On January 15, the Canadian government announced a vaccine mandate for long-haul truckers. Over the days that followed, a convoy of unvaccinated and vaccinated truckers drove in solidarity across the country to protest against the measures. The convoy gathered in Ottawa on January 29 with a rally at Parliament Hill and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau promptly left town. Truck convoys were then joined by pedestrian protesters who have set up makeshift camps across the city centre.
The fact that it’s ordinary people behind the Freedom Convoy, rather than professional activists, has caused alarm among the ruling class
In the two weeks since the Freedom Convoy of Canadian truckers and their supporters began rallying in Ottawa to demand an end to all pandemic-related mandates and restrictions nationwide, it has become clear that this movement isn’t like other protest movements. And that’s a scary proposition for those in charge who thought that they’d manage and exploit this crisis on their own sweet time and schedule regardless of the actual science and reality on the ground.
The Canada truckers protest goes global — and it’s about more than just vaccines
We begin today in the Canadian Parliament, which has its own version of prime minister’s questions. And while it isn’t as entertaining as the famously unruly UK Parliament or the gem that is the Australian Parliament (“the honorable membah is a grub, Mistah Speakah!”), it can still get pretty rowdy.
Liberal MP Joel Lightbound is absolutely correct in observing that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dramatically changed his messaging about the COVID-19 pandemic during last year’s federal election.
“I can’t help but notice with regret that both the tone and the policies of my government changed drastically on the eve and during the last election campaign,” Lightbound said during a press conference Tuesday. “From a positive and unifying approach, a decision was made to wedge, to divide and to stigmatize.”
U.S. offers Trudeau government help to end border blockade
U.S. officials have offered to help the Trudeau government end an anti-vaccine mandate protest blockade that is sending ripple effects through the American economy and causing increasing concern in Washington.
The White House says U.S. officials had multiple conversations on Thursday with their Canadian counterparts about the blockade on the Ambassador Bridge, a major trade artery which connects Windsor, Ont. with Detroit.
Gee, it seems like only yesterday the Libs were crying about “foreign involvement” in Canadian affairs.
Furious Freedom Convoy protesters have said ‘Justin Trudeau must go’ and vowed to stay put until he quits after the Canadian Prime Minister dismissed the truckers as a ‘few people shouting and waving swastikas’.
The Canadian premier, 50, made the comments during a debate in the House of Commons on Monday – sparking outrage among opposition Conservatives and prompting a member of his own Liberal party to resign.
Now protesters blockading the border in Coutts, Alberta, have told DailyMail.com Trudeau’s description of them is ‘preposterous’ and vowed to stay put until the former teacher resigns and mask and vaccine mandates are lifted.
OTTAWA — The Ontario government says it has successfully petitioned a court to freeze access to millions of dollars donated through online fundraising platform GiveSendGo to the truckers convoy protesting COVID-19 restrictions in Ottawa and at several border crossings.
A spokeswoman for Premier Doug Ford says Ontario’s attorney general brought the application to the Superior Court of Justice seeking an order that would prohibit anyone from distributing donations made through the website’s “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Adopt-a-Trucker” campaign pages.
A planned American “freedom convoy” of truckers opposed to vaccine mandates, inspired by protests in Canada, could involve a blockade of the Super Bowl in Los Angeles this weekend that “could severely disrupt transportation, federal government, and law enforcement”, according to reports.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin to US law enforcement agencies warning of a convoy “potentially impacting Super Bowl LVI” on 13 February, and the 1 March State of the Union address in Washington, where the mooted convoy is likely to arrive, CBS reported.
The DHS bulletin said such a protest “could severely disrupt transportation, federal government, and law enforcement operations through gridlock and potential counter-protests”.
Michigan governor calls on Canada to put an end to border protest
Michigan’s governor is calling on Canada to stop a border protest snarling one of the country’s busiest trade routes.
Flag-waving protesters opposed to COVID-19 measures are blocking Canada-bound traffic from crossing the Ambassador Bridge.
The protest on the Canadian side of the bridge that links Windsor, Ont., and Detroit began on Monday.
U.S. politician uses blockade at Canada-U.S. border to argue for Buy American
A U.S. lawmaker has seized on blockades at the Canada-U.S. border to argue for more Buy American-style policies and for less reliance on buying goods from Canada.
The call from Michigan Democrat Elissa Slotkin comes as the protest at a vital Windsor-Detroit crossing has slowed commercial cargo delivery and hit car plants, with several companies stopping production.
“Michiganders have been saying for decades that when our manufacturing is outsourced too much, we end up paying the price,” Slotkin wrote in a series of tweets Wednesday night.
The theory that Covid leaked from a laboratory was given fresh momentum last night after scientists studying soil samples in Antarctica stumbled upon traces of the virus that may have been manipulated in a Chinese research facility.
Rare coronavirus mutations from a sample processed in Shanghai at the beginning of the pandemic were found along with genetic material from hamsters and monkeys, which suggest the virus was being experimented on using either the animals themselves or their cells.
h/t RM
As the Loud Truckist Noise in Ottawa carried on this week it was perhaps understandable that certain of the civic leaders in the nation’s capital and quite a few otherwise respectable members of the Canadian establishment would become a bit unhinged. By now, the rest of us should be sufficiently entertained by the flights of rhetoric that have been coming from all quarters about what it all means, and what to do about it, to come to some decision about whose shouts we like the most.
After publicly supporting the anti-vaccine mandate activists protesting in Ottawa in recent weeks, interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen said Thursday it’s time for the convoy and other protesters blocking two major border crossings to end their demonstrations and go home.
Bergen, who has called the convoy a “passionate, patriotic and peaceful” group of Canadians concerned about freedom at a time of COVID restrictions, said the protesters have made their point to parliamentarians and the Conservative Party will take up their fight in the House of Commons instead.
Frustrations and conflicts tied to the trucker convoy in Ottawa are spilling over onto new fronts Thursday, with police reporting “a concerted effort to flood” 911 lines, protesters mobilizing at the local airport and hackers taking aim at city council.
Earlier in the day, city officials had warned of traffic disruptions at the city’s international airport as the trucker convoy encamped across the city enters its 14th day, and some members appeared to be encircling the airport.
