Ottawa Resident Donates Rare Flag to Truckers
Born and raised in the nation's capital, Leon says the protest 'was the most safe and enjoyable atmosphere I've ever felt downtown.'
During the first week of the Ottawa protest, Boom Truck Ben received a gift from a local resident. Leon (not his real name) lives in a condominium 400 meters from Parliament Hill. "Very, very close," he says. "In the midst of it all." For the first time in a year-and-a-half, there were "crowds, people dancing in the streets, people everywhere. Everyone had been hiding before, so that was incredible to witness."
By then he'd watched Ben raise the flag on his crane a few times. "I had this big flag at home, larger than what they were using. I said, 'I'm gonna go donate it to the guys.'"
Since the 1990s, Canadian residents have been able to request a flag flown from the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill by adding their name to a list. The flag is replaced about 250 times a year. The date it flew from the Tower is recorded, after which it's packaged up and mailed out along with a cover letter. The waiting list is currently a hundred years long.
Back in 2004, while Leon was a co-op student employed by the federal government, he'd added his name to that list. His turn finally came in 2015. One of these flags - measuring 15 feet by 7.5 feet (4.6 x 2.3 meters) - was sent to him.
"This thing is just ginormous," he explains. It's "pretty much impractical to use in any normal setting. I had it for years. It was sitting there, and I was wondering what I could do with it. I remember seeing people selling them online for several thousands. It's definitely a collector's item. I think I saw one ad for $5,000."
Born and raised in the nation's capital, Leon has witnessed countless demonstrations and experienced numerous Canada Day celebrations. In his view, the trucker protest "was the most safe and enjoyable atmosphere I've ever felt downtown." By comparison, he says, Canada Day events are more impersonal.
"What was happening here for those three weeks was just so exciting. I was telling everyone, You need to come. It's just such a party, it's so much fun. I thought it was the most positive, interesting time I've ever experienced here in downtown Ottawa."
Leon admits traffic was gridlocked on the first Saturday. "Everything was jammed up. Fair enough, that was an impossible day to get home." Otherwise, he says, "It was traffic as usual. I mean, people don't live that close to Parliament Hill. Basically, my condo is one of the first ones that has actual residents. I had no issues with transportation, with access. I could leave and come back in the same amount of time it takes me any day. So even that was blown out of proportion."
He agrees the protest was loud. "That's the one complaint that is warranted," he says. Critics "mentioned that over and over again. I'm very high up in my building, so I didn't hear it too, too much. But after the first weekend, it was generally quiet during the nighttime. That complaint disappeared after a few days."
He describes the truckers as "very friendly," and says it was counter-protesters - certain Ottawa residents who wanted the truckers gone - who behaved badly. "The only violence that I saw was actually from the other side. Early on, a woman in her early twenties" misbehaved near Ben's boom truck. Leon explains that a second woman, in her forties,
had a little stand giving away free coffees to people in the morning. I can see shouting happening from the younger, masked, counter-protester. And then she shoved [the coffee woman] fairly hard. She didn't fall to the ground, but it was two hands, full body into it. And then she stormed off.
Right away, other people stepped in. Two or three of us that witnessed it followed the younger woman peacefully to make sure that a police officer heard what happened. We were just random people that were there. When she passed a police officer, we told the officer she had just pushed someone, that it was assault.
And they did take her away at that point. They took a statement from me, but they never followed up, so I don't think anything necessarily happened. The rhetoric that you heard in the news should have been applied to the counter-protesters. There was such a difference between what you saw on the ground versus what was being reported in the news. You wonder about the integrity of the journalists.
A day or so later, before ten in the morning on February 3rd (Thursday), Leon remembers
walking over, talking to the boom truck operator. And just basically giving him a bit of a history of where my flag came from, how I received it. And I just said, 'I'd love for you guys to fly it. I think it's symbolic, and I'd love to see my own flag flying at this protest.'
He said, 'Oh, is this a donation?'
I said, 'Yeah, absolutely. Take it, I'm not expecting to see it again.' I remember them hoisting it up that first time. I wasn't there all the time, cuz it was minus-35 most days. But I remember watching them raise it almost every day, seeing it in news photographs and on TV, which was really kind of interesting.
From the majestic heights of the Peace Tower to the humble mobile crane. There's poetry here. A flag is flown in an official capacity on the most important flag pole in the nation. Six years later, it's raised again. By a boom truck operator from small town Ontario. A Mennonite born in Mexico, who immigrated to Canada at the age of ten and arrived in the nation's capital for the first time at the age of forty. Having driven through a snowstorm as part of a massive, historic protest.
This flag's second act is impressive. It flies for sixteen days in the bitter cold. As people dance beneath it. Smiling without masks. Hugging strangers. Repudiating isolation and division.
This second act happens due to the generosity of a man who lives and works in Ottawa. Whose parents were also immigrants.
continues Wednesday
Another beautiful detail captured!
What a terrific story!