FRANK, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) – The Canadian Armed Forces veteran walking from Canada’s west coast to the nation’s capital of Ottawa to “take our freedoms back” crossed into Alberta on foot this week.
CAF veteran James Topp crossed the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) threshold of his journey toward Ottawa in protest of COVID mandates, according to a report by True North Centre.
The veteran, inspired by and in support of the anti-COVID mandate “Freedom Convoy” protesters, began his 4,395-kilometer (2,731-mile) trek in late February, starting at the Terry Fox monument in downtown Vancouver with his final destination set as the National War Memorial in downtown Ottawa.
Topp, who served for 28 years in the Canadian military, launched a website that features a live GPS showing where he is at all points of the journey.
His social media account shows that his final destination, located near Parliament Hill, has a projected walking time of 872 hours, which totals over 36 days straight on foot.
https://t.co/5PhCeKl6e6#TruckerConvoy2022 #FreedomConvoy #canadamarches pic.twitter.com/n1jN3tSyIG
— InOkanagan (@InOkanagan) February 16, 2022
His website also now includes a template letter addressed to Members of Parliament so his supporters can write to their representatives to encourage the politicians to meet with him when he arrives at the memorial on June 22.
The letter, which succinctly summarizes what he hopes to achieve, reads:
- I am protesting federal government mandates that require, as a condition for employment or continued employment, vaccination, testing, quarantine, and/or isolation;
- I have stepped forward to speak on behalf of those personnel employed by the federal government or otherwise who have been denied access to employment and services, who have lost income and have suffered from damaged relationships due to the imposition of a medical procedure;
- I have also stepped forward to speak on behalf of those who have, through the introduction of false constructs surrounding choices and consequences, been pressured into taking part in medical procedures that they would not otherwise have accepted.
Despite all provinces relenting on many of their most restrictive so-called COVID measures, such as mandatory mask wearing and vaccine passports, since the massive “Freedom Convoy” protest took over Ottawa for three weeks earlier this year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government has been unwilling to rescind the policies he implemented at the national level.
Currently, the Trudeau government is still requiring that all federal employees, even those that work from home, be “fully vaccinated” against the highly survivable coronavirus while also holding onto the highly controversial vaccine mandate for interprovincial travel, which prohibits unvaccinated Canadians from traveling via air, train, or sea.
Two high-profile political figures in Canada, People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier and former Newfoundland Premier Brian A. Peckford, have filed lawsuits against the federal government over the implementation of the travel mandate.
Peckford, who helped draft the Canadian constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, says the mandate is unconstitutional and violates the exact law he helped create.
“It is becoming more obvious that being vaccinated does not stop people from getting Covid and does not stop them from spreading it,” Peckford stated in late January when announcing the lawsuit. “The government has not shown that the policy makes flying safer — it simply discriminates.”
“The federal travel ban has segregated me from other Canadians. It’s discriminatory, violates my Charter rights, and that’s why I am fighting the travel ban,” he added.