The Most Famous March in Canadian History | James Topp

Originally Published: June 16, 2022
We are joined today by Warrant Officer James Topp, a 28-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who set out in February of this year to march from BC to Ottawa in protest of the covid mandates that are being imposed on all Canadians by our own government or by our employers - or both. James shares his mission, his vision and his values as he makes his way toward our country’s capitol and what he hopes to achieve by continuing to march for all Canadians’ freedoms. 

 On What James is Marching For…
…what we're calling three plus one R's; Repealing mandates, Reinstating workers, Restitution for wages lost…then what I have encountered on this journey necessitated the introduction of a fourth R which we're calling Repair. Because we have a deeply divided society. We have a number of people who voiced their objections at work and lost their jobs. There's a significant degree of suffering going on here.
It's unknown to the folks who went along to get along. And it's something that needs to be made known to our members of parliament, and individually I've spoken to a number of them now, and they all acknowledged this, but I think what this will do. And when I say Repair now … to re-establish trust in our institutions, I believe because what I've encountered on this journey for the last four months, since I left Vancouver as I've talked to folks who are unhappy with the mandates, who are really intensely dissatisfied with our federal government.

On the MP’s who have committed to meet with James in Ottawa …
I've reached out to members of parliament way back in early April with the help of the team. I wrote a letter and with the help of the team we mailed it to every single member of parliament, all 338 of them, including a number of senators. I have outlined the reasons why I'm doing this. And I asked them for an opportunity to speak with them and we built on that. We've established that they will attend a meeting or they, some of them will, 17 of them, 16 conservative members of parliament, one NDP, we have reserved a venue. We're going to livestream the conversation.

On What Media has Reached out to Cover James’ Protest
[Canadians] feel that they've been left behind, if you're talking about one recent interview, I did have with on the fringes of the mainstream with Evan Solomon, he pointed out that there's 90% of Canadians that are vaccinated, that still leaves about 5 or 6 million people affected. And so, in order to re-establish faith in them and in their government, it will go a long way for us to have this conversation on June 22nd.