COVID Canada's Stark Class Divide
After being inconvenienced for just one week, a civil servant wanted the truckers punished to the tune of millions.
Last week, three Ontario Court of Appeal judges declined to toss out a $290-million lawsuit that continues to harass Freedom Convoy organizers and participants.
The 59-page ruling was written by Justice David Brown, with Justice Peter Lauwers and Justice Steve Coroza concurring. It tells us that Zexi Li - then a 21-year-old data analyst employed by the federal government - was a resident of downtown Ottawa when Freedom Convoy trucks began rolling into the city on the final Friday of January 2022.
Exactly one week later, Ms Li commenced a class-action lawsuit against the protesters. In the words of last week’s ruling,
The claim started out modestly: Zexi Li was the sole proposed representative plaintiff seeking damages for private nuisance in the amount of $4.8 million, plus punitive damages, on behalf of residents who lived within a six-block radius around the main protest streets. [bold added]
After being inconvenienced for just one week a 21-year-old thought the truckers should be forced to cough up millions.
Let us think about that for a moment. This entire country had just been through two years of rolling lockdowns. Life-long relationships had been torn asunder over COVID differences of opinion. Trust in the medical system had been shattered after people realized their family doctor was terrified of contradicting the government.
People had died alone in hospitals due to unforgiving COVID protocols, funerals had been limited to 10 people, small businesses that had taken generations to build had collapsed, more than three million Canadian elementary school kids had endured two years of disrupted education, churches had been shuttered, and overdose deaths had nearly doubled.
As if all of that dysfunction weren’t enough, pressure to acquiesce to a medical procedure - COVID vaccination - had been relentless. Propaganda had blasted from every channel, from every screen. At every turn there were restrictions and threats. Submit or lose your job. Submit or be banned from the public square. Submit or be shunned. Produce the right papers or be barred from trains and planes. And don’t expect to be given an ICU bed.
The entire population had been abused and traumatized. (More than one woman I’ve interviewed told me the COVID era was like living with the abusive spouse they thought they’d escaped. Being told what to wear, what to do, where they were permitted to go, and at what hour.)
Amidst this avalanche of national anguish what received standing in a court of law? Whose suffering were we told to take seriously? A week of woe in the life of a 21-year-old civil servant.
The COVID class divide could not be more stark: The truckers who toil out in the elements, doing risky work, living rurally and in small towns. Versus the laptop class. Perpetually insulated from physical risk, living the good life in the trendy core of national and provincial capitals.
At the time this lawsuit was filed, it was a disgusting spectacle. Three years later we should all be asking ourselves what it says about Canada.
I don't think it was about any "inconvenience" at all, although that was the excuse. A 21 year old saw the millions given by donors that were piling up and figured it was an easy way to make herself a millionaire, given the mood of her fellows. Greed and entitlement met opportunity.
Our judicial system is just as effed as our political system.