Snowbird 3
Captain Bart Postma's 24-year military career ended abruptly. Over COVID face masks. (Part 1 of 6)
Captain Bart Postma is an armed forces pilot. Which means he’s a scarce resource. Elite and experienced, he started off as a farm boy and an aircraft mechanic. Millions of taxpayer dollars were spent training him in air force jets and Sea King helicopters.
When 9/11 happened, he was stationed in British Columbia. During that five-year tour of duty, he patrolled the Gulf of Oman from the back of navy frigates, and took part in endless exercises. “We were basically all over the South Pacific,” he says, including three months off the coast of Australia.
Later, in Nova Scotia, he taught other air force personnel how to pilot those massive, 10-ton choppers. Flight instructors are always in short supply at Canadian Forces Base Moose Jaw, where most air force training takes place. Bart began training young recruits there in 2009. From 2012, he also trained instructors - one of a small group of air force personnel qualified to teach the teachers.
Every Canada Day, nine Snowbird pilots in nine vintage cockpits perform over Parliament Hill. Throughout the summer, those same Snowbirds entertain the Canadian public in airshows across the nation. In 2014 and 2015, Bart was Snowbird 3. But in 2021, his military career ended abruptly. Over COVID face masks.
In January 2022, Csaba Vizi was amongst the truckers who gathered near the Ontario/US border in Windsor, as that arm of the Freedom Convoy began its journey to Ottawa. Bart joined in at Drumbo, a few hours down the highway, south of Kitchener. Driving a motorhome, with his uncle in the passenger seat, they brought along their own accommodations.
Having moved back to Ontario where he was born and raised, Bart knew something big was underway. Internet properties owned by his wife, Lisa, were getting huge amounts of traffic. In Moose Jaw, she’d purchased the web domain FreedomConvoy.ca. She’d also started a Freedom Convoy page on Facebook. At that time – January 2021, a full year before the national trucker protest – all they were trying to do was ignite a protest movement on the Saskatchewan prairie.
Canadians objecting to COVID measures - including Bart’s 70-year-old mother - were being fined thousands of dollars for protesting in groups larger than ten people. Alarmed by the direction in which matters were heading, Bart and Lisa reasoned that mobile protests wouldn’t be subject to anti-gathering rules, would provide protection from the elements, and would keep protesters safe from poorly behaved police officers.
The idea was that ordinary citizens would form a Freedom Convoy that drove around town with flags and signs on their vehicles. Each Saturday morning from January until June 2021, Bart and Lisa did exactly that. In their minivan, with three kids in car seats - then aged one, three, and five.
On the first occasion, they drove out to Mac the Moose, a ten-metre (34-foot) sculpture on the grounds of Moose Jaw visitors’ centre, just off the Trans-Canada highway. Another vehicle would arrive late, but at departure time Bart and his family were the only protesters. As they pulled out, he noticed two cop cars behind them. “Maybe that’s a coincidence,” he remembers thinking. After all, there’s a Tim Horton’s close by.
The idea, he explains, “was to go to the parking lots of big businesses like the Superstore or Walmart. You'd pull in, you'd stop so people in the parking lot could see your signs.” Before departing, there’d be a unity honk. “You'd lay on the horn for 10 seconds, get people's attention,” and then head to the next destination.
“So the first parking lot, there's a police car there. Well, that's odd. The next parking lot was at the mall. And there were four police cars lined up. This is very strange. So then we went to the next one. There was another two. And then the Canadian Tire parking lot, another two. This was in small Moose Jaw,” population 34,000.
Bart says he observed city police, RCMP, and unmarked cars. By the end, eleven law enforcement vehicles were bizarrely trailing them around town. One of the magnetic signs on the back of their minivan read “Police, remember your oath. Who are you here to protect?”
The government is the government, says Bart. “But the police have failed us in the biggest way. There’s something deeply wrong with our police forces right now. When COVID happened, it was almost like they were just giddy with the idea that they didn’t have to honour the Charter of Rights and Freedom anymore, they could just do whatever they wanted.”
Recalling that first attempt at a convoy, Lisa says they returned home shell-shocked. Bart nods, “We got the kids out, and you cried when we started talking about it.” But they kept on, endeavouring to drum up support via social media. “At the most, we had six cars, including us,” Bart says. “Pretty small, but still pretty visible.”
The police, Lisa says, “were always there, too. Not as many, but they were always following us.”
If anyone got hassled, everyone else would stop. Bart remembers a woman who also had a child in her minivan. “She would bungee cord her signs to the vehicle. As we were being trailed by the cops one Saturday, we turned the corner and one fell of.”
On went the siren. “He gave her an ‘insecure load’ ticket.”
to be continued
How creative (and brave) of Bart and Lisa to create a driving protest! The police brigade reminds me of being followed by an employee all around the grocery store when I was maskless! I spoke to him in every isle but never asked directly if it was related to my bare face. I didn’t like it though and hope I wouldn’t have caved if it was 6 police! Kudos to this young couple!
yes the police. Now we know.