Conservative senator says 'friendly ... patriotic' Ottawa protesters have been demonized

Conservative Saskatchewan Sen. Denise Batters defended anti-vaccine mandate protesters in a speech late Tuesday, arguing these "friendly" and "patriotic" demonstrators have been unfairly maligned by the "chattering classes."

Batters — who was photographed posing in front of convoy trucks gathered in Ottawa during the protest — said she didn't experience any of the harassment that locals complained of during the weeks-long occupation.

"I can say that in the last two years, I never felt safer walking home from my office at night. The protesters I met very much reminded me of the people I know in Saskatchewan — friendly, hard-working, patriotic Canadians," she said.

While she said she sympathized with Ottawa residents who had to endure constant noise during the demonstration, Batters said she only saw "peaceful" and "non-threatening" demonstrators when observing the crowd from her Senate office, which faces Wellington Street, the centre of the now-disbanded occupation.

"I do not tolerate harassment, intimidation or destruction ever, but I can honestly say that I personally did not see any of that behaviour exhibited by the protesters," she said. "What is the national emergency this time? Dance parties and loud horns?"

Ottawa police have launched well over 100 criminal investigations related to the demonstration after receiving more than 1,000 calls for service from local residents.

The police are probing reports of hate crimes and harassment, among other possible criminal offences. More than 1,550 tickets have been issued for bylaw infractions like excessive noise and the use of fireworks in the densely packed urban core.

Nearly half of all businesses in Ottawa's Centretown neighbourhood were shuttered during the occupation, costing proprietors tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and leaving many employees without pay, according to early estimates from the Ottawa Coalition of Business Improvement Areas.

Batters argued that criticism of the demonstration — which snarled Ottawa traffic for weeks and turned large swaths of the downtown core into a no-go zone — is rooted in a form of class discrimination.

While many of the people who live downtown in a "public service city" have been "fortunate" during this COVID-19 pandemic, she said, other Canadians have lost their jobs because of pandemic restrictions or vaccine mandates and are frustrated.

"I sensed in the discussions about the protesters in the media and among the privileged, chattering classes on Parliament Hill almost a fear of these working-class people who had invaded the city," she said.

"Ottawa's mayor called them yahoos and idiots. Others online maligned them as Nazis and terrorists. Everyone had an opinion about them, but certainly no one was talking with them."

Another Conservative, Nova Scotia Sen. Michael MacDonald, said "entitled" Ottawa residents were wrong to demand that the convoy leave town. MacDonald also praised the protesters for having the "courage and decency" to protest COVID-19 restrictions.

"It's everybody's f--king city, this is the capital of the country. It's not your god-damned city just because you have a six-figure salary and you work 20 hours a week, you haven't worked a full week in two years. It's sickening, it's sickening," MacDonald told a protester in a recording that was posted on social media.