Trucker protest in Ottawa

[rwsaunders]

Jeez…what’s the view from our friends up North?.

[Dave Thompson]

Well, in response to some Republican U.S. lawmakers vocal support and hints of help for the protesting truckers, the Canadian government said something to the effect of: We don't want foreign interference in Canadian affairs.

[vertical_doug]

It's a funny situation because when the Freedom Convoy started, it was the Canadian Gov that was mandating un-vaccinated truckers returning to Canada would have to quarantine in their homes for 2 weeks.

However, on January 22, the United States mandated unvaccinated truckers etc could not cross into the United States at border crossings and ferry terminals etc.

So the original point of the protest is moot. The truckers cannot enter the United States in the first place, therefore there is no practical need for them to quarantine for two weeks.
Trudeau could just wave the requirement with no practical impact. However, at this point, it is just a grudge and neither side wants to lose. It is another version of us versus them mentality on both sides with neither wanted to give.

Talk is cheap, so if republican law makers in the United States really wanted to help, they should strongly advocate for the removal of the trucker ban from Jan 22 which would put Trudeau under pressure. Instead, they can just grandstand and score points with the base. There is no solution here with Quid Pro quo from US/Canada

I feel like I am living in a South Park Episode.

[htwoopup]

More and more the nation has rallied against this.

It mainly has to do with the fact that the leadership of the group are a guy who was a fringe party leader which wanted to “keep Canada white Anglo Saxon Protestant” which doesn’t play well anywhere including French Catholic Quebec, Indigenous areas, and some cities. Another leader of the protest has said “Islam is killing the Country”. That is why #FluKluxKlan is a trending hashtag here.

The urinating and other desecration of several national monuments has also had an impact on folks opinions.

The harassment of medical professionals on their way to work has also not sat well with a lot of the population.

The arson in an apartment building after some residents complained to some of the protestors that they should leave the community and allow the elderly neighbors to get to the grocery and doctors hasn’t helped the “cause”.

The fact that it was previously announced quite a while ago that most restrictions were starting to come off in Mid-March is making people wonder why they have to put up with this in their neighborhoods.

The annoyance that they are protesting stuff nationally that is in fact stuff that is all legally done by the provinces is growing. That disconnect between logic and what the protesters are saying is getting to people.

Oh, and a large percentage of truckers are South Asian and other diverse ethnicities. You don’t see them in this group. And over 90% of truckers are vaccinated and those that aren’t didn’t lose their jobs but assigned to routes within Canada. Facts like that are more and more turning people who “didn’t care” “didn’t want to bother with it” angry at the protests.

While it is playing ok in the farm and oil country out west (not the farm country in the east), even the somewhat Conservative Globe and Mail had an opinion piece the other day that said in part….

“For all the mistakes our governments have made in dealing with the COVID pandemic, Canada has one of the developed world’s lowest death rates from the disease: roughly a third of the United States’, per capita; less than 40 per cent of the United Kingdom’s; half of France’s; two-thirds of Germany’s.

By the more comprehensive “excess deaths” measure (comparing overall population death rates since the pandemic began to what they were before), Canada’s relative success is even more striking. Among the developed countries, only New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Denmark and Ireland have done better.

What accounts for this? Could one of the world’s highest vaccination rates have anything to do with it? Might it be in some way related to one of the world’s most stringent systems of public-health restrictions? Correlation is not causation, but if the common-sense explanations don’t account for it, what does? Tiresome as these measures have become, they seem to have worked; costly as they may have been, the payoff has been astronomical – literally tens of thousands of lives saved.”

In most of the rest of the country it is playing more and more badly…no one likes the mandates but they all recognize the need for them. As I have heard from a number of my neighbors (in Quebec so a bit different), none of their rights were taken away but some of their privileges but that was to protect everyone.

One thing I did not know until I moved here part time was that the word “Canada” actually comes from the Huron-Iroquois word for “village”. So, that underlies a lot of the annoyance at this.

Oh, and the Trump/ DeSantis/ Texas AG putting their two cents in on how Canada should act has really stuck in a lot of folks’ craws as Canada, like any other nation really hates when other nations tell them how to live.

Even Canadian moderates felt like they were living in an apartment over a meth lab during the Trump years and the sight of Trump flags and Confederate flags at these protests is really not playing well.

It is more and more recognized that it is not truckers (other than the tow truck companies who don’t want to tow the trucks because they are afraid of retribution) but a certain political (and non-Canadian) element and it is not about wearing masks and vaccines.

Sorry for my long ramble. It might be different out in Manitoba and Alberta but from where I travel in Quebec and with very conservative but elderly in-laws who live in an assisted living facility in Ottawa surrounded by 24 hour a day truck horn honking that is what I am seeing.

One thing that is an oxymoron in what I said..Quebec where I am is very very very conservative yet in Montreal which is the closest city (and one where English is spoken a lot) there were protests against the mask mandates in the earlier parts of the mandates. Although, even my neighbors whose main residence is in the city seem to be very anti-convoy protesters. Probably because conservative Quebecois really get their hackles up at the Anglo-Saxon Protestant thing because they can sometimes be as racist the opposite way.

[aingeru]

More and more the nation has rallied against this.

It mainly has to do with the fact that the leadership of the group are a guy who was a fringe party leader which wanted to “keep Canada white Anglo Saxon Protestant” which doesn’t play well anywhere including French Catholic Quebec, Indigenous areas, and some cities. Another leader of the protest has said “Islam is killing the Country”. That is why #FluKluxKlan is a trending hashtag here.

The urinating and other desecration of several national monuments has also had an impact on folks opinions.

The harassment of medical professionals on their way to work has also not sat well with a lot of the population.

The arson in an apartment building after some residents complained to some of the protestors that they should leave the community and allow the elderly neighbors to get to the grocery and doctors hasn’t helped the “cause”.

The fact that it was previously announced quite a while ago that most restrictions were starting to come off in Mid-March is making people wonder why they have to put up with this in their neighborhoods.

The annoyance that they are protesting stuff nationally that is in fact stuff that is all legally done by the provinces is growing. That disconnect between logic and what the protesters are saying is getting to people.

Oh, and a large percentage of truckers are South Asian and other diverse ethnicities. You don’t see them in this group. And over 90% of truckers are vaccinated and those that aren’t didn’t lose their jobs but assigned to routes within Canada. Facts like that are more and more turning people who “didn’t care” “didn’t want to bother with it” angry at the protests.

While it is playing ok in the farm and oil country out west (not the farm country in the east), even the somewhat Conservative Globe and Mail had an opinion piece the other day that said in part….

“For all the mistakes our governments have made in dealing with the COVID pandemic, Canada has one of the developed world’s lowest death rates from the disease: roughly a third of the United States’, per capita; less than 40 per cent of the United Kingdom’s; half of France’s; two-thirds of Germany’s.

By the more comprehensive “excess deaths” measure (comparing overall population death rates since the pandemic began to what they were before), Canada’s relative success is even more striking. Among the developed countries, only New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Norway, Denmark and Ireland have done better.

What accounts for this? Could one of the world’s highest vaccination rates have anything to do with it? Might it be in some way related to one of the world’s most stringent systems of public-health restrictions? Correlation is not causation, but if the common-sense explanations don’t account for it, what does? Tiresome as these measures have become, they seem to have worked; costly as they may have been, the payoff has been astronomical – literally tens of thousands of lives saved.”

In most of the rest of the country it is playing more and more badly…no one likes the mandates but they all recognize the need for them. As I have heard from a number of my neighbors (in Quebec so a bit different), none of their rights were taken away but some of their privileges but that was to protect everyone.

One thing I did not know until I moved here part time was that the word “Canada” actually comes from the Huron-Iroquois word for “village”. So, that underlies a lot of the annoyance at this.

Oh, and the Trump/ DeSantis/ Texas AG putting their two cents in on how Canada should act has really stuck in a lot of folks’ craws as Canada, like any other nation really hates when other nations tell them how to live.

Even Canadian moderates felt like they were living in an apartment over a meth lab during the Trump years and the sight of Trump flags and Confederate flags at these protests is really not playing well.

It is more and more recognized that it is not truckers (other than the tow truck companies who don’t want to tow the trucks because they are afraid of retribution) but a certain political (and non-Canadian) element and it is not about wearing masks and vaccines.

Sorry for my long ramble. It might be different out in Manitoba and Alberta but from where I travel in Quebec and with very conservative but elderly in-laws who live in an assisted living facility in Ottawa surrounded by 24 hour a day truck horn honking that is what I am seeing.

One thing that is an oxymoron in what I said..Quebec where I am is very very very conservative yet in Montreal which is the closest city (and one where English is spoken a lot) there were protests against the mask mandates in the earlier parts of the mandates. Although, even my neighbors whose main residence is in the city seem to be very anti-convoy protesters. Probably because conservative Quebecois really get their hackles up at the Anglo-Saxon Protestant thing because they can sometimes be as racist the opposite way.

People are protesting, and there is not a single positive remark about that in your whole post. I am curious...

[htwoopup]

People are protesting, and there is not a single positive remark about that in your whole post. I am curious...

As I said, my observations may be colored because of where I live and thus what I see may be “provincial” (no pun intended). Generally, the folks I interact with (including at the local ski hill which gets visitors from all over except way out west) have had nothing positive to say about the protests even in the beginning. I think it is because they HATED the mandates but felt they were necessary especially given the small size of the two closest hospitals (both of which are about a half hour away). Those that had nothing one way or the other to say about the protest previously have more and more turned negative on it.

But again, that may just be because of where I live. As I said it is different in the plains/ oil western provinces but I only get that from the news reports.

[j44ke]

I deleted my post, because I am not Canadian and the OP's original question is directed towards Canadians.

Let's try to keep this thread focused on Canadian responses.

[htwoopup]

It's a funny situation because when the Freedom Convoy started, it was the Canadian Gov that was mandating un-vaccinated truckers returning to Canada would have to quarantine in their homes for 2 weeks.

However, on January 22, the United States mandated unvaccinated truckers etc could not cross into the United States at border crossings and ferry terminals etc.

So the original point of the protest is moot. The truckers cannot enter the United States in the first place, therefore there is no practical need for them to quarantine for two weeks. Snip

Just fyi…earlier this week the Canadian Trucking Association and virtually all of the other haulage industry associations disavowed and/or condemned the protests.

That and, as has been said by several of my neighbors, it is just very un-Canadian (one of them said it in a way that reminded me of a kid being embarrassed by something a parent did) not only the protest itself but the “demand” of meet with us and the “demand” of the “memorandum of understanding” is making this seem like some outside influence thing that is very worrisome and perhaps bonding to people. It has even gotten my Parti Quebecois (we should secede from Canada as we are a French nation and English should never be allowed to be spoken) and my Liberal, NDP and at least one of my Conservative neighbors to be in total agreement on an issue.

[rwsaunders]

Trudeau needs to put his war face on like New Zealand…

New Zealand plays Barry Manilow to repel parliament protesters https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-60362529

[bigbill]

They should protest as much as they want but don't block the roads and bridges that are needed for commerce between the two countries. All they are doing is further damage to an already fragile economic recovery.

[Peter Polack]

Jeez…what’s the view from our friends up North?.

The back end of a lot of tractor-trailers...

[j44ke]

They should protest as much as they want but don't block the roads and bridges that are needed for commerce between the two countries. All they are doing is further damage to an already fragile economic recovery.

I think that's the goal, isn't it? All of these movements are about sawing off the branch that you are sitting on.

My niece says it is the Russians because they are all using Facebook. And I believe everything my niece said because she told me I had to.

[thollandpe]

Trudeau needs to put his war face on like New Zealand…

New Zealand plays Barry Manilow to repel parliament protesters https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-60362529

In Canada the play list is a tad more contemporary. Harder, faster, edgier.

Fed-Up Ottawa Residents Use Pornographic Metal Song...