Canadian truckers were tied up in the capital city of Ottawa over the weekend in protest over the government’s vaccine mandates. The trucks were joined by thousands of demonstrators and formed a “so-called freedom convoy” blocking the streets around Canada’s parliament building. The truckers are complaining about a cross-border covid vaccine mandate and are pushing to end all vaccine mandates nationwide. The mandate went into effect for truckers on January 15th. Around 90% of Canada’s 120,000 cross-border truckers are vaccinated. The percentage of truck drivers who’ve received the shot corresponds to Canada’s population, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the protestors a “small fringe minority”. Saturday, Trudeau and his family left the city over safety concerns, and after two of the prime minister’s three children tested positive for covid. The whole narrative around COVID unravels as the contradictions between what is said versus what is done only intensifies while so many people have lost so much over the past couple of years, from loved ones and good health to economic sustenance.
The Canadian mandate requires truck drivers from the United States to present proof of vaccination to cross the border. Unvaccinated Canadian drivers must take a Covid-19 test, then quarantine when they re-enter their home country from the U.S. A similar law was instituted by the United States on January 22nd.
In western Canada, protestors in trucks and cars are blocking the Coutts border crossing north of Montana. The blockade is jamming up Interstate 15 which is a major artery for the U.S.-Canadian supply chain. Truckers in the Ottawa protests have been threatening to disrupt the supply chain between the two countries.
Both Elon Musk and Donald Trump praised the protest by the truck drivers. The Tesla CEO and the former president are both vaccinated but Musk previously said he’s against mandates. The Tesla executive’s children are also vaccinated. Trump praised the Canadian truckers and claimed the protestors were “doing more to defend American freedom than our own leaders by far.”
On Sunday, police in Ottawa opened investigations into incidents that occurred during the weekend protests. The police are citing the protestors for desecrating the National War Monument and “threatening and intimidating” behavior towards police and other individuals. The Ottawa mayor complained the protests made residents of the city feel as if they were “prisoners in their own home”. The demonstrators said they’re planning to stay in the city, “create chaos,” and shut down the city. One of the organizers of the “Freedom Convoy” said, “we’re in this one for the long haul. We don’t have a time limit.”
Vaccine mandate protests have taken place in both Europe and the United States but not to the extent of actually closing access to a capital building as was done in Canada.
Truck drivers in the United States are posting on social media that protests like Ottawa might be in the planning stage for Washington D.C. In fact, news reports imply that just in a matter of days nearly 70,000 joined a Facebook page associated with a forthcoming mass American trucking convoy.
Fringe or Mass Movement?
Elite politicians and governing bureaucrats as well as the companies profiting from these moves have grown accustomed to public health-driven power edicts. After all, they found a complicit population for many months. But times are changing, however, and the politicians should probably get out of their bubbles, and quickly back into reality. Otherwise, a large convoy south of the Canadian border could run right over them. The wreckage could cause unanticipated socio-political and economic consequences further hurting American society.