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Comment by elipsey | Hacker News Reader

I must be the only person here who doesn't already know about these trucking protests; I'm having trouble establishing the basic facts of what is in dispute. Who exactly is required to be vaccinated?

It seems like the fraction of truckers who engaged in cross-border trucking with the US were subject to a Canadian federal vaccination mandate, which applied to some workers in the transportation sector as well as many federal workers, but this requirement was dropped a couple of weeks ago for cross border trucking.[1]

Are the truckers still protesting even though the requirement for cross border truckers to be vaccinated was dropped? Do they have some further demand?

Is anyone here able to kindly cite a (non-editorial) journalistic source which summarizes these events?

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-truckers-sta...

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The requirement was not dropped, I'm surprised Reuters hasn't corrected that article.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/in-for-a-rough-winter...

https://www.bing.com/search?q=canada+trucker+vaccine+require...

So according to these sources, Canadian truckers don't have to be vaccinated. They just have to quarantine if they have symptomatic COVID.

The first link says "On Wednesday evening, a Canadian Border Services Agency spokesperson said truckers would remain exempt from vaccination, testing and quarantine rules — a reversal from what the government had said publicly just hours before."

My top hit on the search is a primary government source stating that: "A Canadian truck driver who is not fully vaccinated can't be denied entry into Canada—Canadian citizens, persons registered as Indians under the Indian Act and permanent residents may enter Canada by right. [...] Any individual who is symptomatic upon arrival to Canada will be directed to a Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) official and will be directed to isolate for 10 days from the time they enter Canada. As of January 15, 2022, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated foreign national truck drivers, coming to Canada from the US by land, will be directed back to the United States."

See, the entire reason these protests are stupid, is because what they're actually protesting is US policy that requires them to be vaccinated or test negative to enter the US. You are correct, they will not be turned away at the border coming back to Canada.

They are protesting US policy in Ottawa because this is really auxillary to the political goals of the organizers.

It just might be the case that you’re focusing on the straw that broke the camels back while ignoring the bale of straw in its entirety.

If you're a trucker, this is the bale of straw. Other restrictions don't matter nearly as much even if you put all of them together.

> Starting on Saturday, truckers coming back into Canada from the U.S. will have to show proof of vaccination or face quarantine and testing requirements. If they’re symptomatic the quarantine could last up to 10 days.

This is the important part.

Regardless the trucker topics, the dispute around media bias is very solid to me. We have a good deal less variety than the US, CBC is very “metric” driven, click bait. It is kind of like if NPR was the main source of news for everyone. Regional news is drying up fast, to boot. There isn’t really “other news”.

“Kitchen sink” finance, inflationary issues are also a big part of the protests imo

It’s also quite frankly a massive dance party, which people have been missing out on

ie protest is (right now) seemingly a bit of a conservative mishmash, not just trucking dispute

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