Very early in the morning on Monday I looked at the clock to see what time it was. The screen was blank. I tried the light beside it. Clearly the power was off. Thinking that if repairs or changes were needed, it was good to do them in the middle of the night, I went back to sleep - and woke again close to 8:00. Still no power, and also no water and no heat. I looked out the window and saw no evidence of lights on anywhere. My smart phone still worked. I texted a son to find out whether he was in the same situation - not at all was the reply. I could then turn to Twitter to find that there was a major portion of my city without power. It was apparently an underground problem and there was a promise of the power being back on around noon.
What to do? Coffee required hot water and my stove is electric. Cooking anything was out. So was reading my morning paper in a tablet - my phone would have to be the hotspot and I didn’t want to exhaust my one link to the outside world. A nice hot bath to fill the time wouldn’t work with no hot water. Neither would playing on a digital piano. I got dressed, made a peanut butter sandwich, made some juice and settled in for a long read of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. I didn’t think of a right to electricity - but I did think, as I very seldom do, of what a privilege to have it and how much of my life is intertwined with it. It came into my father’s childhood home just a few years before his birth. My grandparents grew up without it - as did all the ancestors before them.
My life was inconvenienced for a short time and a chance to reflect how my life is so dependent on electricity - for comfort and ultimately for survival. My discomfort is nothing compared to many experienced by some indigenous people in my own country and many beyond throughout the world. Some, whose regular lives are more like mine, have experienced longer and more serious discomfort in our capital city where I lived in the past, - in the name of what some who are occupying it are calling their search for freedom.
Lots of Canadians have started reading our Charter of Rights and Freedoms when several large trucks have disrupted the downtown of our capital city and disrupted lives of those who live there. The protestors came with assurance of Freedom of Assembly, but have stayed with their ability to occupy public streets and totally disrupt local life. Some of them support a wacky mandate to overtake the government that most people thought was laughable when we first heard about it, but we’re are not laughing any more. Some want lifting of federal vaccine mandates by both Canada and the US. Some want the lifting of all restrictions, though these are set by provinces and they are protesting in the wrong place. Their trucking associations are not supporting them and they are here as individuals, not even a loose collective. The minority government refuses to negotiate but some opposition party members are out taking pictures and politicians are squabbling among themselves. The police are outnumbered and have asked for reinforcements. The mayor has declared a state of emergency. A judge issued an injunction against constant blowing of truck horns. Businesses are closed.
A relatively small group of citizens has brought the city to an impasse while police are expressing concern about small children living in some of the trucks. There is plenty of money supporting the occupation and no one is quite sure of its source.
We’re not dealing with a mere disagreement about rights. While the larger world is concerned about one country waging war against another by occupying it with soldiers and tanks, we have a mini version of an invasion in our own capital where big vehicles create a form of hostage taking of the resident citizens. We rightly don’t want a January 6th of our own. It’s the Canadian way to be patient and show forbearance. Most of us understand a relationship between freedom and responsibility to others. Mixing in tiredness in response to a pandemic doesn’t change that, much as some politicians would like us to think.
Relying on the kind of rational interchange that we have used in the past to persuade others isn’t working. The exercise of power has entered a new stage. How we balance the needs of anger, fear, safety and justice is going to require new contemplation and action. We shall see.
