‘Freedom Rally’ truckers convoy hits Ontario — picking up Conservative political support as it rolls

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In Kenora, where the temperature was expected to drop to -27C on Tuesday night, a host of volunteers were preparing to welcome a massive convoy of truckers.

About two dozen people could be seen gathered at a community hub downtown, packing boxes of snacks and making sandwiches, in a video livestreamed to Facebook by a supporter of the “Freedom Rally” — a convoy of truckers and their supporters that has been making its way this week from British Columbia to Ottawa in a protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

As the camera passed by, many at the hub shouted “woohoo, truckers!” and wore food-handling gloves, if no masks.

Kenora was scheduled to be the first Ontario stop for the controversial convoy.

The organizer who posted the video told the Star she was “so beyond stoked” that the truckers were coming to the town of about 15,000 people, where according to Statistics Canada data about nine per cent of residents work in the trucking industry themselves.

That organizer then stated that she and everyone supporting the convoy have been told not to speak to the media because “too much smearing of this and not the truth being told.” A second organizer confirmed that the Kenora supporters had been asked by convoy organizers not to speak to media.

Kelli Saunders, meanwhile, had found a parking spot with her husband close to the Trans-Canada Highway, where the truckers would be rolling by. She said they were ready, with homemade signs and five layers of clothing, to go outside and cheer.

“Kenora is located right on the Trans-Canada, between Winnipeg and Thunder Bay. We’re a main thoroughfare,” she said. “Truckers, we see them all the time, they’re just part of the community.”

Saunders said she herself has lost a job due to vaccine mandates, and she supports the truckers’ message.

“This has been a hard two years for everyone. It’s been extremely mentally draining,” she said. “I’m really proud of this group of truckers and the way Canada has come together along the route to support them.”

Not everyone in the town was packing food and supplies.

Leslei Scott, who said she lives just 20 metres from the highway, had no plans to go out to watch the convoy, and not just because it was “too damn cold,” though that was certainly a factor.

“People have been used to an amazing life with certain freedoms … but during a pandemic the government has the ability to alter them,” she said. “I think they are protesting whatever the government is mandating them to do, be it vaccines or other.”

En route to Ottawa and expected to arrive Saturday, the convoy has been sparked by government measures to stop unvaccinated truckers from crossing the Canada-U.S. border — and has grown into a conservative movement opposing other COVID-19 restrictions put in place by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.

Conservative politicians and Canadian volunteers opposed to vaccine mandates are throwing their support behind the growing group of vehicles, which was reported to be 20 kilometres long as it worked its way through Saskatchewan and Manitoba on Tuesday.

As the convoy entered the province where its main protest will take place, its role as a litmus test for Canadians’ views on the pandemic, two years in, was on full display.

While figures such as former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney cheered the convoy as truckers fighting “government overreach,” some truckers made it clear that the convoy did not speak for them.

“Right away, when I saw this freedom convoy saying they’re doing this for all truckers (I thought), ‘Well no, you’re not,’” said Mark Mann, a 31-year-old trucker from Whitby, Ont. “They do not represent all truckers. From what I’ve seen, they’re representing anti-vax truckers.”

Mann said that, when the convoy comes through the Greater Toronto Area, he’ll be out driving for work, not joining the protest.

“And if they’re on the 401,” he said, “I’ll be on the 407.”

At the same time, Mann said he didn’t think the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which has denounced the convoy protest, can speak on behalf of all truckers, either. “I don’t think anyone really represents all of truckers, because they’re such a diverse group.”

Those supporting the convoy, for their part, say their coalition is not against vaccination, but that they oppose mandates and view them as a part of a larger trend of government overreach that has seemed to become more common during the pandemic.

One long-haul trucker, Winnipeg’s Sunny Matharu, was driving his truck through Alberta on Monday toward Calgary when he came across a few protesters holding up signs along the road in support of the convoy that was snaking its way across the snowy province.

Matharu said that while he’s vaccinated, some of his fellow long-haul truckers didn’t want to be and have threatened to permanently relocate to the United States if the trucking vaccine mandate isn’t rescinded by the federal government.

“During the peak time of COVID, when COVID started, the truckers travelled all over,” he said. “Why didn’t they talk (about a vaccine mandate) that time? Because there was a need at the time and they wanted to use truckers? Wasn’t their life valuable that time?”

As of Jan. 15, the federal government required Canadian truckers to be fully vaccinated if they want to avoid a 14-day quarantine when they cross the border from the United States. Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan has also announced that vaccination will become mandatory for workers in all federally regulated industries, though no timeline has been set.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance, which has denounced the convoy protest, says more than 85 per cent of the 120,000 Canadian truck drivers who regularly traverse the border are vaccinated, but that as many as 16,000 may be sidelined due to the new restriction, exacerbating supply-chain problems.

The big rigs are bound for the weekend protest in Ottawa. It’s difficult to estimate exactly how large the final gathering will be, but RCMP from Manitoba, where the convoy rolled through on Tuesday, estimated the gathering of trucks stretched for 20 km.

In a joint release Tuesday, the federal government and alliance president Stephen Laskowski acknowledged “unprecedented challenges” to a sector that ships the vast majority of food and consumer products, but stressed vaccination as the route to economic health.

“Vaccines, medications, personal protective equipment, food, and supplies continue to arrive where they need to be thanks to the efforts of our dedicated commercial truck drivers,” said Laskowski, O’Regan, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra and Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough.

“The government of Canada and the Canadian Trucking Alliance both agree that vaccination, used in combination with preventive public health measures, is the most effective tool to reduce the risk of COVID-19 for Canadians, and to protect public health.”

Last Saturday, the U.S. barred unvaccinated Canadian drivers from entering the country, mirroring Canada’s border filter for American truckers.

In a Twitter thread Monday showing pictures of depleted grocery-store shelves, Kenney said he was “on the phone with U.S. governors” that morning who share his concerns. He said he was working on a joint letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Trudeau to end the dual vaccine mandates.

The convoy was greeted in Saskatchewan on Monday night by supporters — Conservative MPs Scheer and Warren Steinley among them — and by more backers Tuesday morning before it left for Manitoba.

Conservatives — both federal and provincial — publicly backing the convoy and blaming the trucking vaccine mandate for supply-chain problems risk painting themselves into a corner, said Lori Williams, a policy studies professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

“They want, particularly, to focus on something that is a more positive story for them, because they’re kind of floundering across the country,” she said.

But supply-chain issues are not caused solely by the vaccine mandate for truckers, she said, as those problems have existed for months before the mandate came into force. Also, the policy exists in the United States and in Canada, “so even if Canada changes the policy, it wouldn’t necessarily change things,” Williams said.

The convoy is only leading to more division and polarization, said Williams. People who are against vaccines and restrictions will remain so, and ditto for those who support restrictions and fear the virus, she said.

“This is simply reinforcing where people already are,” said Williams. “It’s not changing anybody’s mind.”

If the federal Conservatives come out against the trucker vaccine mandate and hang supply-chain issues on it, while also saying they support vaccines, the party risks looking “incoherent,” Williams said.

“The position is losing people on the left to the Liberals who don’t think that is the right position to take, and they’re losing people on the right who don’t think that they’re supportive enough of the protesters,” she said.

With files from The Canadian Press