday and clogged the city’s downtown with hundreds of vehicles and thousands of pedestrians who congregated on Parliament Hill.
Originally planned against vaccine mandates in the trucking industry, which require Canadian truckers crossing the border into the United States to be double-vaccinated if they want to avoid serving a 14-day quarantine upon re-entry to Canada, the protest has attracted international attention and grown to become a wider demonstration against the federal government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Enough is enough,” said Alexis Henderson of Langton who was at the Simcoe rally with her six-year-old daughter. “I’m double-vaxxed. I’ve complied with the restrictions for the last two years but I’ve come to my wit’s end over masks and not being able to do things.”
Quinton Griffin of Port Dover was one of the speakers at the Norfolk Convoy Support rally on Saturday, Jan. 29. Several hundred protesters gathered in Simcoe’s Wellington Park before lining the streets to wave signs and flags. MICHELLE RUBY/POSTMEDIA jpg, SR
Several hundred people turned out on Saturday, Jan. 29 at Simcoe’s Wellington Park to protest in solidarity with a convoy of truckers and others opposed to cross-border vaccine mandates and other public health restrictions who held a rally at the same time on Parliament Hill. MICHELLE RUBY/POSTMEDIA jpg, SR
A rally in Simcoe on Saturday, Jan. 29, organized by Ashley Wills of Waterford, attracted several hundred people who protested in solidarity with a convoy of truckers and others opposed to cross-border vaccine mandates and other public health restrictions who gathered at the same time on Parliament Hill. MICHELLE RUBY/POSTMEDIA jpg, SR
A participant is surrounded by Canadian flags on Saturday, Jan. 29 at the Norfolk Convoy Support 2022 rally held in Wellington Park in Simcoe. MICHELLE RUBY/THE EXPOSITOR jpg, SR
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Wills said family commitments made it impossible for her to be in Ottawa on Saturday so she decided to start a Facebook group called Norfolk Convoy Support 2022, which attracted 5,400 members in six days and spurred the local rally.
“What it tells me is that we’re not alone,” said Wills. “People are coming together in communities across the country. The government has to re-evaluate their mandates and what it’s doing to every generation. (With all the restrictions) my kids don’t have anything to look forward to.”
Shelley McQuiggan of Tillsonburg, holding a sign that read Taking Back Canada, was at the Simcoe rally with two former co-workers. She said they all lost their federal government jobs because they refused to be vaccinated, bringing to an end 44 years of combined service.
“The vaccine was rushed,” said McQuiggan. “It was experimental.”
“A lot of other people didn’t want to get it but they had to in order to support themselves,” said Kim Ludwig, one of McQuiggan’s former colleagues.
On its website, Norfolk Convoy Support 2022 said the rally wasn’t about the vaccine but “to end mandates and gain our freedoms back as Canadians.”
For the past week, several teams of truckers and supporters across the country have been making their way to the nation’s capital as part of the “freedom convoy,” raising more than $8.2 million from more than 103,000 donations on GoFundMe.
Up to 10,000 people were anticipated to be in Ottawa’s downtown core on Saturday in the midst of an extreme cold warning, joining a lineup of truckers that started to arrive on the scene late Friday night.
Rock anthems blared from speakers at the Simcoe protest. Many participants carried Canadian flags and placards with messages that included No More Mandates, Thank You For United Us, Truckers Defending Our Charter Rights, and We Won’t Stay Silent Anymore, It’s Time to Stand Up.
“Today we are supporting our truckers,” an emotional Wills told the crowd. “We are passionate about our freedom to choose. We want our lives back. We’re putting our voices together in unity today.”
Protesters then took to the streets, lining highways 3 and 24, urged by Wills who asked them to “go to the roads to get as many honks as we can.”
Hundreds of people march in Simcoe in support of the truck convoy Saturday in Ottawa. They say they want an end to government-imposed pandemic mandates. pic.twitter.com/zroLAcQg2L — Michelle Ruby (@EXPMichelle) January 29, 2022