When World Views Shift

'My daughter can’t recall a time when she wasn’t discriminated against by her government.'

In An Attic and a Blank Diary, Kyn Kennedy says she felt both relief and hope during the trucker protest in Ottawa. But she also says nothing will ever be the same again.

Her worldview has shifted permanently. Kym says she’d always voted Liberal until Justin Trudeau became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. She now describes herself as ‘conservative.’ This suggests she was on a political journey already - a journey the pandemic kicked into overdrive.

“I find it very difficult to trust our institutions,” she says now. She reports that her 12-year-old daughter

doesn’t remember what life was like before COVID-19. She has no recollection of the warmth we once felt from people outside of immediate family…She can’t recall a time when she wasn’t discriminated against by her government…

Between October 30, 2021 and June 19, 2022 (232 days) non-vaccinated Canadians such as Kym and her daughter weren’t permitted to board planes or trains. Since the only land border we share is with the United States - which also demands vaccination - the non-vaxxed were trapped for nearly eight months.

Beginning on page 94, Kym makes a series of sorrowful statements:

I never imagined that I’d ever feel like a prisoner in Canada.

…I don’t feel safe and free in my country anymore.

…I’ve lost trust in the vast majority of police…

…I fear hospitals and doctors now, to such an extent that I don’t think I’d enter one voluntarily…

…It’s a little bit like a wealthy person losing everything at once.

Kym’s sense of disillusionment is profound. Many of us share this disillusionment. And we aren’t about to forget it any time soon:

As six million people found themselves trapped in their country by loss of mobility rights, thirty-one million people didn’t notice or care. As millions of people lost their jobs, the majority of the citizenry looked away, or claimed that it served them right…

Read more about Kym:

• Why the Museum Supervisor Went to Ottawa

• These Were My People

• When World Views Shift