For three weeks this winter, a so-called “Freedom Convoy” delivered thousands of demonstrators into downtown Ottawa, turning them into an occupying force that snarled daily life in the nation’s capital and dominated the national conversation.
But who were the demonstrators, really — and what were they after?
Many of them positioned the protest as a fight against vaccination mandates for cross-border truckers. Others saw it as a campaign against pandemic restrictions more broadly. No doubt the occupation was many things to many people. But for several of its organizers, the protest was the culmination of years of work, their best chance yet to coalesce a movement around their preferred conspiracy theories and a violent anti-government ideology.
This Star piece was written by an Hysteric.
