“China eats weird animals disease”

Hundreds of the GoFundMe donations to the Ottawa convoy protest came from donors who said they were located outside of Canada, according to an analysis of data collected by CBC News.

The analysis of a sample of more than 6,600 comments made on the GoFundMe crowdfunding page before it was shut down shows that 573 donations amounting to more than $33,378 came from people who said they were located abroad.

More than half of those donors — 322 — said they were located in the United States. Collectively, American donors contributed $21,101, or 63.2 per cent of the money donated by people who said they were located outside of Canada.

Truckers and supporters said Wednesday they are proud to have their children with them at the protests that have shut down parts of Ottawa for nearly two weeks, saying they are there for their children’s futures.

Even on a relatively quiet morning, children could be seen Wednesday amid the giant trucks that have been parked throughout downtown for 13 days — crawling through the makeshift playground set up on Wellington Street, walking through the crowds on Parliament Hill, being pulled in wagons and pushed in strollers. During the weekend, there were bouncy castles and games of street hockey.

Restrictive Covid measures have stirred another wave of anti-establishment revolt.

When Joe Biden was elected US president, it was supposed to mark the end of the great populist revolt of MAGA-hats and Brexiteers. Normal service, if a little battered, was to be resumed.

Yet a year later, normal service has not resumed. Major world cities are now wracked by protest movements outside the mainstream. And they are often met by repressive police violence.

The convoy is despised by those who should support it

They call it “The Honkening”. Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, is currently being besieged by a novel kind of protest. Honkening is a fairly appropriate name for what’s going on. Thousands of truckers have driven to the capital, and barraged the city with the noise of truck horns creating a cacophony of sound. Elsewhere, on the border between the United States and Canada, truckers, farmers and cowboys have blockaded traffic.

As the protests enter another week, Ottawa’s mayor has declared a state of emergency. Jim Watson described the truckers — ostensibly protesting against Canada’s harsh Covid mandates — as “out of control”. Watson sees anarchy; the truckers fulminate against Covid authoritarianism. But this battle is really about working-class discontent.

Political divisions were on display within the governing Liberals and the Conservative opposition Wednesday as downtown Ottawa remained choked by an anti-vaccine mandate protest and two provinces started moving to lift COVID-19 restrictions.

The government faced growing pressure Wednesday to provide a concrete pandemic endgame after a Quebec MP broke ranks and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of trying to “demonize” people who have legitimate criticisms of the way the pandemic is being managed. He also called for a clear road map detailing how federal pandemic restrictions will be lifted.

Protesters gathered in southern France on Wednesday for what they say will be a ‘freedom convoy’ that will converge on Paris and Brussels.

The group is demanding an end to COVID-19 restrictions, and is inspired by protesters who have blocked a key Canadian border crossing, prompting a state of emergency being declared in the country’s capital of Ottawa.

About 200 protesters assembled in a parking lot in Nice, on France’s Mediterranean coast, with many displaying Canadian flags in a nod to the truckers in Canada who are protesting their own government’s COVID-19 restrictions.