Born in Ottawa, McGregor participated in many Canada Day celebrations in the city during his lifetime. But this year, the air had a different feel, and not just because it was the first in-person Canada Day event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The police presence was larger than normal. Not far from the main celebrations, protesters marched through the streets chanting “freedom” and calling for an end to public health restrictions, a holdover from the Freedom Parade protests that paralyzed the city earlier this year and inspired similar movements across the country and around from the world. “It was a complicated story to cover because there were so many issues – mainly, the government’s role in enforcing public health measures, the right to protest weighed the impact on the community and the economy and the ability of the police and the government to respond,” he said. McGregor. His thoughts on Canada Day and the convoy protests that preceded it will be broadcast Monday night on the CTV News special “THE CONVOY: The Reporter’s Notebook by Glenn McGregor.” McGregor’s reference goes back to the start of the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa in late January, a movement that ostensibly began in opposition to the federal government’s vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers but evolved into a protest against all the COVID-19 restrictions . Moving through the truck-filled streets of downtown Ottawa, McGregor traces the efforts made to quell the protests — from the federal government’s use of emergency law for the first time in the country’s history to the subsequent police crackdown. “It was also difficult to cover logistically because it was happening in many locations at once, in the bitter cold,” he said. “The hostility felt by many of the protesters toward what they call the mainstream media also made reporting more difficult.” Now, with the procession gone and some of its main organizers facing criminal charges, the question McGregor ponders is how significant a political force this movement will be in the future. “We don’t know if the movement will die out once the latest COVID orders are finally lifted, or if it will continue as the anti-government protest it has evolved into,” McGregor said. “The crowds that came out on Canada Day show that it will be sustained for some time.” You can watch the special on Monday from 10:30 p.m. ET, immediately following each CTV National News broadcast on the CTV News Channel. It will also begin streaming on CRAVE that same evening. With files from CTV News
