Canada Day, Jacked!

Trucker convoy praised by woman who says COVID restrictions are abusive.

Rozsa* lives 90 minutes south of Toronto, and is 40 years old. "My prayers were answered," she says of the trucker protest. She drove to Ottawa twice during that time, and rejoiced at what she found there.

"It was Canada Day, jacked!" she says. "There's bouncy castles. There's saunas. Those were my people. That was my jam."

On the first occasion, it was brutally cold and difficult to remain outdoors for extended periods of time. But after briefly warming up in the hotel, she was back out again. The sense of community and camaraderie was powerful. She recalls being in a Tim Horton's coffee shop: "And this trucker comes in. And he says, 'Good morning, all you beautiful Canadians!' and we respond in unison, 'Good morning!'"

Another trucker, parked outside her hotel, was giving away food. "He's got his wife there, with a baby. They've rented a trailer to sleep in - these people are committed. I'm feeling weird taking food, and I'm trying to pay him. They're like: 'please, just take it.'"

When her second visit was wrapping up, she tearfully asked some of the truckers: "'Are you leaving, are you going?' And they're like, 'No, we're not going anywhere. We're staying here for as long as we have to.'"

Her message to the truckers is: "God bless you. Thank you." They will, she says, "never be forgotten. They're the soldiers. This is a spiritual war."

Rozsa describes herself as a "rebel with a cause," as someone who seeks and questions. She is, she says, a “spiritual being, having a human experience." She speaks of meditation, astral travel, and energy transmuting lightwork.

As the pandemic dragged on, she kept wondering "Why aren't Canadians doing anything?" about government-imposed COVID restrictions. "They locked the parks down - like a crime scene," she says.

For her, COVID rules are a frightening echo of desperate times. In 2017, she fled an emotionally abusive marriage by seeking refuge in a women's shelter. Thanks to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, she says she has since healed and is now whole.

But "what was going on in Canada" during the past two years "was very reminiscent of my life with my abusive husband," she says quietly. "You're told you can't leave your house unless you do this, unless you wear that - subtle abuse which, once you've experienced it, you recognize."  

On the topic of vaccine mandates, she says: "It's the same with an abuser. You go, 'OK, I'll do it, whatever they say, and then it'll be OK.' You don't think clearly about things, unfortunately, until after.” But nothing goes as promised, she says, “and the cycle continues."

Given that people are losing their jobs if they decline COVID vaccines, Rozsa also sees parallels to financial abuse in domestic situations: 'If you don't do what they say, abusers use money to control you. Right? It's the exact same thing. This is government abuse. It's abuse from afar."

*Not her real name. I interviewed ‘Rozsa’ in person on 28 Apr. 2022.