‘Enough is enough’ National victim advocacy group says about trucker convoy protests

A national centre that focuses on helping victims of crime across Canada says “enough is enough” about the trucker convoy protests taking over downtown Ottawa.

Three days after the “Freedom Convoy” protests first started, the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime (CRCVC) released a statement on social media on Monday, January 31 calling the hate symbols and threatening behaviour from protesters “gut-wrenching.”

“I live in Ottawa as well, so I'm seeing it first-hand,” CRCVC's executive director Aline Vlasceanu said. “After seeing all the hateful messages and the harassment and things like that, we really wanted to put it out there that we're standing with the folks that are affected. People might not think of this as violent, but it is a type of masked violence because it can look very different. … It can take many forms.”

Due to the protests, she told The Sam Laprade Show the CRCVC has ensured its employees aren't going into work at its downtown office this week and likely next week.

“I feel a little bit upset with the gaslighting that has been taking place in the media and from those that might be part of the protests,” Vlasceanu said. “It's really taking away from what people are experiencing. It's really denying what they're feeling.

“It creates that false narrative and it makes you kind of question your judgment and your reality. It's also a blatant dismissal of the various ways in which violence and control can manifest.”

She said she remembers reading a recent article likening the “Freedom Convoy” protests to domestic violence since many people think of intense physical violence when thinking of that topic.

However, she said violence can be much more than just intense physical violence. It can look like coercive control, gaslighting, manipulation or financial control.

“All of these things, you can see directly within the community, directly within Ottawa,” Vlasceanu said. “The incidents of harassment and everything like that but the businesses as well [and] the people that can't go to work because they're not safe.”

She added that the CRCVC is available to support anyone who has experienced an incident of harassment or violence.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she said there's been a “huge growth” in issues such as racism and support for alt-right conspiracy theories. For instance, the U.S. saw the Capitol riots in January 2021 and Nova Scotia saw the deadliest rampage in Canadian history in April 2020.

“We've seen all of these things, so we want to make sure that we're reaching people to make sure that we know that we're here,” Vlasceanu said. “We have our homicide support group. We're now national, so we're trying to support people throughout the country. We're trying to make sure that people know we exist and that we're here for them because it has been a very tumultuous couple of years.

“Something like this, like this protest that's happening in Ottawa, is really just adding an extra layer to the communal trauma that we're all experiencing just going through this pandemic.”