The PM breathed deeply, drawing in the crisp clean winter air. A hint of minty freshness played in his sinuses. What a day! What a brilliant day! The only thing to mar his brilliant day was the unscheduled meeting with truckers who were rumbling into the capital from every corner of the country. Although he had made it clear that the federal government would never accede to their demands, he had nevertheless bowed to the advice of his media handlers and agreed to meet with the truckers when they arrived. The various strands of the convoy had not yet twisted themselves into a single ragged rope, but the PM could hear them coming. There were horns blaring from across the river on the Gatineau side, and those horns found their answer from Highway 417 to the southwest.
How long has it been? The PM turned to his Minister of Trade.
How long? Even after so many years in office, the Minister of Trade had not gotten used to the PM’s conversational style which sometimes verged on “thinking aloud” as if he didn’t expect or need a response.
You know, how long since we got our first shot?
I think it was last April, sir.
Moi aussi.
Et le deuxième en juillet.
In a way, it seems like yesterday. And yet, at the same time … I can hardly remember what it was like to be afraid of an airborne pathogen.
Again, the PM breathed deeply, and after he had emptied his lungs in clouds that billowed through the cool morning air, he let out a satisfied Ahhhh.
The air is clean. And we shouldn’t have to be afraid.
The pair stood together on the steps by the entrance to Parliament while security details stood at a discreet distance to either side. In the ensuing silence, the PM’s thoughts returned to a time, almost precisely two years before, when reports—rumours, really—first issued from China that people were afflicted with an uncontrollable flatulence that rendered their air unbreathable. After the WHO determined that it was principally an airborne condition and that it was highly contagious, panic ensued. Markets crashed. And then, almost as quickly, markets recovered on the news that several pharmaceutical companies had independently developed vaccines against the pathogen. There was Pfizer. Developers opted to name it onomatopoeically, approximating the sound an infected person made in the early stages of the disease. Their competitors chose to name their product Asstrazenica in recognition of the organ most affected by the disease.
The PM was proud of the efforts his government had made to secure contracts with all the major vaccine manufacturers. In short order, they had enough product to jab each and every butt cheek in the nation. The vast majority of the country’s citizens took advantage of the vaccine program with the result that the rate of compliance was among the highest in the world. The vaccines didn’t offer a perfect safeguard against infection, but even when the vaccinated became infected, the symptoms were milder. In particular, the odour was far less pungent.
In the early days, when the government was still struggling to distribute the vaccine, stories wafted back to Cabinet of dreadful situations. A man stuck in an elevator with an unvaccinated woman who was asymptomatic and didn’t know she had been infected: she let one rip and left the poor man crawling on the floor and gasping for air. A woman picking up her three children from school, unaware that all three had been infected by a classmate: the husband returned home that evening to find his entire family asphyxiated in their Subaru. And, perhaps most famously, members of the Conservative caucus (or caucass as their political rivals liked to say) laid low in chambers: one of their number had attended while infected but had refused to be tested, claiming it violated his personal freedom to submit to such an indignity.
And now this! The government had mandated that all truckers entering the country be vaccinated. Despite ample warning, a small proportion of truckers refused to get vaccinated and had launched a protest, claiming it violated their right to live as free citizens. They said the vaccines didn’t work. Or the government was lying: these weren’t vaccines at all, but serums that would make the populace more submissive. Or the whole thing was a plot to turn the country into a communist state. However individual truckers chose to rationalize their claims, all were in agreement on one matter: they had the absolute right to sit in their cabs and flatulate however much they pleased. No government was going to control the quality of the air they breathed inside their own cabs.
A banging began, sheets of plywood, swinging hammers, orange-vested carpenters. The PM tried to make sense of the scene before him. The Minister of Trade explained that the National Capital Commission had decided it would be best to cover the Centennial Flame. If too many unvaccinated truckers gathered too close to the flame, the potential explosion might be catastrophic.
Media had arrived and positioned themselves at strategic points around a growing crowd of flag waving, slogan chanting protesters. The volume of sound was rising: shouts through megaphones, hammers pounding, truck engines roaring like a thousand angry bears. Pulling his coat collar up around his ears, the PM wished he could wear a toque for winter appearances like this, but his media advisors said it was essential the people see his full head of hair; his hair polled well. So, risking frost bite to the tips of his ears, the PM summoned his Minister of Trade to join him as he parlayed with the leaders of this movement.
An aide advised that the leaders were keeping warm in their rigs parked along Wellington near Metcalfe, and directed the PM along a path that security had cleared through the mostly maskless crowd. Enduring taunts and jeers and accusations that he was a communist and a human trafficker, the PM made it to the sidewalk on Wellington. He decided that was far enough. If the leaders wanted to speak with him, they’d have to come down from their cabs. The PM waited. He stamped his feet to stay warm. The aide phoned a representative: Look, she said. You came here to talk. So talk. But it’s frickin’ cold outside and we’re not dressed for it. So if you’re not out on the sidewalk in ten minutes, we’re turning around and going back inside. The PM liked the aide’s tone and nodded his approval.
There were three rigs parked directly in front of them, nose to nose to nose, from which the PM inferred that the three drivers, together, comprised the leadership. He had the impression the three drivers were in communication, waving to one another through their frosted windows. Then followed a succession of clicks as each unlocked his door; a sound of rushing air that reminded the PM of those science fiction movies where the astronauts have to wait for the air pressure to equalize before they can come inside from their spacewalk. In tandem, the three doors swung open. A brownish haze expanded from the cabs, coalescing in the space between them, then growing outward from there. The aide screamed and pulled her scarf high over her nose. The Minister of Trade had brought an N95 mask and covered his nose and mouth before the odour became too noxious. However, the PM was not so well prepared. The stench made his head swim. His knees wobbled, then gave way. He collapsed to the sidewalk, gasping for air. Two members of his security detail hooked their arms underneath the PM’s armpits while a third pressed a mask to his face and, together, they dragged him to a secure location.
Later, when the PM regained consciousness, he recalled to his wife that he was struck by the comparative banality of his fading thoughts. Damn! he had said to himself, another exposure and I’ll have to self-isolate again. I’m getting tired of this. Zoom cabinet meetings are the worst.
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For more on the real world of the so-called Freedom Convoy, see the CBC.