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Community gathering held at Rotary Park in support of ‘Freedom Convoy’

March 3, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

About 50 people filled up the parking lot of Rotary Park on Saturday (Feb. 28) afternoon for an event called, “Dufferin–Caledon Community Gathering”.

The event was put on by People’s Party of Canada candidate for the local riding, Anthony Zambito, who said the purpose of the gathering was to support the truckers’ “Freedom Convoy”, which was dismantled by police over the Feb. 18-20 weekend.

“Seeing from the crowd, a lot of people from Dufferin–Caledon wanted to show their support for the Freedom Convoy. A lot of people from Dufferin-Caledon made their way out to the Freedom Convoy, and they thought it was a positive experience,” said Zambito. “We just wanted to bring some of that Ottawa atmosphere to Duffein-Caledon.”

During a speech at the gathering, he said what he saw when visiting Ottawa wasn’t a vandalized War Memorial and vandalized statute of Terry Fox as reported by Mainstream media outlets. Instead, Zambito said he saw people polishing the Terry Fox statute, breaking ice off of it, and putting flowers at the base of both monuments.

He added that no confederate flags or nazi flags were observed, but instead lots of Canadian flags, Quebec flags, and flags disparaging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“You know what else you saw if you made your way to Ottawa? You saw tons of bouncy castles, you saw kids playing Connect Four, and you saw tons of road hockey games happening,” Zambito remarked.

“We saw music and we saw dancing just like we saw today. You saw grills full of food, there was coffee, you saw hot chocolate being distributed for everyone. No one in Ottawa went cold. Nobody went without food.”

He also noted that there were saunas, hot tubs, and campfires setup around the protest area.

During his speech, Zambito said the protest was shut down because it was making the government look bad, so they shifted the blame to the protestors instead of addressing the reasons why they were there.

The Freedom Convoy movement was started in late January after the federal government put in place cross-border restrictions for truckers, making them require vaccination against COVID-19. This spurred convoys from eastern and western Canada that converged in Ottawa on Jan. 29.  From there, the protest morphed into a demonstration against all COVID-19 mandates and restrictions.

Zambito made note of the reason for the Freedom Convoy and the reason for the community gathering on Saturday.

“The reason why I’m here, the reason why you’re all here, is we have one simple message for the government at every level – leave us alone. That is all we want. That is all we have ever wanted,” he remarked.

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