Hate Directed at the Young
Amongst the unvaccinated were thousands of teenagers.
Being a teenager can be tough at the best of times. By the second half of 2021, Canadian teenagers had had their daily lives and rhythms profoundly disrupted. Schools had closed. Then opened. Then closed again. For months at a stretch, coffee shops and fast food restaurants were take-out only. Food courts and cinemas were shut down. Malls made you stand outdoors, then admitted you under controlled conditions. Hanging out with friends was frowned upon. Visiting relatives, especially grandparents, was fraught.
Like the rest of us, teenagers were banned from parks, tennis courts, skate parks, and walking trails. Sports leagues paused indefinitely. Bands no longer practiced and choirs no longer sang. In Calgary, a spirited 21-year-old got arrested for playing hockey outdoors in violation of social distancing rules. Rites of passage - graduation ceremonies, proms - were scaled back or cancelled.
Face masks and ubiquitous plexiglass barriers further interfered with the ability of shy, awkward teenagers to communicate, to make human connections. In nearly every public space individuals were herded like cattle, told where to walk and in which direction. It was as though all the arbitrary rules of high school, enforced by disagreeable hall monitors, had overflowed into the rest of the world.
Two weeks to flatten the curve is one thing. Obsessing over a not-deadly-to-most-people virus for 18 months is something else entirely. The grownups in charge studiously ignored the collateral damage their own policies were inflicting on the young. Social isolation. Loneliness. Emotional wreckage. Any mild acknowledgement that lots of young people were struggling was shrugged off, soon forgotten.
On August 5, 2021 the head of the CDC admitted COVID-19 vaccines don’t stop people from spreading the virus. (By then we all knew vaccinated folk could still catch it.) From that day forward, the only reason to take a jab was if you believed it would reduce the severity when you yourself got ill. From that day forward, the best that could be said of these vaccines is that they’re a form of personal protection - not community protection. (Assuming you don’t suffer serious - even fatal - side effects.)
Ten days later, even though his government insisted we were still in the midst of a pandemic, Canada’s Prime Minister called an early, unnecessary, snap election. On the campaign trail a few days afterward he said something particularly vile:
If you don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s your choice. But don’t think you can get on a train or a plane beside vaccinated people and put them at risk.
Amongst the Canadian citizens to whom those remarks were directed were thousands upon thousands of teenagers. Young people whose lives had already been blighted. Rather than apologizing to these kids for two disjointed school years, for obliterating their sports leagues, the Prime Minister instead spewed hate at them.
Making them feel worse about themselves than they already did, the head of our country stigmatized them as unclean, dangerous to others. Mr Sunny Ways, Mr Diversity-is-our-strength signaled to the entire world that this particular minority group was unworthy of sympathy, understanding, courtesy, basic respect.
In a loathsome case of leading by example, Justin Trudeau gave other people permission to treat unvaccinated individuals with contempt.
How did it feel to be an unvaxxed teenager in a country in which these things were going on?
Why might an unvaxxed teenager see the Freedom Convoy as a beacon of hope?
Tomorrow I’ll be publishing a guest post. An incredibly articulate 18-year-old from New Brunswick will describe his pandemic experience in his own words. He will also tell us how the truckers restored some of his faith in Canada.
This is a powerful piece of writing. Every politician in this country should read it. Slowly and out loud. Before hanging their head in shame.
Thank you so much for this post. Trudeau is a heartless scheming tyrant.
Good old JT who says whatever he thinks the most people want to hear - and of course what will sell the most vaccines since it is now public knowledge that he and his family have large holdings in Vancouver pharmaceutical company connected with vaccine manufacturing.