My first experience with the politics of “Ready, fire, aim…” happened long ago at Queen’s Park in Toronto, the heartbeat of Ontario’s government.

The province’s farmers were protesting some new policy that would hurt the agricultural sector. So they drove hundreds of tractors up University Avenue and parked them in the middle of the circular road that rings the Provincial Legislature.

Chaos. Huge, instant traffic jams. Many thousands of people were inconvenienced by this. Thousands more were very annoyed. Politicians were enraged.

The farmers? They were positively righteous in their anger. “All Ontarians need to know just how badly they’re treating their farmers.”

I thought, “Why would you protest in a way that will get your allies and curious bystanders really mad at you?” One  answer of course was to force the other side, in this case, the province, to back down. That’s the purpose of all strikes everywhere.

But with Palestinian protesters against Israel, the collateral damage to Canada’s writing community is deadly.

Read on…