Snipers on the Rooftops

'Why? Just why?'

Part 1: The Hope and the Light

Bianca. Photo taken by me, Sept. 2024.

During her three weeks in the nation's capital, Bianca's own children were with her ex, who didn't want them involved. Occasionally, she felt overwhelmed. "I have just one head, two hands, and twenty-four hours in the day," she says, recalling an occasion in which she recorded a video in tears. "I cry because it's too much and I don't have help. You are happy I do this, but I need help."

Bianca’s hair cascades like a glorious waterfall down past her waist. Some nights, even before the heaters had been acquired, she slept in the tent. On other occasions, she had a nearby hotel room, where she says the staff treated her like royalty - supplying her with complimentary alcoholic beverages and offering to run her hot baths. "I'm really shy," she says. "I just do this because I need to. I'm not a queen, but it's cute."

Overall, she insists, the protest vibrated on a different frequency. "Now I understand. It's the love. The love for all. If you have love inside your heart, this you project." Everyone was thinking positive and finding solutions. "When you listen to people there, you see they have hope."

Bianca has been involved with many events, but none so tidy. At the end of an indoor gathering involving only a few hundred people she says it's common for there to be trash on the floor. But in Ottawa, "All the people bring the garbage bag." Numerous individuals were reflexively picking up every stray bit of paper, every cigarette butt. "I don't see this, never," she says.  

Many strangers were kind to her. Early on, when she asked a police officer about public toilets, he offered to accompany her to a nearby hotel so that she could make use of their facilities. Store owners in her own community donated food, candy, hand warmers, and other items. Near the end, she brought her own large pot and cooking implements, so that she could prepare hot soup with donated produce.

Canada's Prime Minister invoked the federal Emergencies Act on Valentine's Day, the Monday of the final week of the protest. As it progressed, things became increasingly tense. Rumours flew that the police intended to deploy sound cannons. Earplugs were distributed to all. With the weekend approaching, Bianca chose to forgo another round of bouncy castles.

"I see the sniper" on the rooftops, she explains. Two of them were stationed close to her. "Why? Just why?" she asks. The protesters didn't have guns. Or knives - other than the one she was using to "cut the meat to put inside my soup." Were they afraid of her can-opener? The snipers surely had "eyes to see" the true nature of this protest.

"I don't want to put kids in danger," she remembers thinking. "The tent is here, if you have kids, I'm here."

Her final evening, Friday, was stressful. She found a container in which to store the remainder of her soup before it froze solid. Worried about what might happen, she transferred some items to her car. "I have a feeling I need to bring all. But it's too much, it's impossible to take all." Everything now present had accumulated over a three-week period.

In the wee hours, she realized "I need to sleep two or three hours." If there's any trouble, she told people nearby, "call to me, I come back. But nobody call me. Maybe at seven, eight I'm awake and a friend tell me 'Don't go at your tent. The police is there, and it's finished.'"

Doing her best to avoid the checkpoints, Bianca made it back on foot. She spoke with another protester, an armed forces veteran with whom she'd become friendly. "He tell me, 'I have in my phone the video.' And I see what happened."

Her tent, which was unmistakably child-oriented, had been assaulted. She says police tore through the heavy duty canvas with equipment normally deployed at car accidents. A yellow front end loader then scooped everything - banquet tables, propane tanks, heaters - into a massive, portable trash bin.

Recalling that morning, Bianca is tearful for a moment. So much was wasted, destroyed, lost. Her soup pot. Camping equipment such as her cookstove. Her father's generator. "A lot of food, a lot of clothes, the kids' games." All the positivity, all the joy.

The price tag to replace that large tent was considerable. Some people said the police had disposed of what they'd seized, others thought it had been put into storage.     

"I try, maybe two, three week after, to talk to the police," Bianca recalls. The metal tent poles were expensive. "If I find this, I give to the guys. But the police, he give me the other number. And after, the other number."

In the end, she gave up, having recovered nothing at all. The rental business had known there was a risk, she says. Rather than demanding the entire replacement cost it, too, suffered a financial hit.

final installment: I’m Not the Same Girl