At the Oct 12 public hearing, a resident of the red zone who uses mobility devices shared her experience of the convoy.
“I felt very ignored and left out by the police and the City from the get-go. This is a little bit of problem from before with Ottawa that when something happens they tell downtown residents to avoid downtown, don’t drive downtown, just don’t go there. They completely ignore the people who live downtown who cannot leave. It was difficult with all the services that were closed, so the library was closed, I canceled medical appointments because I couldn’t go, other medical appointments were canceled for me because they didn’t feel safe having services open.
Grocery stores and pharmacies had to close at times, so there was a lot of disruption that made it so I really couldn’t stay there. There was also a lot of gaslighting by the police and by the City who kept reporting it was a peaceful protest despite reports of harassment, of hatred, and everything else. Despite them seeing all the trucks blocking the streets.
I also felt that after the protest or after the occupation as I experienced it, the sort of denial from the powers that be continued and there continued to be demands on me to justify why not having transit, not being able to use a curb cut, being yelled at was a problem to justify my negative experience.”
You can view the full testimony here.
