by Joy Pullmann at The Federalist
Harold Ristau was born in Kitchener, Ontario, and deployed several times to Iraq and Afghanistan in the Canadian armed forces as a military chaplain. He told a local paper he was motivated to join the military after helping Afghan refugees with asylum cases while he pastored an inner-city church in Montreal. In 2014, Canada awarded Ristau one of its highest military recognitions, the Chief of the Defense Staff Commendation, for “achievements beyond the line of duty.”
He wore that medal atop his veteran uniform when he visited the trucker Freedom Convoy in Ottawa on Feb. 12, he told The Federalist in a phone interview. There, smartphone cameras captured him leading other veterans in slowly dismantling a blockade around a war memorial, then cleaning and decorating the monument. Police stood by and watched.
Then Ristau led attendees in the Lord’s Prayer, Apostle’s Creed, and a rendition of “O, Canada,” the national anthem. He also gave a benediction and led the crowd in an impromptu prayer for peace and the well-being of those in government, as well as accountability for their abuses of the Canadian people over the past two years. The convoy began when the Canadian government started enforcing vaccine passports on truckers and others at its border with the United States.
“We prayed to hold those who have done bad, who need to repent and take account for wrongdoing, that they be held accountable for their sins and receive the mercy of God,” Ristau told The Federalist. “We prayed that there be no injuries, that no one here would have a hateful thought in our hearts, that our hearts would be filled with love.”
Ristau noted that before police closed in on the protesters, the demonstration had a sort of market fair attitude, with bouncy castles for children, soup kitchens for the hungry, and organized cleanups of public property. When there were complaints about the truckers’ noise and local disruptions, they stopped making noise after 6 p.m., local news accounts confirm. He also witnessed that the truckers kept emergency lanes open during their protest to protect locals….
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