The truckers shutting down Canada's capital | Hacker News Reader

The truckers shutting down Canada's capital

bbc.com

56 pointsversion_five89 comments

My interest in this stems primarily from the dissonance between the way this impending parade of doom was portrayed by the media and how it’s manifesting. I expected a fringe group of extremists as Trudeau warned when in fact Canadians around the country are gathering peacefully in protest.

In my small liberal city on the opposite end of the country I saw families walking around with flags smiling and in support. It made me ask what sort of dystopian echo chamber I must be in to have had such a disparity between expectation and reality.

And now I see people drawing attention to a nazi flag and the desecration of a Terry Fox statue (draping it in a Canadian flag with a sign that says mandate freedom). Okay so one person brought a nazi flag and there’s some Trump supporters. Is that really what’s important here?

The majority of protesters don’t seem like crazy anti-vax confederates but rather wish to communicate that they’re unhappy with covid measures and mandates. Am I missing something?

This isn't a new problem with the Canadian mass media. It has been like this for a while. It has just become far more blatant within the past decade than it was in the past. CBC News has gotten particularly bad.

> Am I missing something?

There’s numerous videos pouring in of individuals going into local businesses to harass and threaten employees while flaunting they aren’t wearing masks.

These individuals likely don’t represent the majority. But it doesn’t feel like just a few bad apples.

I wonder if the CBC will pull a CNN, a la “Firey but mostly peaceful protest”?

I’m betting on “no”.

They’ll seek out the fringe and ignore the majority, report innuendo and rumor as fact, and try and paint the whole movement as “racists, alt-right, anti-science” all the while ignoring all the evidence it’s not.

If some participant is interviewed and sounds articulate, with rationale concerns about government policy, that’ll be left on the cutting room floor.

CBC is now literally claiming that Russia is behind the truckers protest. It’s a drastic pivot from claiming that it was a fringe minority, which now seems like a total lie considering the scale of it and the tens of thousands of people that came out just to stand on the side of highways and cheer on the protesters.

https://thepostmillennial.com/cbc-suggests-russian-actors-be...

One reporter asked a question about the possibility. Which, sure, is a valid thing for convoy supporters to be offended about (and/or to make you suspicious about her intentions). That's fine. I get it.

But that is decidedly not the same thing as "CBC is now literally claiming that Russia is behind the truckers protest".

True, but it’s a cheap ploy to discredit the movement.

I assume CBC does it more for the outrage clicks than actually believing it’s a possibility.

But it seems par for the course as a political tactic lately: 1) deny a movement represents a significant part of the population, if that fails 2) associate the movement with undesirable elements like Neo-Nazi’s, militias, if that doesn’t work, 3) infer foreign interference.

Note you can do this without a single shred of evidence, pretend like it’s an innocent question, and still discredit the movement. How do you prove a negative?

I mean, if I asked “Maybe Trudeau is secretly an agent for the Chinese?” people would just say it’s a stupid question because without proof it’s just absurd.

It’s the same claiming this protest is being driven by Russia.

I agree, generally. And as mentioned, I think it’s a fair thing to call out.

It doesn’t make the statement that the parent said about the CBC “literally claiming” the Russians are behind it any more true.

You don’t view asking an unsupported leading question as a weak handed attempt at misinformation or seeming state-media corruption? Reporters are representatives of their employer. And a reporter at a state owned media floating a conspiracy theory about citizens who are legally protesting seems a lot like propaganda. We would definitely call it that if it was done in a country outside the Western hegemony. I haven’t seen the CBC or government officials discredit this yet, so I assume they are happy to stand by and let it circulate.

Having been following the movement from supporters Facebook groups, you are seeing it much as they are seeing it. The government sees it differently, but it seems hard to me to call this a "fringe minority ... who are holding unacceptable views". What fraction of Canadians they represent is hard to tell (although, honestly, it wouldn't be hard for the media to commission and report an unbiased poll).

The Angus Reid Institute have some recent poll results related to this.

Agree vs Disagree: "It's time to end restrictions and let people self-isolate if they're at risk"

54% responded agree or strongly agree during the Jan 27-28 polling period. This is up from 40% during the Jan 7-12 period.

https://angusreid.org/omicron-incidence-restrictions/

A friend of mine recently died by suicide and I think the constant persuasion to socially isolate was a contributing factor. It made it near impossible to detect that something was wrong and to intervene. He messaged me the day before asking how I was & mentioned that mental health was on his mind. I didn't realize that he needed help urgently.

People suffering from depression don't seek help and I'm not going to force him meet face-to-face. We're making the responsible choice anyways, given our public health recommendations. He was of course in the lowest COVID risk demographic, and was vaccinated.

The subversion, strawmaning & lies-by-omission throughout MSM and from our politicians has been incredible. It's even worse that friends and family are parroting it. People are suffering because of the public health mandates. It's not just "Canadians are tired". I don't think this is being fairly acknowledged.

>But police say they are concerned about how the convoy has attracted extremist rhetoric

Blame the government for that. They need a scapegoat so hard for their failure to plan & react to the pandemic that they villainize groups like this and try to ostracize them (e.g. trudeau & al saying they are a fringe group - saying that since 90% of people are vaccinated they agree to the mandates, which is a false dichotomy. If you force someone to do something you can't say "well you did it so you agree it's necessary"). What did they expect would happen to those they voluntarily ostracize?

I've seen a lot of reasonable people that just didn't think the vaccine was worth it to them be pushed into very fringe views out of being cornered by the ruling class.

Yeah I voluntarily got vaccinated, before anyone was talking about mandates, and I never considered they would actually happen in a free country. If I'd thought that getting a vaccine (that I didn't really see as vital for me) was an implicit endorsement of authoritarian policies about requiring to show you've taken it to participate in daily life, I maybe would have reconsidered. If we were only 50% vaccinated here, the government may have thought twice about excluding so many people from society.

It's ridiculous that voluntarily taking a medicine (a good thing to do) gets turned into an excuse for authoritarian rule

Authoritarian rule? Firstly mostly they’re arguing about provincial legislation to the federal government. Secondly vaccinations are already mandatory in most provinces to attend school and for most health care jobs. Stop with the hyperbole.

Unacceptable provincial legislations are federal matters. That has always been the case and is why the supreme court is federal.

So it makes sense to protest in ottawa when overreach is suspected (esp since this seems like a human rights matter and is federal jurisdiction).

Provinces in Canada have way less power than states in the US

You might want to look at https://www.canada.ca/en/intergovernmental-affairs/services/... to see what is exclusively a provincial matter and a federal matter and then where the power is shared. Now you tell me what provincial legislation should have been interfered with at federal government with respect to mandates and lockdowns.

Have you read that link? I'm not familiar with all the intricacies, but from a cursory look these seem relevant:

>Certain areas of government action - some of which have become priorities over the years - are not specifically identified and assigned to one or both orders of governments in the Constitution Act, 1867. The courts have found that these areas come under various legislative powers, some federal, others provincial. Two such areas are the environment and health.

Federal:

>Regulation of Trade/Commerce

>Quarantine

This also doesn't seem to be set in stone as mentioned in "5. Court Interpretation of the Distribution of Legislative Powers." Neither does it seem complete, as e.g. it doesn't mention human rights as being either federal or provincial, while there is a lot of precedent of it being a federal matter.

EDIT: Also AFAIK most mandates are provincial bylaws that stem from the emergency act (which is a federal act)

Reasonable people

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sfql2g/nazi_flag_duri...

An obvious plant or less obvious idiot. And?

And? Okay.

The people who started the GoFundMe are Tamara Lich and B.J. Dichter. Neither of them are truck drivers. They are, however, racist conspiracy theorists.

Tamara Lich's Facebook pages were full of Islamophobia, and conspiracy theories about the "Muslim Brotherhood" operating in Canada, and her own personal activism supporting conspiracy theorists. Tamara Lich is also an official of some kind in Canada's "Maverick Party", a very fringe movement advocating for western separatism.

B.J. Dichter is an activist for the similarly fringe People's Party of Canada, and has described the Conservative Party of Canada as "suffering from the stench of cultural relativism and political Islam".

Patrick King is another important figure in organizing the convoy, and he is a Nazi. He promotes the "great replacement theory", minimizes the Holocaust, and argues that Jewish bankers are controlling politicians.

Dave Steenberg is another organizer whose brain has been rotted out by Facebook conspiracy theory, and who fantasizes about COVID mask mandates implementors being hauled before war-crimes tribunals. He's also shared the logo of the Soldiers of Odin, a totally! totally peaceful group that just happens to like Nazi imagery and "patrolling" neighborhoods to keep the wrong kind of people out. (The actual Soldiers of Odin don't seem to be involved, though).

This "trucker convoy" has been condemned by trucker associations in Canada and seems to not really have that many truckers involved (mostly pickup trucks).

Convoy members have been seen with US Confederate flags, Canadian flags with swastikas scrawled on them, Trump 2024 flags, and so on. Stickers, t-shirts, and other merch of Trudeau being hanged are popular. (I'm sure this is just a little political disagreement!)

They've terrorized towns that they've rolled through, sometimes invoking upside-down "sovereign citizen" legal logic, like telling people they're trespassing on public property. Ottawa residents have seen many protests, but everyone agrees this protest is one of the most disorderly and aggressive they've ever seen. Including, apparently, harassing workers at a soup kitchen, of all things.

On social media, videos of non-white Canadians have often been appropriated and taken out of context to imply there is broad support for this convoy among all ethnicities.

There are some non-fascist people who may oppose mandates and show up for that reason. But this all definitely started as a ridiculous grift by nativists, conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and literal Nazis, and it's mostly attracted people with obnoxious attitudes.

This comes across as a laundry list of “people who hold views I don’t like” at least the two that started the GoFundMe. And are you saying people can’t start a GoFundMe without being a trucker? That makes no sense, it’s beyond truckers now.

The rest of the names (the ones I’ll take your word are racists) you describe as “organizers” but what does that mean? Involved? Leading it? What? Tweeted support?

And who cares what Trucking Organizations think? Do they represent all truckers? All dissenting voices shouldn’t be heard?

This seems like some vague collection of “facts” and insinuations in an attempt to paint the entire movement. It’s kind of slimy.

Can you describe what sort of evidence would convince you that this movement is a problem, other than the political affiliations and concerns of the organizers, the behavior of people on the ground, the symbols on display, and what actions they are calling for?

Let me steel-man your proposition. I've seen left-wing protests that were organized by people who were rather questionable, and who were far more radical than the average protester. But in those cases, the content of the protest is carefully measured so it's something everyone can support. I assume there are similar affairs on the right. So no, not everyone who attends a protest has identical views with the organizers.

However, it seems to me that even if you ignore every other bit of evidence and try to focus on what it is these protesters want and are actually doing, it's still a problem.

They don't seem to be here to respectfully petition for a change of policies. This is not the loyal opposition.

This is a Facebook conspiracy theory convened to experience itself in person. They're here to flex "ownership" of a national capital, to validate their own delusion that the government is taken over by foreign powers, to call for the literal murder of a political leader, and to goad each other into more and more obnoxious actions.

(not parent)

>They're here to flex "ownership" of a national capital

Seeing how the government & media reacted at the start, I highly doubt a change.org petition would have had accomplished much. Having flashy show of support is way more impactful. This is the whole point of protests.

>This is a Facebook conspiracy theory convened to experience itself in person.

As I said in OP, reductionist views like this are very toxic and not how you approach disagreements in a democracy.

Attacking the character of some organizers (be it true or not) adds nothing to the discussion except divisiveness. Not only that, you seem to imply that their demands are invalid because of that, which is just a smear campaign to ignore the issues they (and the other protesters) raise.

Once again:

> Can you describe what sort of evidence would convince you that this movement is a problem, other than the political affiliations and concerns of the organizers, the behavior of people on the ground, the symbols on display, and what actions they are calling for?

More importantly, why do you insist on labelling them as a problem? What do you propose be done once you do label them as "a problem"?

Yours is a pathetic rhetorical attempt to reduce a complex issue to your narrow-minded ontology. You are like the dude who, during the plague of 1630 in Italy, was arguing that Aristotle had said that everything is either a substance or an accident (where "accident" has a technical meaning that I won't discuss here). He then argued that the plague cannot be a substance, and it cannot be an accident either, and therefore the plague does not exist. QED.

Small minds discuss people. Great minds discuss ideas.

The media is in full scramble. Trudeau is in hiding. The police and powers that be are trying to scare people. And others political figures are trying to get out of the way.

Meanwhile you have families, kids, women all standing around in negative -30 temps. The 7 year old holding a freedom sign doesn't seem like a white nationalist coming to kill Trudeau.

I noticed the CBC today finally gave some reasonable coverage of the protest in terms of the peaceful nature and size of it. It was clear for days that they were downplaying it, only covering “problems” (radicals might be hiding in the convoy!) and in general trying to ignore it. This morning some commentator tried to suggest “Zee Russians” might be behind it.

My guess is the international coverage was clearly ramping up, so the CBC had little choice but to join in or else their bias would stick out like a sore thumb.

My guess is the coverage will quickly snap back to all the “problems” with the convoy, entirely ignoring the actual purpose of it.

Its ludicrous exactly how curated the news from "reputable" sources are getting.

Oh, the largest truck gathering protesting the mandate and instead we're going to cover this one man who died refusing to get a vaccine to try and scare the shit out of our population. There are hundreds of thousands of people refusing to get the vaccine, one of them is going to die, its called a pandemic for a reason.

I can respect each channel being a little biased, but what we see today is so obviously blatant in its one-sidedness. I've already set my Youtube settings to ignore news from golden age news channels, I dont even want to see that propaganda anymore.

I'm hoping we are entering an era of more independent and decentralized news networks, because they are the only ones actually covering the news these days. The big news networks are too scared to go out of business if they don't preach what the money man tells them to, and I'm hoping more people come to this realization.

The purpose? To say they’re sick of Covid and the US government should stop requiring vaccines. Oh and to blame the federal government for provincial legislation. These people are antivax anti science antisocial idiots.

The Hill did a segment on the media blackout around the truck convoy protest. It’s pretty dark that so many media outlets can all act in seeming coordination with the government and each other: https://youtu.be/ArYtup2o_qU

> The 7 year old holding a freedom sign

This is always disingenuous to me. Any adults can get their little kids to hold any sign they want... moral, immoral, any message at all. That's not indicative of anything.

I haven't been keeping up beyond the surface level so I have no idea if these truckers are only protesting mandates or if they're secretly neo-nazis and worse.

But I do know that if the government and media wanted to dismiss a protesting group they're nervous about, what they'd do first is villainize them as a fringe group of either crazy people or hateful people or both. That the prime minister calls them a fringe group is not indicative of anything too.

There's a message going around that one strategy to turn the public against the convoy is as follows, as leaked by a whistleblower:

   - a police riot control horse (named after Terry Fox, no less), being led across a street, will be hit with a truck
   - the driver who hit the horse will flee (hit-n-run)
   - the horse will be euthanized when the news cameras come

but the direct participants will be plants.

----

There's also a message saying the prime minister paid a lot (I thought the number cited was "47 million dollars") to hire people to, well, be disturbers at the event.

----

I can't tell if either of these are true. I'd like to say it is beyond the pale, but it just isn't obvious to me that it is.

----

On the other hand, there's a video where the prime minister says,

"Now, you sometimes hear about Liberal bias in the media these days, how they're constantly letting off our government, letting our government off the hook for no good reason. Frankly I think that's insulting. It's clear they let us off the hook for a very good reason, because we paid them $600 million."

but, in looking it up, I see it was a joke taken out of context (see https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/trudeau-media-bribery-fake-v... ). It is so hard to tell what is what these days.

----

With all that said, I am not at all impressed with the Canadian media right now. It is downright shameful the way they've been spinning this story.

Trudeau saying that a portion of his citizens protesting are holding “unacceptable views” was chilling. It’s always telling when someone in power holds free speech or any opposing view in contempt.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8539610/trucker-convoy-covid-vacc...

Quite a few trucks on scene... And many out in the area, under what I am told are rather cold conditions...

Estimates are 2,700 to 3,000 trucks. Most of them are not 18 wheelers but pick up style trucks. Most of the people are from the Ottawa area. According to the news reports they started coming into town and just parking in the middle of the streets.

Current temps are -10F going to 12F on Sunday. It will be interesting to see how long the protest lasts in that kind of weather.

-10 °C isn't unusual for Ottawa and surrounding areas at this time of the year.

Even -25 °C is something most people who live in the region would be expecting and prepared to experience at various points throughout a typical winter.

It's been an unusually chilly January: https://twitter.com/YOW_Weather

Which is surprising, as the Rideau Canal opened for skating quite late this year.

Was there perhaps a typo in this?

>-10 °C isn't unusual for Ottawa

The parent comment was measuring in Fahrenheit

>Current temps are -10 °F

Conversion for the metric people: -10 °F is -23 °C

I've heard reports of tens of thousands of trucks. It's a shame the highway cameras were turned off.

I see claimed that the Ontario Provincial Police say there are 100k to 130k trucks, but I can't see anything official to back that up -- nothing on their twitter feed or website. Maybe on the radio -- but not something I can easily check.

Here's someone on the ground who thinks there are 250k to 1 million people protesting in Ottawa right now. https://twitter.com/JuliusRuechel/status/1487570992356634625...

For the curious, this is a source with an obvious vested interest: “ My guestimate is upwards of 500k as of 4pm Sat, maybe as high as 1M.

It's the most beautiful thing I've seen. It has restored my faith in this country.

Let's keep this party going!”

Lol. Opp reported 18 trailer trucks and about a total of 500 vehicles.

The population of Ottawa is 1 million. As someone in Ottawa, there are trucks blaring their horns downtown, but not a million protesters.

Those are absolutely delusional claims.

I live in Ottawa. There are a lot of protests in the capital, but as protests go they usually:

1. Don't involve too many non-locals; and

2. Don't involve vehicles (ie. everyone's on foot).

The protest has broadened into an anti-mandate message, but it's original purpose of "truckers driving to Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates" allowed for a much bigger (and noisier) turnout despite weak local support.

Keep this image in mind: https://urbanist.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83454714d69e2017d3c37d8...

That link's image is quite a contrast to a few videos I have seen, such as these two:

https://youtu.be/W1BMkp2vlo0 https://youtu.be/3_YlKDu_lgM

There does seem to be a significant push to provide conflicting narratives...

The image is to illustrate the size of a group of people on foot vs in vehicles. There are plenty of protests on foot in Ottawa every year but they go largely unnoticed.

Here's a birds eye view of the protest for anyone trying to compute convoy length based the parents figure.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKT2vVvXMAQODLX?format=jpg&name=...

I personally enjoy that the politicians are surprised at how easily it was to shut down the capital. And how difficult it would be to fight this with a military or police response (though it is early). Their fear though is delicious. PM Trudeau has run away from the Capital it seems (his office is not stating his whereabouts) and that image is just lovely.

Why do truckers have vaccine mandates? They are sitting alone in a truck 99% of the time...

Canadas government wants to punish people that don't want to be vaccinated, for political gain. The connection between rules and public health was lost a long time ago. These are all just populist measures to solicit votes.

We have one of the worlds highest vaccination rates, and where rates are highest, the rules constantly get more strict. Don't think for a second Canadian politicians are making these (illegal) rules because of public health. Long ago, Canadians have voluntarily complied with all advice in high enough percentages that the rest is is meaningless.

sorry are you saying that the US imposing vaccine requirements for truckers is also the US government wanting to punish people?

The US has their own reasons. Part of it is some people see others who didn't take the vaccine as amoral or the reason why things are still locked down. Those people need to be punished some believe.

Many have been feed partial truths and political leaders have used this to deflect blame and place it on a minority population. The smaller the minority the harsher the treatment.

> Part of it is some people see others who didn't take the vaccine as amoral or the reason why things are still locked down.

Well, anti-vax people ARE part of the problem why things are still locked down as anti-vax people are currently taking up most of the critical hospital capacity.

> Those people need to be punished some believe.

From my personal experience, on the anti-vax side we have a wife who watched her husband die from Covid but still won't get herself OR HER SON the vaccine.

If we change the words from Republican Trumper to Christian Scientist, suddenly the exact same people think it's okay to throw people in jail for these kinds of beliefs.

At this point, Omicron is solving our anti-vax problem. I feel sorry for those who can't get vaccinated. I've had Covid before vaccines (that sucked and continues to suck in many ways) and I got vaccinated as well. But I, personally, can't do anything more.

At this point it looks like by the end of February, Omicron will have burned through everybody, and we can get back to normal.

And so it goes.

The article being discussed had nothing to do with being against vaccines or hesitant to take the covid vaccine. It is about people protesting a mandate that forces them to share and prove medical information to do their jobs, and participate in society broadly.

The examples you share are not really relevant to that discussion

Bullsh*t. It's about people who just don't buy into the Covid bit and hate being inconvenienced. There's already a lot of restrictions in crossing borders, requiring a drivers license, requiring insurance, training, ... and controlling what can and can't be consumed on the job. So they're already under a whole lot of mandates that weren't oppressive last week. Hell, you can't eat peanuts in school anymore but that doesn't bother anybody.

And with the Confederate, US, Trump, ... paraphernalia in the progression, they're just the same as the folks down south who thought 1/6 was a tour group.

Forgot. There's a whole lot of vaccines that don't bother people, such as getting kids into school, traveling to certain parts of the world, working in certain fields, etc. And when they complain about the mRNA vaccines, they're not pointing out that the various alternatives (traditional and novel) aren't their choice - they just lump them all together and complain.

And for those interested in googling, check out the responses of politicians when the Truckers screw up transport vs. what happened when the First Nations did. And they had similar complaints.

It only applies to non-canadian truckers doing cross border trips... https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2022/01/requirem...

Truckies travel between population groups so can spread Covid, just a ships moving between countries can spread invasive species.

It’s not the 70% of the time they are alone, it’s the time at load/unload, truck stops along the way, and the like.

Buying food and fuel. Going shopping. That basically describes everyone who does not have a keyboard career.

> it’s the time at load/unload, truck stops along the way, and the like.

Install procedures around those stops then. Problem solved.

This constant fearmongering and coercion by the state is the real problem right now. For some reason it gets the majority of the population to cower up into obeisance, and the rest who are more independent thinking and less fearful of death, who are willing to die for what they believe in, end up getting bludgeoned by the fear-ridden vaccinated population who are supposedly already protected by their vaccines and their many boosters.

I just don't get it. People who are protected are protected. People who are willing to die for what they believe in are allowed to both fight and to die for what they believe in. This is great, lets not put in a mandate for it. That's not creeping into authoritarianism, it is authoritarianism.

I say let the truckies keep fighting for what they believe in, they are braver than the vaccinated mass. And if the vaccinated mass want to hurl vaccines at them then let them. But don't let the state mandate people to inject chemicals developed by the state.

> Install procedures around those stops then. Problem solved.

Your suggestion sounds sensible: as this is about unvaccinated Canadian drivers returning from the US, I am sure Canada will implement your solution at all the truck stops in the USA.

But Omnicron data shows that fully vaccinated people can still get infected and spread the virus.

I mean, Canada has already approved Covid positive doctors going back to work immediately including treating patients.

And they can mix positive and negative patients in the same ward.

It’s pretty clear the health authorities aren’t that concerned about spreading covid.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-hospitals-can-put-covid-positive-a...

>I mean, Canada has already approved Covid positive doctors going back to work immediately including treating patients.

Source?

BC and Quebec so far.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-may-allow-some-covid-positive-heal...

Hasn't California just done the same?

Yes, although it's not clear how widespread the practice is.

https://www.timesheraldonline.com/2022/01/17/california-allo...

I see an article saying BC is investigating having Covid positive health care workers return to work in a limited capacity. Your claim was that “Canada” is already allowing Covid positive doctors to “immediately” work directly with patients.

Am I missing something?

This thing started because of the added restriction of being fully vaccinated to cross the US or Canadian border as a trucker.

Because they didn't want the truckers filling up the hospitals. Same reason as New Zealand having the mandates, it wasn't about trying to reduce spread, it was about trying to reduce the number of people who would end up in hospital.

The vaccine vastly reduces rates where people end up having to be hospitalized, and hospitalization is expensive and bad.

> want the truckers filling up the hospitals

Shouldn't be a problem in a free market. Supply will increase in response to increased demand and prices will adjust accordingly in the interim. It will be fine. Not the government's job to micro manage this stuff, especially by trampling on fundamental individual rights.

It is the government responsibility of course. Canada is not the US.

Ah, looks like we found the root cause then :)

> Why do truckers have vaccine mandates?

All people crossing the US-Canada border have vaccine mandates. The bigger question is why have truckers been exempt up until now. Well, it's obvious, we have a logistics crisis. But we've discovered that most people will get vaccinated to save their jobs, so there's not much worry. We'll lose very few truckers and those can take up non-border crossing routes.

Anyway, most of the exemptions for many essential workers classes expire tomorrow.

> But we've discovered that most people will get vaccinated to save their jobs, so there's not much worry...

And if that doesn't work, maybe we can threaten to take their children away, or to put them in camps. Most would comply when faced with that sort of coercion, so there's not much worry...

In a lesson for “choose carefully those whom you support” —

Some trucker convoy organizers have history of white nationalism, racism : https://globalnews.ca/news/8543281/covid-trucker-convoy-orga...

THE ‘FREEDOM CONVOY’ IS NOTHING BUT A VEHICLE FOR THE FAR RIGHT They say it is about truckers, and have raised over $6 million dollars on GoFundMe. But if you look at its organizers and promoters, you’ll find Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism, and incitements to violence: https://www.antihate.ca/the_freedom_convoy_is_nothing_but_a_...

Freedom Convoy’ leader shared symbol of far-right hate group on TikTok : https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ts/news/canada/2022/01/2...

Governments would use any chance to undermine peoplekind rights

Just for the record, here’s a c&p from Reddit:

Onedayatat1m3 Lest We Forget emoji:poppy: • 2 hr. ago

There is tons of despicable behavior, here is a small list below:

Conservative MP Michael Cooper being interviewed supporting the convoy in front of a Canadian flag with a swastika on it https://twitter.com/bgrantcampbell/status/148747445147846656...

Terry Fox statue desecrated https://twitter.com/kwhateverman/status/1487480802774589452?...

“Unvaxxed are Rosa Parks” sign https://twitter.com/texxto/status/1487461479351828490?s=21

Protestors parked on the War Memorial https://twitter.com/davidakin/status/1487427256511348742?s=2...

Nazi flag in Major’s Hill Park https://twitter.com/yonifreedhoff/status/1487517973422223374...

Woman drunkenly dancing on top of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier https://twitter.com/s_thornton_332/status/148751829666872115...

Randy Hillier and Maxime Bernier removing barricades and pushing past Parliamentary Protective Services https://twitter.com/randyhillier/status/1487515969182441474?...

Confederate flag flown from the back of a pickup truck on Elgin St https://twitter.com/arieltroster/status/1487081459546529798?...

Pat King being told to “kick it down” as he knocks on the door of the Prime Minister’s Office https://twitter.com/arccollective/status/1487519336277241858...

An ambulance was blocked on its way to the Heart Institute at the Civic https://twitter.com/captcanuck6/status/1487504027785039879?s...

More Confederate flags, this time at Parliament Hill https://twitter.com/gray_mackenzie/status/148745020113261363...

You're showing your true colors when you say that putting the Canadian flag and a sign saying "freedom" is despicable and desecration.

Terry Fox sure as fuck would not support the protest and like the vast majority of Canadians would despise anti-mask/anti-vax lunatics, white supremacist shitheels, and the assholes who are blaring their horns in people’s neighbourhoods for days on end, as poll after poll has shown.

Canadians on the whole found it really disgraceful to drape the Fox memorial in political slogans. Suck it up, buttercup: it was the wrong thing to do.

Omicron is waning rapidly. The pandemic will soon end. Which is why these protests are happening now: wait any longer and the opportunity to grift will have slipped by. The far right groups that organized this made serious bank on this. $8M in GoFundMe, to be spent on socially-destructive separatist messaging.

Exactly we should just bite our tongue and wait for our dear leaders to tell us when it’s safe to go outside again.

To even question that is “an unacceptable viewpoint” to quote Justin Trudeau.

Just sit down, shut up and the government will tell you when and what to do. Wait for further instruction.

But you see, throughout this entire pandemic I’ve mostly ignored the government and instead listened to epidemiologists, kept my eye on ICU rates, and governed myself accordingly. And by doing so I’ve been out to dine, gathered in friends’ homes, visited my parents, go shopping, and generally lived my life unimpeded.

Oh, and I’ve also avoided supporting the turds who organized this latest rally and grift: https://www.antihate.ca/the_freedom_convoy_is_nothing_but_a_....

I can be proud of everything I’ve done during the pandemic.

Can’t say the same for the people who were out there pissing on a soldier’s grave, waving the swastika, fighting hotel and restaurant staff, blocking emergency response vehicles, stealing food from the homeless, and keeping their fellow citizens awake all night with their horn-blowing.

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