Freedom Convoy | Truckers in arms

Protests against the vaccine mandate have paralysed Canada’s capital

For more than two weeks now, thousands of Canadian truckers and their supporters have orchestrated blockades in protest against vaccine mandates and COVID-related restrictions. They have caused disruptions at three major sites, including two on the U.S.-Canada border. Traffic on Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit, Michigan, and is the busiest land border crossing in North America, accounting for 30% of the annual trade between the U.S. and Canada, came to a halt, disrupting supply chains and production schedules in both countries. Another blockade site was in Coutts, Alberta, at its border with the U.S. State of Montana.

But it was downtown Ottawa, the country’s capital, that saw the largest convergence of heavy duty trucks. The convoy, calling itself ‘Freedom Convoy 2022’ and numbering around 500, consisted of truckers who had driven from different parts of Canada to pressure the federal government. The immediate trigger for the protests was the coming into force of vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers. Until January, truckers were considered as essential workers and could freely cross the border with goods even as non-essential travel remained banned. But from January 15, any foreign trucker entering Canada needed to be vaccinated, while a similar rule, applicable to Canadian truckers entering the U.S., kicked in on January 22. Those not vaccinated have to show a COVID-negative test taken within 72 hours and go into quarantine for 14 days.

While many reports have characterised these protesters as loony ‘antivaxxers’ backed by the political right, the protest’s organisers, in a statement released on Facebook, have made their demands clear: terminate “the vaccine passports and all other obligatory vaccine contact tracing programmes, or inter-Canada passport systems” and “terminate COVID vaccine mandates and respect the rights of those who wish to remain unvaccinated”.