A convoy of anti-vaccine Canadian truckers and their supporters is making its way to the country’s capital, Ottawa.
The so-called “Freedom Convoy” was formed in response to a vaccine mandate requiring truckers to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in order to cross the land border between Canada and the United States.
But during the past week, observers and experts have pointed out that some organisers of the event, as well as some of its most vocal backers, have espoused anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and racist views – and authorities have cautioned that the rally on Parliament Hill could turn violent.
“The ‘Freedom Convoy’ is nothing but a vehicle for the far-right,” according to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a non-profit that monitors hate groups. “They say it is about truckers … but if you look at its organizers and promoters, you’ll find Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism, and incitements to violence.”
Here is a look at what’s going on:
First, what is the vaccine mandate for truckers?
Starting on January 15, Canada has required essential service providers previously exempt from vaccination requirements, including truck drivers, to be fully vaccinated to cross the land border from the US. “Unvaccinated Canadian truck drivers entering Canada will need to meet requirements for pre-entry, arrival and Day 8 testing, as well as quarantine requirements,” it said.
The US has also imposed a similar requirement on its side of the border; as of January 22, non-citizens travelling to the US for both essential and non-essential reasons need to show proof of vaccination at land border crossings.
How many Canadian truckers are unvaccinated?
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), a federation of provincial trucking associations, has said a “vast majority” of Canadian truckers are vaccinated – approximately 85 percent – in line with vaccination rates among the general Canadian population.
Almost 90 percent of Canadian truckers are vaccinated, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said.
The CTA has distanced itself from the convoy, saying it “does not support and strongly disapproves of any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges”.
Supporters of the convoy gather in Toronto, Ontario, on January 27, 2022 [Carlos Osorio/Reuters]
How many people are participating in the convoy?
That is unclear. Police in Kingston, Ontario, said that as of 9:35am local time (14:35 GMT) on Friday, 17 full tractor-trailers, 104 tractors with no trailers, 424 passenger vehicles and six recreational vehicles were heading eastbound on the 401 highway. Others are believed to be arriving in Ottawa from eastern Canada.
What do organisers say the convoy is about?
The convoy is organised under the banner, “Freedom Convoy 2022”.
“On January 15th, a small team of Alberta truckers, their family members and friends, came to the decision that the Government of Canada has crossed a line with implementing Covid-19 vaccine passports and vaccine mandates,” the group said in a statement shared on Facebook.
“We are taking our fight to the doorsteps of our Federal Government and demanding that they cease all mandates against its people,” reads a GoFundMe page in support of the convoy, which has raised approximately $5.5m (over $7m Canadian) to date.
CBC News reported on Friday that at least one-third of those donations came from anonymous donors or were attributed to fake names.
⚠️ TRUCK CONVOY UPDATE ⚠️ The convoy with support vehicles is currently departing #ygk, predominantly at Gardiners Rd and Centennial Dr. View from Gardiners Rd just north of the INVISTA Centre. Please avoid. Also, be careful of pedestrians at other overpasses. pic.twitter.com/GUvnhWycMf
So the convoy is really about Canada’s COVID policies?
“This is no longer about the mandate any more,” said Jason LaFace, whom CityNews described as the convoy’s main organiser in Ontario. “This is about Canada, this is about our rights and how the government’s been manipulating the population and oppressing us all the time,” said LaFace, who is not a trucker.
While some participants do hold legitimate grievances about the Canadian government’s pandemic policies, experts have pointed out that known far-right activists that have espoused racist views are among the organisers.
Some participants also openly expressed hardline views this week. “I advocate civil war,” Jim Doerksen, a convoy supporter, told Global News in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in central Canada. “If people don’t want to stand up, we’ve got guns – we’ll stand up and we’ll bring ’em out.”
Canadian media have also reported on a widely shared video posted on social media that showed one convoy supporter saying that he would “like to see our own January 6 event” – a reference to the deadly riot at the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
Barbara Perry, a professor at Ontario Tech University and director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism, said “this protest against a mandate – a specific mandate within a specific industry – has then been laid over with anti-vax sentiment, anti-lockdown sentiment, anti-government sentiment – and then even beyond that, the far-right [is] coming into play”.
“They call themselves the ‘Freedom Convoy’ so I think that says something about the breadth of the concerns that are brought under the umbrella,” Perry told Al Jazeera. “That is also language of anti-staters. It’s also the language of the far right … It really is part of this broader trend of a convergence of the Far Right with conspiracy theorists and other kinds of grievances.”
Who are the far-right leaders involved?
The organisers listed on the GoFundMe page are Tamara Lich and BJ Dichter.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network reported that Lich was “an organizer for Yellow Vests Canada, a regional coordinator for the separatist Western Exit or ‘Wexit’ movement in Alberta, and now as the secretary for the Maverick Party – another separatist movement and fringe political party”.
Lich has posted “conspiracies about the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ operating in Canada”, the network said, while it pointed out that Dichter also has made Islamophobic comments. In 2019, at a national convention for the far-right People’s Party of Canada (PPC), Dichter said, “Despite what our corporate media and political leaders want to admit, Islamist entryism and the adaptation of political Islam is rotting away at our society like syphilis.”
Patrick King, listed as a contact for the North Alberta group participating in the convoy, has regularly espoused anti-Semitic views on social media. “He’s publicly distorted established facts about the Holocaust … then invoked the antisemitic conspiracy theory that the Jewish people are secretly in control of world governance, media, and finances”, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said.
King said last month, “The only way that this is going to be solved is with bullets.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week that “the small fringe minority of people who are on the way to Ottawa, or who are holding unacceptable views that they are expressing, do not represent the views of Canadians.”
“We know the way through this pandemic is by getting everyone vaccinated – and the overwhelming majority, close to 90 percent of Canadians, have done exactly that,” Trudeau told reporters.
Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, said he was concerned “by the dangerous rhetoric” in the convoy. “I am concerned by extremist elements that are spreading misinformation and attempting to turn the convoy into a Canadian version of the terrorist attacks on the US Capitol,” he wrote on Twitter.
But Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole has said he plans to meet with the leaders of the convoy, while denouncing “anybody promoting violence” within the group. “The thousands of people coming here in the next few days – the trucker convoy – is a symbol of the fatigue in our country right now,” O’Toole told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday.
Just saw a truck outside my doctor’s office in Ottawa, as the convoy starts arriving in town. It had two flags stuck into the back of its truck-bed. One was an upside down Canadian flag. The other, a Confederate flag.
Members of the convoy began arriving in Ottawa on Friday, in advance of a protest on Parliament Hill on Saturday. Organisers, seeking to distance themselves from more extreme participants, have insisted the event will remain peaceful.
Another group associated with the convoy, Canada Unity, has written a “memorandum of understanding” it plans to present to the Senate and governor general, demanding an end to vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions.
Police in the capital said they were focused on ensuring a safe environment, but were aware of “inappropriate and threatening language on social media related to this event” and warned of consequences for anyone “engaging in criminal conduct, violence and/or activities promoting hate”.
In a letter to Canadian legislators on Thursday, the sergeant-at-arms in charge of security in the House of Commons said there were reports that demonstrators were trying to “dox” politicians with homes in the Ottawa area. He told them to “go somewhere safe” should a protest form outside their homes or offices, CTV News reported.
Canadian journalists reporting on the convoy also have received death threats, and been spat on and verbally and physically harassed, the Canadian Association of Journalists said. A CBC/Radio-Canada van was also vandalised.
We welcome peaceful demonstrations. That said, public safety is paramount – there will be consequences for persons engaging in criminal conduct, violence and/or activities promoting hate. (2/2)
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
