[purephase]

Getting fired for not getting vaccines was a line that I didn't agree with.

However, the vast majority of organizations that did this were private though, and it was the organization that implemented these policies. I'd hardly equate that with government overreach, and especially not the federal government if you're a nurse/healthcare worker, or worked in a local municipal government.

My point is that these protests don't have anything to do with vaccines, mandates or some perceived minority status that not following them bestows (which, again, is a choice..). If that was the case, they would not be in Ottawa. There might be some people paying lip service to these ideas, but the majority of the people protesting are self-labelling as minorities due to some perception of tyranny from the federal government that does not exist.

Unless you're a federal employee that was fired due to your position on vaccines (over 95% of federal employees are vaccinated) then protesting in Ottawa doesn't make any sense.

[armagon]

It seems pretty clear to me that the protests have everything to do with the vaccine mandates.

Why should only people who are fired be allowed to protest? Most of the truckers are vaccinated, but they are protesting for the right of those who aren't to be allowed to do their job.

[purephase]

If they actually have anything to do with the mandates, then protesting in Ottawa doesn't make any sense.

All of the health and COVID mandate policy is set at the provincial level in Canada, not federally. They should be protesting in Toronto, or other provincial capitals.

However, a good percentage of provincial capitals are currently Conservative governments. So, by deliberatly choosing Ottawa, they're protesting legitimately elected government to force them to step down (despite being democratically elected 6 months ago) and install a new leadership panel made up of the convoy leadership.

https://twitter.com/Justin_Ling/status/1490811201089159170

[armagon]

The truckers started protesting due to federal mandates preventing them from crossing the borders, so protesting in Ottawa makes lots of sense.

They are asking the prime minister to drop the mandates or step down.

I agree that it isn't reasonable to expect the federal government to tell the provinces what to do, but they have been protests in all the major cities as well (so far as I can tell).

[AzzieElbab]

Majority of the BLM weren’t killed by a cop standing on their necks. Your point was understood and invalidated

[roenxi]

> ... and it was the organization that implemented these policies ...

That may not be true. It is common for governments to implement the really unpleasant policies by using businesses as an enforcement arm (eg, surveillance via banks and telecom companies). It bears asking why companies have all, in coordination, picked up a set of policies that are both ineffective and divisive - it is entirely on the table that it is because of government pressure in the form of OH&S guidelines.

Firing unvaccinated people barely does anything w.r.t. changing the odds that people get COVID eventually. We've seen ample evidence that being vaccinated doesn't change the transmissible situation. So why are companies doing this? Their employees are still going to turn up and transmit COVID. By this point, the anti-vaccine types have probably caught COVID and gained natural immunity anyway so these policies would represent companies shooting themselves in the foot. It is possible they'd do that of their own initiative but it is nevertheless a bit weird.

> My point is that these protests don't have anything to do with vaccines, mandates or some perceived minority status...

Why do you think these protests have just mushroomed up? Have trucker protests been an ongoing thing in Canada for many decades?