Truckers in Canada

This past weekend hundreds of trucks and thousands of people converged in the national capital of Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates and other covid-19 restrictions.

In a democracy, citizens have the right to protest peacefully and respectfully and while there was no violence, some protesters urinated on the monument to fallen soldiers, others invaded restaurants and malls without respecting masking requirements. Worst of all, some came carrying symbols of hate such as Nazi flags, American Confederate flags and Swastikas. Finally, there were disrespectful overtures to the country and its leaders in the form of upside-down Canadian Flags and vulgar and insulting placards against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

That these people see swastikas and other banners of hate as aspirational scares me as it does many other Canadians whose grandfathers fought a world war against these manifestations of hatred.

A little bit of background.

The Canadian government has issued regulations requiring truckers crossing the border from the United States to show their proof of vaccination. The United States has similar regulations in place, and 90 per cent of Canadian truckers are in fact vaccinated. Yet organizers insisted that the protest is about personal liberties and freedoms.

This is beyond comprehension amid a global pandemic that has taken millions of lives and continues to infect hundreds of thousands every day. However, mixed messaging and contradictory advice to the public from all levels of government over the past two years have led to much public frustration and Covid fatigue has been setting in for some time.

Obviously, there is a political agenda behind these manifestations as extreme right-wing organizations and conservative personalities appear to be driving the movement.

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Canada’s Conservative Party leadership appears to endorse this demonstration and senior Conservatives have come out to meet with demonstrators and express their full support. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole continues to prevaricate on the topic of Covid and means of controlling the spread of the pandemic while many of his supporters and Members of Parliament appear to applaud anti-vaccination extremism.

In fact, most anti-Covid mandates are issued by Provincial governments most of which are Conservative. Hence the confusion with respect to why protestors come out against Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau when in fact most the mandates that they oppose are the product of their own provincial political parties.

Eighty percent of Canadians are fully vaccinated, and the majority approve of government policies aimed at containing the spread of the pandemic. 

O’Toole and his Conservatives are, however, caught between the proverbial rock and the hard place. The Party has a strong extreme right-wing base to which O’Toole feels he needs to cater. Yet he is losing conservative voters at the center – essential to form a government. While it is obvious to all that this does not bode well for the Conservative Party, O’Toole refuses to provide any real decisive leadership. 

In politics, leadership is sometimes doing what is good for the country. In this case, the Conservative leader is trying to be all things to all sides of the party but is winding up being nothing to anybody.

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The extreme right in Canada is getting much inspiration from its counterparts in the United States. The presence of Confederate flags and swastikas at this protest and the language used by its proponents remind me of what we see every day on FOX News.

At the time of writing, protest organizers were promising to disrupt Ottawa life into the week. Indeed, two out of the three organizers of the protest are not truckers but anti-vaxxer leaders. The trio issued a manifesto calling for the Senate and Governor general to override the government’s mandates – ostensibly calling for a coup against the government.

But when one recalls how rhetoric in the United States led to the violence January 6th last year, it is fair to worry that virulent rhetoric could inflame demonstrators if a certain threshold of frustration is reached.

Trudeau obviously will not give in to them and the stalemate could well continue.

As well, given the Conservatives catering to anti-vaxxers and their strong sympathy for this protest, I don’t think that there is much room for negotiating a consensus at this time.

Will there be violence?

I hope not.

The lack of strong leadership in the center right party and its willingness to cater to extremes is dangerous indeed. It not only puts into question their electoral viability, but also creates a vacuum that is ripe for filling by the more extreme elements. 

Already there is speculation about how much longer O’Toole can lead the party. Waiting in the wings is right winger Pierre Poilievre who seems to both support and enjoy the support of the more extreme elements of the party.

This does not auger well for that party nor for Canada. A strong and moderate Conservative Party is essential to maintain the country’s traditional political equilibrium.

Absent this, Canada’s risks falling into the destructive divisiveness that currently exists in the United States and some other liberal democracies.

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Edición: Ana Ordaz