Vaccine protest snarls Canada-U.S. border crossing for fifth day
BNN Bloomberg
Traffic obstructed at major highway at Alberta and Montana border
One of Canada’s busiest border crossings with the U.S. is shut down for a fifth day as a group of vehicles block the highway in protest of vaccine mandates for truckers.
The blockade has been snarling traffic and stranding truck shipments on a major highway connecting Alberta to Montana since Saturday. Royal Canadian Mounted Police have said the protest is unlawful, but attempts to clear the border have failed. The move is already having a “material impact” on Canada’s economy, Jason Kenney, Alberta’s premier, said in a press conference late Tuesday.
“In terms of critical infrastructure, this is way up there,” said Carlo Dade, director of Trade and Investment Centre at the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation, noting that other crossings are hours away and the roads are not as good.
At issue are Canadian and U.S. laws that went into effect in January requiring truckers crossing the border to be fully vaccinated. In the U.S., only about half of U.S. truckers are vaccinated, while in Canada 90 per cent of truckers have the vaccine, according to industry group estimates. The protest comes with supply chains already under strain from weather disruptions, labor shortages, delivery delays and higher freight costs.
The crossing at Coutts, Alberta is the main route for the province’s commercial vehicles bound for the U.S. as it is the only one that connects to an interstate. More than 11,600 trucks crossed from Coutts into Sweetgrass, Montana, in December. Only two crossings in western Canada had more, according to U.S. government data.
The protest started on Saturday, when about 10,000 trucks and other vehicles began a moving convoy around the border station, Kenney said. No arrests have been made and RCMP stood down from an attempt to remove vehicles Tuesday after tractors and pickup trucks broke through police roadblocks and began driving dangerously, said RCMP Cpl. Curtis Peters. One protest vehicle drove the wrong direction down the highway and collided with an oncoming motorist, he said. No one was injured in the crash but the motorist assaulted the protester, Peters said.