Law students from the University of Ottawa are filing dispatches for JURIST on the “Freedom Convoy” protest in Canada’s capital that has paralyzed the city for over a week. Here, 1L Elaine Tam reports.
I’m filing this dispatch from the epicentre of a siege. My home lies within a few hundred metres of Parliament Hill, so I have automatically become an unwitting member of the plaintiff class covered by the class action suit being filed against the leaders of the Freedom Convoy for private nuisance and punitive damages. After enduring 11 consecutive days of incessant high-decibel honking, vicious engine revving, and megaphoned “freedom” sermons blasting beneath my windows, I am exhibiting symptoms of shell shock. The noise—horribly grating and inherently stressful—has rendered me high-strung and skittish. My nerves are completely frayed.
This past Saturday was unbearable torture. I never imagined I could be subjected to such excruciating torment within my own home.