'They're willing to die for it': How hashtags are influencing 'freedom' blockades

Protest is a messy, but necessary hallmark of democracy and is nothing new to Canada.

From The FLQ October Crisis to the OKA Crisis and more recently, the ‘Black Lives Matter' movement, there are many examples of protest over the past half-century.

But a researcher at Western University says a movement like the current blockade at the Ambassador Bridge is a first of its kind in Canada.

“What is new and different is this is the first time we’ve had right-wing politics, and the first time we’ve seen trucks used in this way to block critical infrastructure which has allowed a small number of people to really do a lot of disruption,” says Howard Ramos, who studies social movements throughout recent Canadian History.

Dr. Ramos says these so-called “freedom fighters” are small by numbers but mighty enough to break North America’s biggest supply chain and cripple cross-border travel.

“It’s fairly radical to block the major bridge that is 25 per cent of all traffic between the U.S. and Canada. That’s radical,” he says.

The demand from demonstrators is blunt: to end all COVID mandates.

“I’m sorry if people are inconvenienced, but we’ve been inconvenienced for two years. We’ve been locked up for two years,” a protester told CTV News Tuesday.

“Enough is enough, you stand up for your rights and your freedoms and what you believe in at the end of the day,” said another earlier in the week.

Dr. Ramos says this blockade is made possible in part thanks to the prevalence and rise of social media and the use of hashtags.

“It’s very easy to respond to a meme, it’s very easy to respond to a slogan. And this is what’s unprecedented in our time,” Dr. Ramos says, noting the lack of central demonstrator leadership doesn’t seem to matter in this instance because, with a simple click, people can rally around a feeling or belief.

“That’s what makes it so difficult to control. Not to mention now with crowd-sourced funding, it’s also hard to control those resources,” Dr. Ramos says. “The division that we’re seeing is a very, very vocal number of people that have unprecedented tools to get their message out.”

It also explains why police from Windsor to Alberta to Ottawa are struggling to make headway dismantling the blockades, instead focused on keeping the peace.

“You have a number of people part of the protest group who have outwardly stated that this cause is so passionate for them, that they feel such a passion for this particular cause, that they’re willing to die for it,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told reporters Wednesday.

And it’s why local doctors are discouraged that their message of vaccination as a ticket out of a pandemic is fraying at the edges.

“The idea of just throwing it all up in the air and kind of walking away from the science and everything that we’ve done is very discouraging,” says Dr. Andrea Steen, the chief of staff at Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare.

Dr. Steen’s feelings are shared by the president of Essex County’s medical society.

“We all want the mandates to be done. We all want a return to normal life,” says Dr. Vikesh Miraj. “How do we get there? We get there by playing our part.”