Global Research

“It’s as though somebody tells you in July, “it’s snowing outside,” and you look outside and it’s summer, and yet on TV it says “no, it’s snowing outside.” You could just look outside your window if you were CTV, and no that what you were saying was untrue.” – Rodney Palmer, from this week’s interview.

“If the protest in Ottawa had become unlawful, as determined by the OPS or OPP, the Riot Act could have been enforced and the protest declared a riot. Arrests would have ensued, all under the existing laws of the Criminal Code. But prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, not a single charge of unlawful assembly was laid against any protester in Ottawa.” – Ray McGinnis [1]

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The Freedom Convoy was for its participants and many Canadians across the vast country, a moment of true liberation of the working class, unlike anything in living historical memory. [2]

After nearly two years of having to contend with lockdowns, masking, social distancing, problematic family situations, vaccine mandates that could cause people to lose their jobs in many prominent fields if not complied with, and even alienation of individuals with reasonable objections to participation in all of these practices, the parade of truckers entering Ottawa was like an epic cavalry! It revealed that people who saw and experienced misery brought on by the “Pharma-mafia” in cahoots with governments and the billionaire-boys club can and did fight back against tyranny unimaginable until now. [3]

The Trucker Convoy inspired individuals around the world and triggered similar demonstrations around the world. [4]

However, there is also a significant number of people, including sensitive scholars, union members and activists, who would strongly disagree with the contention that the Trucker Convoy was a good thing. They would be convinced that it was a gathering of “nazis,” “terrorists,” and hateful, freedom-loving guffaws occupying the political centre of the nation until the Emergencies Act was triggered and mercifully brought to an end. One ad-hoc group organizing in the downtown area even called them, not a protest, but an occupation. [5][6]

It is believed that one single element has played the ultimate role in dividing the people of the cold, northern country. And it is known by a single word: propaganda.

The respected radio, television broadcasts, and newspapers were putting out messages of the rally as bringing on a January 6 style attack, that they carried confederate flags and swastikas, and were white supremacists. It communicated the message that the downtown of Ottawa where the group of truckers were blocking streets and scaring women and disrespecting the residents who also had needs. [7]

Propaganda has been around almost as long as mainstream media, always a willing tool of elites to distract, galvanize, and shape opinions of working people so that they would not disrupt the efforts. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 may be the closest parallel to the Convoy of Truckers in terms of its strength and its global impact, and also in terms of the propagandistic efforts by media to misrepresent them. Only thing is that back then, if you want to slag people you called them “bohunks,” “aliens,” or “anarchists.” Today, you call them “far-right” and “hateful” groups.[8][9]

Unless and until we can identify and address the propaganda circling around us everywhere in a controlled and sustained manner, we will quite simply never “snap out” of the spell we are under. That is why in this episode of the Global Research News Hour, we will speak with two observers providing noteworthy evidential analysis about what really happened in the vicinity of the national epicentre of Canada, the House of Commons, nearly three years ago.

In our first half hour, we speak with Rodney Palmer, a former prominent Canadian journalist who appeared on the show previously, who provides a professional journalist’s take on what the mainstream broadcasts got wrong with regard to the Freedom Convoy. In our second half hour, a previous guest, Ray McGinnis shares a thorough account based on what was discovered at the Public Order Emergency Commission (PEOC) regarding the Truckers Convoy, and what Chief Justice Paul Rouleau got dreadfully wrong in his assessment.

Rodney Palmer is an award-winning journalist who has worked for 20 years as a foreign correspondent for CTV news and investigative reporter for CBC Radio & Television in Canada and abroad. He was the CTV News Foreign Correspondent and Bureau Chief in India, China, and the Middle East. Rodney’s explosive testimony during the NCI Toronto hearing on day 1 provided evidence as to how CBC in particular is not conducting newsgathering, they are focusing on propaganda. HE is the current host of talknation.ca

Ray McGinnis is author of Unjustified: The Freedom Convoy, The Emergencies Act, And The Inquiry That Got It Wrong (2024), Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored (2021). Previously, he authored Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry (2005). Ray is interested in the stories we tell, the narratives we trust, and how this shapes our world. This includes not just personal stories, but news headline like the Narrative about September 11, and other headlines that saturate citizens with slanted media messages. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

(Global Research News Hour episode 451)

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 Click to download the audio (MP3 format) 

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg.