The sedate and normally unexciting city of Ottawa in southeast Ontario, national capital of Canada since 1857, made the international news headlines for all the wrong reasons on 28 January 2022, when convoys of trucks and vans converged on the federal seat of political power. These vehicles conveyed hordes of freedom-loving, and presumably unvaccinated, citizens of Canada, out to display their displeasure with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government’s infringements of their personal liberties, and with the specific intention of striking a decisive blow to the very heart of government.
The introduction of vaccine mandates for truckers crossing from the US into Canada from 15 January 2022 onwards served as the immediate trigger for the protests, and the blockades that were to follow. Under the vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate, Canadian truckers who were not doubly vaccinated against COVID-19 would have to quarantine for fourteen days upon returning to Canada. The unhappiness of unvaccinated truckers was soon exploited by various conservative and far-right groups. Among those mentioned as “organisers” in various news reports were Tamara Lich (Maverick Party), Maxime Bernier (People’s Party of Canada), and James and Sandra Bauder (Canada Unity). It seems highly likely that the original anti-vaccinations protests have since been hijacked by far-right groups more widely opposed to Justin Trudeau’s political agenda, explaining the appearance of Confederate and Nazi flags at several protest sites.
An initial fundraising campaign via crowdfunding platform GoFundMe raised around ten million Canadian dollars for the protesters, only for the donations to be refunded after police reports of “violence and unlawful activity”. Money was subsequently channelled through GiveSendGo, a US-based fundraising site, along with other American sources sympathetic to the protesters’ ways of thinking.
Canada is not particularly renowned as a hub for vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaxxer sentiments, and most Canadians have supported vaccine mandates against COVID-19, as well as mask mandates and vaccine passports. Around 80 per cent of the eligible population have been fully vaccinated, and the truckers themselves are no exception. According to the Canadian Truckers’ Alliance and Teamsters Canada, around 85 to 90 per cent of long-haul truck drivers are fully vaccinated. The protesters can be thus considered as a rear-guard minority of unvaccinated, and unlikely to be ever vaccinated, truckers.
The downtown area of Ottawa has been transformed into what some liken to a street party site, complete with children and pets. The area around Parliament Hill has been blockaded by all manner of vehicles, stacked up bumper-to-bumper, ranging from camper vans and pick-up trucks to heavy-duty 18-wheelers. The place is festooned with maple-leaf Canadian flags, while the chants of people, the blowing of airhorns, live music (from a concert stage), and occasional speeches all contrive to disturb the tranquillity of an otherwise peaceful city centre. The party atmosphere has been complemented by such recreational paraphernalia as big screens, hot tubs, and an outdoor gym. The encamped protesters have been offered help from many sympathetic, and sometimes unlikely, sources, as illustrated by an aborted attempt by Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, to deliver ten thousand pillows, along with Bibles, for their benefit.
Ottawa’s residents and city councillors mostly seem unimpressed by the disruption to their daily lives and to local businesses, and by reports of disrespectful behaviour, such as protesters urinating on the National War Memorial and dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It has been reported that some business owners are seeking to recoup their losses of earning through a class-action lawsuit against protest organisers. A perception that the police were ineffective and contributed to the current situation by their inaction forced the resignation of Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly on 15 February. Under an interim Police Chief, Ottawa’s police have stepped up their act. Some protest leaders have been arrested, while a three-square-kilometre “secure zone” has been established in downtown Ottawa, extending from Bronson Avenue to Rideau Canal, and between Queensway and Parliament Hill, as Ottawa’s policing enters a more confrontational phase.
The Ottawa protests have spread to other Canadian cities, including Toronto, Quebec City and Calgary. Blockades of vital US-Canada border crossings have disrupted cross-border trade and interrupted crucial supply chains (food, consumer goods), thereby inflicting economic damage on both nations. The busy Ambassador Bridge crossing, between Windsor (Ontario) and Detroit (Michigan), which accounts for about a quarter of all US-Canada trade flows, was closed for six days before reopening on 13 February. Other crossings in western Canada (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba) were also blockaded for varying lengths of time. In an early indication that the protests could turn violent, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) seized a cache of firearms, ammunition, and body armour at the Coutts Crossing in Alberta on 14 February.
The Freedom Convoy has been widely hailed by conservative politicians. right-wing media outlets, and assorted celebrities and intellectuals, directly beyond the southern border of Canada and elsewhere, and also inspired copy-cat blockades and rallies across the Atlantic (Austria, France, the Netherlands, Belgium) and much further afield (New Zealand).
Meanwhile, the protesters have infuriated Trudeau, who has refused to meet with what he describes as a “fringe minority”, leading him to invoke the Emergencies Act 1988, itself a replacement for the War Measures Act 1970. These temporary emergency powers will target protesters and financial institutions (including crowd-funding sites) found to be funding them, allowing seizure of vehicles and property, freezing of personal or corporate bank accounts, and suspension or cancellation of driver’s licences, Commercial Vehicle Operator’s Registration (CVOR) certificates, and insurance policies-all measures designed to hurt where it matters the most. Federal police will be deployed to the provinces to ensure the arrest of protesters, despite the reluctance of some provincial governors to accept support for local law enforcement from outside of their borders.
The Canadian protests against vaccine mandates are yet another example of a disruptive civil disobedience campaign, led by a defiant, but vocal, minority that threatens to overwhelm the voices of a compliant, but mostly, silent majority- a phenomenon to be expected from, and indeed being witnessed in, all Western liberal democracies where personal freedoms and collective responsibilities increasingly conflict with each other. When it all comes to an end, as all man-made events eventually do, there will be much material for historians, sociologists, and psychologists to ponder over for many years to come, as well as more fodder for budding conspiracy theorists.
Ashis Banerjee