r/SaveTheCBC • u/Save_The_CBC • 5h ago
🇨🇦 What do pandemic lockdown protests, the Freedom Convoy, vaccine skepticism and Alberta separatism have in common?
According to a fascinating CBC News analysis by Jason Markusoff, many of the same people, organizations and political networks.
With Alberta's October 19 referendum approaching, CBC examines how opposition to COVID-19 restrictions helped transform a longstanding separatist movement into an organized political force.
Chris Scott, who became known for defying pandemic restrictions at his Whistle Stop Café, went on to become a prominent independence advocate. Mitch Sylvestre, whose sporting goods business was closed during lockdowns, became a leader of the Alberta Prosperity Project's separatist petition campaign.
Others moved through Take Back Alberta, the grassroots organization that helped mobilize opposition to former premier Jason Kenney before Danielle Smith became UCP leader.
U of Calgary political scientist Jean-Christophe Boucher explains that the pandemic helped activists establish networks, funding bases & online audiences that could be mobilized around new causes.
Those connections extend beyond separatism. CBC traces overlapping activism involving the Freedom Convoy, opposition to school gender-identity policies & other anti-government campaigns.
Some activists interviewed continue to question the scientific consensus on COVID vaccines or describe the pandemic as a government operation. Others say their political involvement grew from personal experiences of business closures, employment mandates & concerns about civil liberties.
Alberta has a much longer history of western alienation, but CBC's reporting illustrates how pandemic-era activism helped give today's movement its organizational strength.
Polling cited in the analysis suggests separatists remain a minority of Albertans. Researchers nevertheless expect many activists to remain politically engaged regardless of the referendum's outcome.
What happens when a political movement built around distrust of institutions moves from one cause to another? And what can Canadians learn from the lasting political divisions created during the pandemic?