The Globe and Mail - 22.02.2020

OPINION

SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020 | GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

PHOTOBYRAFALGERSZAK

BLAIRSTONECHILD

Theideologicalroots

ofIndigenousresistance

O5

DONGILLMOR

Whywedon’tremember

whatwe’vewatched

O8

DAVIDBEN

Who’stoblamefor

fakenews?Magicians

O9

O

n Wednesday morning, a

small group of protesters

calling themselves the

“Cuzzins for Wet’suwet’en” erect-

ed a makeshift barricade at a CN

Rail crossing in Edmonton, join-

ing similar blockades in other

parts of the country. By midday,

an even smaller group of counter-

protesters converged on the site

and dismantled the barricade,

carrying its pieces off in a pickup

truck.

Neither group was, strictly

speaking, acting either inside or

outside the law. No court injunc-

tion had been issued against the

protesters at the time the coun-

terprotesters moved in; the latter

committed no violence against

the former. And yet it is plainly

contrary to the norms of a society

governed by law for private indi-

viduals either to forcibly block

rail lines or to forcibly prevent

others from blocking them.

No bloodshed resulted in this

case, but it’s not hard to imagine

how it might have had the same

thing been attempted against,

say, the Mohawks blocking trains

at Tyendinaga, Ont., and Kahna-

wake, Que.

That did not stop a number of

the louder advocates of the “rule

of law” in the current crisis, in-

cluding the former minister of

justice and current Conservative

leadership candidate Peter Mac-

Kay (in a since-deleted tweet),

from hailing the pickup-truck vig-

ilantes for quite literally taking

the law into their own hands. For

their part, the leaders of a protest

explicitly rejecting police author-

ity over the Wet’suwet’en or, pre-

sumably, themselves were heard

complaining that the police were

“doing nothing” to protect them.

It would appear that both sides

are in need of a little refresher

course in the rule of law, a defin-

ing characteristic of which is that

it applies equally to all. On the

left, the crisis has brought forth a

flurry of essays on the theme of

the rule of law as instrument of

colonialist oppression, blaming it

for everything from residential

schools to the killing of Dudley

George.

But the merits of the rule of

law, as a principleof government,

are distinct from those of any par-

ticular law, or its application. The

rule of law is also represented by

the string of landmark Supreme

Court rulings – Calder, Sparrow,

Haida Nation, Tsilhqot’in, Delga-

muukw, to name only a few – that

have advanced Indigenous rights,

as well as the constitutional docu-

ments going back to the Royal

Proclamation of 1763 on which

they are based.

PROTESTS,O2

Theruleoflawisaboutmorethanrules,orlaw

ANDREW
COYNE

OPINION

O

n a grey morning in January, 2019, I walked into my doctor’s office for what I hoped would be a

quick, straightforward visit. I sat in the examination room, clenching and unclenching my fists

as I waited. My palms were sweating, my heart was racing. I was nervous and my body knew it.

After what felt like hours, the nurse practitioner finally came in. “Well, hello,” she said, a

warm smile spreading across her face. “What can I do for you today?”

I shrugged my shoulders, took a deep breath and tried to gather my courage. “I’m 27 and I haven’t been

vaccinated since I was 3,” I blurted out. “Can you help?”

I watched her smile slowly slip away.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Hold on, let me go talk to my supervisor.”

For many people, getting a vaccine is a minor irritation: a brief moment of discomfort in the school

auditorium in childhood, or an added travel cost, an extra hassle that is soon forgotten. But for me,

choosing to get vaccinated was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made.

I am the child of two very smart, very loving anti-vaxxer parents – parents who raised me to fear what

they saw as a risky, potentially life-threatening medical procedure. As a result, I lived most of my life

missing many of the recommended vaccines, from hepatitis B to HPV. IMMUNIZED,O6

Calling

the

shots

Tochallengewhatherparentstaught

heraboutherhealth,AliceFleerackers

hadtofacethefearofridiculeanda

mazeofmedicalbureaucracyand

jargon.She’snowleftwondering:

Howmanymorepeoplewouldbe

vaccinatedtodaywithoutthose

obstaclesintheirway?

OPINION

AliceFleerackersisafreelance
writerandadoctoralstudentat
SimonFraserUniversity,where
shestudieshowcontroversial
scienceiscommunicatedin
thedigitalsphere.