What the hell is going on with Canada's Freedom Convoy?

Yeah, we didn't know Canada had police state aspirations either.

Feb 17, 2022

New pod out this week, and per the advice of a dear pal, the link is up front. Listen!

The Toronto Sun’s Anthony Furey joined us to talk about the Freedom Convoy that was, until earlier in the week, blockading the U.S.-Canada Ambassador Bridge and clogging streets in Ottawa and several other provincial capitals. The proximate cause of the demonstrations was the Jan 15 expiration of a rule exempting truck drivers from vaccination requirements at the border. But that was only the spark. The reality is that about 90 percent of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated, per their union. That spark lit a fire because Canadians are freaking sick and tired of draconian Covid rules that resemble California at the height of the pandemic. (Hell, even California is lifting mask mandates…)

As is his wont, Justin Trudeau made everything worse, labeling the demonstrators a “fringe minority” who were “swastika waving” and had “unacceptable views.” Protip for Mr. Trudeau: Insulting people as Nazis and appointing yourself arbiter of that which is acceptable is not good leadership. Surprisingly, Trudeau’s efforts to calm troubled waters fueled the protests rather than the reverse. Now, he had one fair point: Blockading border crossings is illegally interfering with commerce, and had to end. And end it did, but that wasn’t enough for the Canadian leader.

Trudeau followed the clearing of the bridge with a first-time invocation of The Emergencies Act, arrogating to himself extraordinary powers, including freezing bank accounts associated with the protests, annulling provincial law and more. Did he go too far? Are the protesters really “swastika waving” lunatics? And why don’t we know as much about Canada’s Covid mania as we do about, say, New Zealand’s…?

Highlights below, along with show notes, plus a link to the transcript. Check out Marc’s story about his Canadian friends (wow). And tell us what you think, how we can improve, and share your ideas. Thanks for reading and listening!

HIGHLIGHTS

Marc: …it's remarkable to see this happening, because keep in mind that Canada is the country founded by the people who didn't want to join the American revolution, who said, "No, we are fine with King George. We're fine with the Stamp Act. We're fine with what we call the Intolerable Acts. Boston tea party, throwing tea into the Harbor, we're not down with that. We're going to go form our own country and be loyal to the king."

Marc: My kids play hockey, and we have a lot of friends on different hockey teams. And we actually have friends who are Canadians, who play … on a team in Detroit. And at the start of the pandemic, the rule was, if you went into the United States and you came back, you had to quarantine for 14 days. And so then, they would drive across the Ambassador Bridge, the very bridge that we're talking about here, back and forth to play hockey. And so, they came back, and under the COVID rules, basically, if you went back into the United States, then it would just reset the quarantine.

Marc: So this girl was going to play on her hockey team in Detroit, coming back, and then going back over again, and literally the Canadian police, the RCMP parked a car outside of her house, and when her husband went to work, they followed him a mile down the road, and then pulled him over and opened the trunk to see if he was trying to sneak his daughter out of the house, to avoid quarantine. I mean, can you imagine that happening in the United States?

Anthony: The only real notable issue of confirmed violence is there was actually a vehicular ramming at the Winnipeg protest, which was conducted against the Freedom Convoy participants. Four people went to hospital. A lot of people don't know about this, because while it was reported a bit in the mainstream news, it wasn't amplified. So it didn't become emblematic of things. Whereas you may have heard that there was one person who showed up on the first day of the convoy, on the periphery of it, waving a Nazi flag. The person was never seen again. And that for some reason has come to symbolize all of these people who have been out, tens of thousands of people protesting. And a lot of my colleagues who have been just walking among the protest, they speak to them, they are of different ages, different professions, different religions, ethnicities, walks of life. So it's a pretty diverse movement.

Anthony: The vilification of the unvaccinated has been very strong here in Canada. It's been the most socially contentious thing we've really had throughout these past two years. I did a couple interviews with frontline healthcare workers. One was a nurse, the other was a medical technician. They did not want to get vaccinated, and they faced vaccine mandates. So they were on the pathway to being fired. And whatever your views are on vaccines and whether or not people should get them, I didn't hear any conspiracy theories. I didn't hear any wild, crazy talk.

Anthony: Well, we're at the point now where we're pretty much tearing our society apart over the fact that there's 10% of people who, for whatever reason, aren't getting vaccinated in Canada. I don't understand why we can't just acknowledge, yes, we're in a democracy, we're in a free society. You don't get a 100% take rate on anything. So just take your 90%, do a victory lap, and everybody chill out.

Anthony: [Re the imposition of the Emergencies Act] So even if you think Justin Trudeau's someone of perfectly noble intentions, you really think he's going to get it 100% right? And the financial stuff is really concerning to people, because some people take it as a very targeted thing that, okay, there's the way to basically freeze the car insurance of the trucker who refuses to move his truck. But at the same time, the way our deputy prime minister was talking about it, anybody who showed up for the broader protests, not people who have their trucks gridlocking the streets, but the 10,000 people who were there in Ottawa on Saturday, that they are potentially open to being investigated and having their banking information looked at. And the government can pretty much direct the banks to do this stuff right now. It's truly scary.

Anthony: . I think one of the reasons people took to the streets even in the first place is for the past two years, [is] they feel like politicians have failed them, the media has failed them, public health has failed them, and the judiciary has failed them. Because a lot of these things we've done have been challenged in court. There's been attempts to challenge them in court, and people haven't gotten a fair hearing.

Dany: When the next election happens, why does this help Justin Trudeau? Because I don't think we can see this outside the political context.

Anthony : I guess he wants to be seen again as polarizing - creating an us versus them, and telling everybody, "Okay, I'm on this side of things. I'm vilifying these people and I'm the noble one. So come on side and be the noble one with me." I think it's pretty much what he's doing there.

Anthony: Something's got to give. I guess the question is from what side, because to your point, the trucker's convoy, they say, "We're not leaving until things are lifted." They're pretty adamant about that. I mean, the world is heading in this direction. Even our provinces are heading in this direction. Trudeau just won't allow himself to say the phrase, "Learn to live with COVID." He won't allow himself to step away from all of this. So right now it's really kind of at a standstill, both sides. The momentum is definitely in the direction of lessening restrictions. It's just a matter of, I guess, when Trudeau will stop being so stubborn and kind of let that now natural progression take place.

The whole transcript can be found here…

SHOWNOTES

“FUREY: Canadians were pushed too far — then they pushed back,” by Anthony Furey (Toronto Sun, 2/12/22)

“FUREY: Ford government still won't budge on vaccine passport, mask rules,” by Anthony Furey (Toronto Sun, 2/9/22)

“FUREY: It's time to do the right thing, Canada — it's time to end all COVID restrictions,” by Anthony Furey (Toronto Sun, 1/31/22, updated 2/2/22)

Anthony Furey Twitter:

- “This could have all been avoided if people were content to just give others a little bit of choice, a little bit of breathing room, when it comes to things like masks and vaccines. If a few people don’t want to do it, who cares? But, no, we just had to turn it into a big deal.” (Twitter, Anthony Furey, 2/14/22)

-“ It’s rather disingenuous of Doug Ford to claim that the protests are leading to business investment instability without also acknowledging that Ontario being one of the most locked downs jurisdictions anywhere is what led to many professionals leaving the province.” (Twitter, Anthony Furey, 2/14/22)

-“Ok, the Ambassador Bridge is cleared. Trudeau and Ford have made their point — they weren’t going to capitulate to protesters, etc. Now it’s time for them to do the right thing and end the covid restrictions.” (Twitter, Anthony Furey, 2/13/22)

News:

“Canada's Trudeau invokes emergency powers in bid to end protests,” (Reuters, 2/14/22)

“Remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance regarding the Emergencies Act,” (Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland, 2/14/22)

“Canadians are responsible for roughly half the money raised online for the trucker convoy, leaked data shows,” (NYT, 2/14/22)

“Trucker Protests in Canada: What You Need to Know,” (NY Times, 2/13/22)

“Sen. Rand Paul on trucker convoys protesting in US: 'I'm all for it',” (The Hill, 2/12/22)

“Is Trudeau losing his fight against truckers?” (BBC, 2/11/22)

“Canadian officials caution against ‘foreign interference’ as U.S. Republicans back ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests,” (WaPo, 2/8/22)

“Who is Tamara Lich — the 'spark that lit the fire',” (Ottawa Citizen, 2/4/22)

“Covid Backlash Brews in Canada, Sending Warning Across Globe,” (Bloomberg, 2/4/22, updated 2/5/22)

Op-eds:

“What Canada’s Truckers Know,” by Mary Anastasia O’Grady (WSJ, 2/13/22)