Trudeau Criminalized Peaceful Truckers. Now He’s Silent on Genocidal Chanting

A meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was recently canceled due to the threat of pro-Palestine protests. So was a fundraising function for a local Liberal Party riding association featuring Trudeau’s deputy, Chrystia Freeland. According to the Toronto Sun, these are but two of a number of such incidents.

Ever since the Israeli government’s military campaign began in Gaza in response to the attacks on Israel by Hamas on October 7, protests against Israel have been raging across the world. In Canada, these protests have been growing in number. Borrowing from supporters of the Truckers Freedom Convoy, who waved flags in support of the Convoy as it headed to Ottawa, pro-Palestine protesters have taken to holding demonstrations over top of Highway 401 in Toronto, the busiest highway in the country.

But unlike during the Freedom Convoy, one overpass was selected specifically to intimidate the local Jewish community, after which a ban on using that overpass was imposed.

Indeed, you could not have asked for a starker contrast in protests than the Freedom Convoy and the Pro-Hamas Left—or a sharper contrast in how they have been treated by Canada’s government. The truckers were met with draconian measures imposed by Trudeau—while he’s used kid gloves on the pro-Palestinian protests.

The contrast is all the more stark when you compare the nonviolent patriotism of the truckers and their supporters with the kind of rhetoric and actions at the pro-Hamas protests, which have been intentionally targeting Canada’s Jewish citizens. It’s not just that they show up at synagogues and Jewish centers in an attempt to intimidate the local Jewish population. At one recent demonstration in Montreal, for example, protesters could be heard chanting in Arabic, “Death to Jews, Death to Israel.”

These demonstrations have become a regular feature of life in Montreal. There have been so many protests espousing antisemitic rhetoric there that a court injunction was granted to prevent such protests from taking place in front of Jewish institutions.

But I wouldn’t hold my breath for any real consequences, despite a new Canadian bill aimed at punishing “hate crimes.” Bill C-63, introduced to Canada’s Parliament last week, seeks to impose harsh penalties for expressing hateful or genocidal views against identifiable groups, amongst other aims. Penalties for being convicted of such expressions, to be determined by vague guidelines within a committee, include life in prison (!).

I’m no fan of this law—but we all know who it is meant to penalize, and it’s not people chanting for the death of Jews. It’s people who Trudeau considers his political enemies—people like the truckers who opposed his COVID-19 regime.

Trudeau’s long record of hypocrisy around picking and choosing which protests he supports, and which receive the full weight of state repression, should lead any thinking person to be skeptical of the idea that Trudeau will do anything about the rising number of these incidents, nor the very worrying messages explicitly targeting Jews which are heard at them.

Trudeau has been criticized for his light touch toward past protests by First Nations activists who have blocked rail lines and energy development projects. He very famously took a knee to signal his support of Black Lives Matter protesters.

Contrast this with how Trudeau treated the Truckers Freedom Convoy, the largest peaceful protest in Canadian History, which he used as an excuse to impose near-Martial Law, invoking the Emergencies Act.

Will pro-Palestinian protesters, yelling clearly genocidal language such as “Death to Jews, Death to Israel” and “From the River to The Sea” face asset seizure, the freezing of bank accounts, or perhaps be jailed for years without trial, like the truckers were?

We know the answer is no.

I’m not saying they should. What I am saying is that there is no equality before the law in Canada, and that the Trudeau Regime has a long history of picking and choosing just who has to face the full force of the state.

I’m saying the Trudeau government does nothing in the face of genocidal chants and treats peaceful protesters like violent criminals—when the government should treat all protests with the weight that the reality of each particular situation deserves.

It is easy enough to point out these hypocrisies, which seem to abound with the governments of many western nations as of late. With Trudeau, however, it is undeniable that he does not govern for all of the citizens of Canada. His track record of double standards in responding to protests is a major problem, especially when he ignores genocidal rhetoric while promoting legislation which would supposedly make such rhetoric illegal.

It is clear tensions are rising at protests about the situation in Gaza, but Trudeau can only be counted on to enforce the law against those considered political enemies—his very own citizens.

Gord Magill is a trucker, writer, and commentator, who writes at www.autonomoustruckers.substack.com and can be found on Twitter @gordmagill.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.