I have had my suspicions all along, but the Convoy has forced us to acknowledge it: Canada has Bubbas. Not just a few, but a whole demographic. The Bubbas are anti-vaxxers, they are comfortable with falsehoods, they are racist and their conception of personal rights and freedoms extends no further than their own selfish selves.

Certainly part of the motivation for the Convoy was sheer exhaustion: after two long years, we are all exhausted. The Convoy says “we’re done with Covid.” Unfortunately, Covid ain’t done with us, yet.

It is a sad commentary that the 10,000 Bubbas who assembled in Ottawa for a weekend have gotten far more press than the 10,000 and more Canadian health workers who have put their lives on the line every day for two years, caring for vaxxed and unvaxxed alike.

I guess we can thank the pandemic for exposing the Bubba demographic, for bringing it right out into the open. As we move forward, as a people and as a country, we must examine how this demographic came to be. Three institutions mightdeserve special scrutiny: families, our educational system, and social media. 

There will always be lone Bubbas, but Canada is too good a country to accept and resign itself to an entire Bubba demographic.  

What a disaster has been perpetrated on to our Canadian flag. Prior to the Convoy’s arrival in Ottawa, seeing a flag was a pleasant, patriotic reminder of this great country we are privileged to live in. Now, post-Convoy, whenever I see a flag, particularly one on a vehicle, my eyes instantly narrow to slits and I grind my teeth, knowing the toxic message it conveys.   

We Canadians have a job to do. We have to take our national flag back from the Bubbas, carefully decontaminate it, and restore its true meaning: the symbol of a country whose people care about each other, and the truth.