Jan 23 2021 - Freedom March #41, the Movie : Teaser block 1

Tensions were thick at Dundas Square on the morning of January 23rd 2021. Police occupied the square, and had already ticketed several people – and were threatening to ticket more of them if they didn’t ‘move along’, and several shocked protesters had some choice words for the Police who were, under their orders, eroding the fundamental freedom of peaceful assembly inherent in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nobody thought their country could slip so far, whereby armed police were mandated to remove a group of protesters from Dundas Square under their asinine and incoherent ‘public safety’-named mandates.

The City, and, as an extension of its status as a beacon of hope and prosperity around the Country, felt a huge blow to the values that unite us as Canadians as police slowly oozed across the street like some kind of parasitic amoeba and began to metastasize between the Eaton’s Centre entrance and the crowd which had gathered to support The March, creating a large, blue-and-yellow tumour which slowly began to consume the hopes and aspirations of the crowd. They had arrived to demonstrate their freedoms in a free country, and found neither.

Eventually, they began to hand out tickets when their intimidating ‘wall’ formation and aggressive presence was unable to produce the same results as words and ideas. It is unknown if any of those documents will hold up in court if challenged, but it gives an officer more of a mandate to escort any particular protester to the Paddy Wagon waiting menacingly down the street. Being issued a ticket doesn’t usually get the response that dragging people into a police van would, and it was unfortunately sufficient to galvanize the crowd.

Suddenly, some brave tactician with the gumption of Sun Tsu got the idea to temporarily comply with the police’s orders, which were ‘to get moving’. Under their influence, the rest of the crowd was electrified into a brisk and productive exodus from the area, while the police stayed behind to hand out tickets to those who still wanted them, and continue to tarnish their good name through adherence to crappy jurisdictional direction.

Th crowd then went on to host a productive demonstration which covered many kilometres, visited many historic sights, and exposed thinking and a message of hope to thousands of people.

Altogether, it was a bold expression of the kind of moral fortitude that defines many Canadians – who are willing to take a risk of temporary embarrassment in order to preserve the higher ideal of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the spirit of the Canadian identity which will always remain strong, proud, and free.