Squads of cops pushed around peaceful demonstrators near Parliament Hill — why?

It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare in the Park, but it was an incredible albeit inexplicable display of street theatre nonetheless. Namely, police officers from forces across the province descended upon Ottawa near Parliament Hill last Friday and set up a no-go zone on Rideau Street. Lines of law enforcement officers would slowly encroach upon people on the closed road (and even the sidewalks), constantly pushing people back.

But back from what? Well, from… nothing, actually.

Indeed it was a show of force to simply create a… show of force. Or to intimidate Rolling Thunder supporters. Or to instigate violent pushback from people to further the narrative that these were so many deplorables descending upon the nation’s capital (alas, the only violence we saw was from the hands and boots of overzealous members of law enforcement).

How odd: we’re sure many of these officers back in the summer of 2020 — at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — not only turned a blind eye to Black Lives Matter protests, but likely bent the knee in solidarity with those demonstrators. Talk about a double standard.

Welcome to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Canada in 2022, a dominion where one is allowed to embrace freedom of speech and freedom of assembly — as long as the issue du jour is on the correct side of the political spectrum.

P.S. The cost of all that extra policing to fight nonexistent crime last weekend in Ottawa was $3 million. Your tax dollars hard at work yet again, folks.