THEY'RE BAAAAAACK — The House is back this morning, and the projected order of business portends a regular sitting inside the chamber. NDP leader JAGMEET SINGH's itinerary offered hints of what's to come — namely, a round of tributes to ALEXA MCDONOUGH and the promised take-note debate on Ukraine. What's not clear is how many MPs will physically enter West Block. They do have a choice to attend virtually, and Omicron's continuing wrath means many will opt for Zoom. But as angry protesters enter the third day of their big-rig sit-in on Wellington Street, the demonstration enters a new phase. What will their honking and clogging of the downtown core mean for the elected officials who need to get past them to do their jobs, and the community of Hill workers who make the whole place tick? AN ANGRY WEEKEND — There were definitely a lot of innocent smiles on Wellington over the weekend. Thousands of sanguine protesters seemed in awe of all the like-minded Canadians swelling in front of the Parliament buildings. They were almost entirely non-violent. They were there to make a point. But then there were the others. The ones who danced atop the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, parked in front of and urinated on the National War Memorial, dressed up the Terry Fox statue in paraphernalia (and urinated a few feet away from that, too), waltzed into the downtown Rideau Centre without masks (and paraded maskless through other malls), threatened baristas, berated journalists and tossed a beer can at CTV's EVAN SOLOMON, bullied their way into nabbing meals from a Shepherds of Good Hope shelter, and claimed to be motivated by love as they waved countless "F--k Trudeau" flags. — The "freedom" to hate: On Sunday morning, CBC's TRAVIS DHANRAJ asked a trucker sitting in his cab parked directly in front of Parliament — his name was Mike — to comment on the dark side of the protests. Mike characterized all the misbehavior as "a pro and a con." Dhanraj asked him to elaborate. "It's a pro because we should be allowed to make bad decisions. That's just what freedom is about — people being able to make decisions we don't always agree with." The apparent goals of the protest were wide-ranging. Some were opposed to the vaccine mandate imposed on cross-border truckers, others were opposed to all vaccine mandates, still others were opposed to vaccines. Everyone was opposed to Justin Trudeau. The convoy's official goal was to unseat the government, aided by Governor General MARY SIMON and the Senate. For the record, damaging war memorials is a criminal offense. The Harper Conservatives passed that law, and police have enforced it at the National War Memorial. — The big gamble: It was clear from the jump that Conservative politicians were in the trickiest position politically as truck convoys barreled toward Ottawa. Steer clear of endorsing the movement — which formally called for the undemocratic removal of the Liberal government — and they risked alienating a lot of potential voters. Go all in on the convoy, and they'd risk wearing anything that went sideways. ERIN O'TOOLE posed with some truckers in his Royal Canadian Air Force jacket. PIERRE POILIEVRE timed a welcome video to the arrival of a convoy in the National Capital Region. LESLYN LEWIS made her presence known, as did JEREMY PATZER. MICHAEL COOPER stood up for the crowd on the Hill. DAMIEN KUREK was up there, too, along with MARTIN SHIELDS. Facebook public policy wonk RACHEL CURRAN, a former senior STEPHEN HARPER staffer, tweeted about the "festive" atmosphere in Ottawa (before deleting her account ). Tory MPs, including O'Toole , did condemn some of the reprehensible stuff. DAN ALBAS called out the unpleasantness at the Terry Fox statue. MARTY MORANTZ and MELISSA LANTSMAN, among many others, decried the swastikas visible at regular intervals. But the convoy's official website boasted about the maskless protesters who happily marched through local malls. They're planning another mall demonstration today. And journalists dug up all kinds of past statements from the mouths of the march's leading lights. PAT KING, for instance, openly espoused white supremacist views in 2019. — Other weird misinformation: Mike the trucker claimed 2.5 million protesters were in Ottawa. King insisted that JUSTIN TRUDEAU had "fled" to Tofino. Both were, it's fair to say, extremely laughable claims. ( This was not 2.5 million people.) — Food for thought: Tory rabble-rouser STEPHEN TAYLOR mused about who gained the most over the weekend: "I think that this protest on Parliament Hill helps Justin Trudeau more than it hurts him." — Trudeau's whereabouts: Those were officially undisclosed. The PM's Saturday itinerary mentioned only a meeting with the Centre culturel islamique de Québec on the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action against Islamophobia. (No, he wasn't in Tofino. He's holding a virtual presser this morning, and the Pacific Ocean won't be in the background.) Related reading: JUSTIN LING in the Daily Beast — "They're here, they're honking, they think vaccines are dangerous. Welcome to the overlords of Ottawa." — SUPRIYA DWIVEDI in the Toronto Star : "Our unfortunate reality is that one of the two parties in regular contention to form government has sitting, prominent members who spew all sorts of conspiracy theory nonsense and have spent the better part of the last decade either disregarding the more troubling aspects of their voter base, or trying to directly pander to them." Tories might claim that's all "liberal media" mumbo jumbo, but pollsters with representative samples will almost certainly reveal unflattering opinions of the weekend's events — much of which was available unfiltered on social media. What will that mean for federal Tories? — The biggest questions: Conservatives have spent years condemning DONALD TRUMP's rhetoric — the same former U.S. president who gave a shout out to Canadian truckers at a Saturday night rally. At what point do those who boosted the protest reconsider their support or rhetoric? How much do they double down on all the anger? And what happens when the convoy mostly decamps for regular life away from the Hill? Even if many protesters were arguably harmless, what conclusions will most Canadians draw from their living rooms? Will they remember the milquetoast flag-waving? Or will they be thinking about how many bad apples it takes to ruin the orchard?
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