Canada Convoy Update

Dan Collen joins us once again to give an update on the Truck Convoy at Ottawa, Canada’s capital city.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh Macrown, great timing. M hmm, I love oh man.
I'm Robert Evans. This is it could happen here a
podcast about Greek numbering schemas. Garrison, what do you? What
do you? How do you? How do you feel about?

(00:25):
Oh macron? This has nothing to do with the topic
we're talking about. So this is this is an update.
A few of right last week were earlier this week
we discussed the uh the truck or scheduled our episode
recorded before the truck convoy for after the truck convoy

(00:45):
had already done a bunch of things, which was really good.
So we we recorded to talk about the trucks that
were that we're going to show up at Ottawa and
thing things did happen? Maybe not that not because like
I've been listening some of their claims or like an
Alex Jones is parenting there now that it was like

(01:06):
eight hundred thousand to a million truckers and there's three
hundred thousand truckers in all of Canada, like but it
was like it was like it was a lot of
people like not to not to downplay what happened. So
we're to give an update on what happened there and
kind of discussed maybe any ramifications that stuff like this
could have going forward. But to help with that, um,
we have Dan who came on last time to help

(01:30):
discuss Hello, thank you for coming on again to talk
about the same thing. Thank you for having me. We
last less off with you saying that you hope I
don't come back on again, because that would be a
good thing and it would mean that the bad things
did not happen. So sorry to be here under such circumstances. Yeah,
you want to go over the bad Yeah, So let's

(01:54):
let's briefly do like a recap of like what this
thing was like, like why why was it happening, and
like what was the idea. When we last left Canada,
a bunch of truckers were angry that they had to
present evlations evidence of vaccination. This spiraled and, as I'm
understanding it, at some point them rejecting all public health measures. Yes, actually,

(02:16):
the the exact demands are for the federal and provincial
governments to quote terminate the vaccine passports and all other
obligatory obligatory vaccine contact tracing programs UH, to terminate COVID
vaccine mandates UH, and quote respect the rights of those
who wish to remain unvaccinated. Uh And here's where it

(02:37):
gets weird. Uh see a good devisive rhetoric attacking Canadians
who disagree with government mandates. Kind of hard to say
when that one's fulfilled and finally ceased to limit debate
through coercive measures with the goal of censoring those who
have varying or incorrect opinions. That's what the convoys for.
I mean, do you all know what a government is?

(03:02):
Evidently I was at some debates with the state that
went a lot uglier than it looks like this. One
went oh yeah, yeah, we we we can talk about that.
This this the standoff has been well, there's been just that,
it's been a standoff in that regard. So it seems

(03:22):
like they've kind of hooligan around a bunch of towns
and threatened a homeless shelter if they didn't give them
food and that left trash everywhere, and set up a
checkpoint on the border, or just a blockade on the border.
I think it's probably more accurate. There's been blockades going
on and up the border. I think the most noteworthy
is an Alberta and coop right now, but I might

(03:45):
be pronouncing that wrong. And what was the police It
was something along the lines of we don't think there's
like a policing solution to this problem. Oh yeah, so
you're totally up to date that that happened today. Yeah,
so a little after two on lafter two pm today,
the Ottawa Police Chief Peter Slowly said in a press

(04:06):
conference that quote, there may not be a policing solution
to this demonstration. Is it really that easy? It's evidently
it's that easy if you wait till kind of like
the media has had a few days and most of
the coverage is just like breaking bad things still happening.

(04:28):
Uh so it's it's not great. So what what was
the lead up on set? Right? Because they were all
they were all all the trucks and caravans and stuff.
We're supposed to live on Saturday? What was the lead
up on Saturday? Like and like what what what happened
like the actual like first day? Yeah, so Saturday was
technically the first day, actually Friday. Throughout the day a

(04:51):
lot of people started arriving. So the occupation has been
we're recording now Wednesday. Um, it started on Friday and
and the main like the largest contingent of the convoy
was staying overnight Friday night in a nearby town called
Armfire west of Ottawa, and they moved in from our
empire to Ottawa on Saturday morning. At the same time,

(05:14):
people converged from other parts of Canada. Um to Ottawa's
east is Quebec and to Quebec's east of the Maritime provinces,
and three thousand people at least came from Quebec and
met with the convoy to on Saturday, kind of coming
in from different parts. The day between Friday night and
Saturday afternoon and Saturday was kind of the big day,

(05:36):
the big party. UH. The main point of contention and
the main thing that happened was some major streets are
gridlocked by vehicles moving into the city into the very
crowded core of Ottawa, my hometown and staying stationary on
busy roads. Both commercial and residential roads are part of this.
Driveways for both businesses and residences were blocked off. Fire

(05:58):
roads were blocked off, and Owen's routes are blocked off.
Local businesses that stayed open had to close throughout the
day Saturday, largely UH. Some managed to not and many
of you just stayed closed already because they knew what
was going to happen, and this happened. Closures that happened
on Saturday are mostly still going on today as I'm

(06:19):
speaking to you. Wednesday night, UH closures followed patterns of harassment,
some alleged assaults which Robert mentioned before, else happened at
a homeless shelter in downtown Ottawa, and pretty much everyone
I've spoken to, I've I've been in Ottawa, visiting it
to my hometown, and pretty much ever what I've spoken
to who lives in the downtown core is that a

(06:39):
slew of story since Saturday of either harassment at work
or just harassment walking through the streets. And the worst
part of it all is that right now there's not
a clear ending in sight. What is it like on
the ground there in terms of you know, there's like

(07:01):
kind of like a blockade around the border. They're like,
what else is like around Ottawa? What's like what like
what what is what's it like to walk around in
these places? And like how big is the area that
these people are staying at? Like where are they staying at?
Are they all sleeping in their trucks. Who staying at hotels,
what's like what's like the It's an excellent question. There's
a there's a mix of hotels were booked up the

(07:21):
week leading up to the weekend, as as the new
cycle kind of exploded, more and more people called into
hotels in Ottawa. A lot of people actually brought tractors.
People are also sleeping in their trucks. Uh. Of course,
people have like family and stuff staying in Ottawa. Sometimes
they're staying with them. Um, it's a mix of everything. Actually,

(07:42):
I know a guy who even his car was like
blocked off in the parking lot. He has to parking
because he's downtown. He doesn't have street parking or driveway parking,
like it's in a public lot. And he couldn't get
his car out for over a full day because an
RV camper set up near him and just blocked him off.
So it's a mix of everything. Uh. Starting on Saturday,

(08:04):
there's like a lot of partying, a lot of music,
a lot of kids. Uh. It's gotten a little bit
more chaotic and less condensed since then. And also the
area is hard to gauge because streets are actually constantly
as vehicles move out for one reason or another. Streets
are kind of being retaken back organically by the city,

(08:24):
but then sometimes throughout the day getting retaken again back
by the convoy. So the occupation has been a little
fluid on some of the outside streets. Wellington's Street, which
is the street outside of Parliament in Ottawa, has been
consistently occupied, to my knowledge, blocking off kind of not
actually blocking off, but you have to walk past them
as a pedestrian to get onto Parliament Hill. So that's

(08:46):
where the kind of the core is, the action of
the action is, and everything else spreads out from that
and near hotels, Uh, there's a little more action because
that's generally where people are staying. How has members of
Parliament and like local Poul Titian has been reacting since Saturday?
I know there was there was some videos of like
I think one of the MP's from Alberta was giving

(09:08):
an interview that gained some traction online. Um, but yeah,
it's kind of curious, like how the like different government
officials are talking about this. I'm actually so glad you
asked that because as of today, the divide in members
of Parliament has actually led to some pretty incredible political ramifications.

(09:28):
So last time we spoke, I think Aaron O'Toole had
just earlier in the day endorsed compoints that he'd be
coming down. Erin o't tool, for those unaware, is the
leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. He's a real
real otool. Wow, whoa whoa mind blowan, no one, no

(09:49):
one could have seen that joke coming. Every every Canadian
listener just like collectively mold. Yeah. So aeronauts tool and
just endorse the convoy. He'd been getting some tough questions
about it. Following everything we just talked about and more,

(10:11):
aeronots will walk that back and said, you know, he
didn't approve of the way that the convoy was acting
in Ottawa. This led to a swift referendum on his
leadership and earlier today Aeronot Tool was voted out as
the Conservative Party leader in Canada. And that does have
pretty big ramifications. I know. I talked about Erino Tool

(10:31):
a decent amount in my previous Canada episodes for cadapp
and here. Um, so yeah, that'll be really interesting to see.
Who uh what's do you have any idea of when
the new person is going to try to get voted it. Like,
when when do you think that process is going to
happen to fill that spot. I'm actually not sure. I
haven't looked up when it's gonna happen. It feels like

(10:54):
there's been months before where there's an anti leaders of
the Conservative Party. The main concern right now for the
outside of Conservative politics is because erin o Tool was
considered relatively moderate. He talked about in the Fascism Canada
episode how erin O't tool kicked out Darren Sloan from
the party for being pretty coy on donations from neo

(11:14):
Nazi Paul Front on his campaign. Uh. Overall, like, that's
a pretty great thing, that Erino Tool that kicked him
out of the caucus, Like regardless of other elements of
that leadership. Uh, there's worrying that that kind of there
will be continued forward, especially because Sloan was also in
the leadership race and Sloan has only gotten further right

(11:35):
since then. Yeah, it is this despite Aerono tools not
great aspects, which there are lots of. He did he did,
he did take it. He did kind of hold back
some of the more problematic, uh conservative like elements, whether
that be you know, people from you know, from his

(11:57):
own party, like like Derek, and then I'll so keeping
kind of the people's party stuff at bay um. Yeah,
and that will be an interesting kind of power struggle. Now,
that will be something to observe. I think the thing
that concerns me most about all of this is the
implication of the implications for this is a tactic. We

(12:19):
saw a version of this that was more limited in
scope and time in Portland when this huge Trump caravan
rolled through downtown, blocked off big chunks of downtown and
like just maced and shot people with paintball guns at random,
and it was kind of like, I think everyone there
was surprised at how many folks they got for it. Um.

(12:40):
This is a much more evolved version of the same tactic,
and it's kind of stuff we talked about in season
one of it could happen here. This idea of like
people coming from these conservative majority areas in a place
where the vast majority of people are liberal but centralized
in the cities um and blocking those cities off or
otherwise disrupting their ability to transit UM, potentially their ability

(13:04):
to get things shipped in like food, UM, like their
ability to use free movement UM. And we've seen pieces
of this again in a bunch of places in Oregon
during the wildfires. You had these rural communities setting up
checkpoints and stuff, looking for people from the cities that
they could bill as Antifa. And it's this it's this
world worrying trend for a couple of reasons. Number One,
when you get ten people to do something like this,

(13:27):
even if the city has hundreds of thousands of people,
that's effectively too large a group to police UM. And
the police don't want to police it anyway, so there's
not even really an attempt to stop them. UM. And
it's a way in which the vast majority of Canada,
at least based on the polling I'm aware of, UM,
is not in support of the causes these guys are backing.

(13:48):
Was it like sevent of the country supports some level
of like vaccine mandates, UM, if I'm remembering correctly the
last one I read. So this is not a popular movement.
It's not even super popular among the truckers. Like the
actual it doesn't matter how many people in the cities
you can get. If you can get fifty people to
do something like this, the police won't will not take action,

(14:10):
and you can negatively impact the lives of a huge
number of millions before it gets radical, right, That's when
these guys are not coming in with guns with the
express plan to eliminate people or trying to specifically block
up food. They're just kind of sucking around now. But
it's this kind of is this thing we've talked about
where you have this is the thing in Canada and

(14:30):
the United States, you had liberals kind of outsourcing the
protection of society to this group of increasingly heavily armed
and radicalized people who are now in a lot of
cases fascists. Um. And that means that when there's a
problem with a large chunk of people who hate everything
you stand for, the people that you have completely outsourced

(14:51):
protection to are all unfavor of fucking with you because
they hate you. And it's it's a problem in Oregon,
It's going to be a problem in fucking New York
City or whatever at some point. It's a problem in Ottawa. Um,
I don't know, am I am I off base? Here?
Am I am I? You're not on base at all?
And uh like there isn't there isn't anything to to

(15:13):
really elaborate on past what you said the last time
we spoke, I think, Robert, you said there's not a
whole lot. It was what you said that could really
really be done with the vehicle occupation tactic, and this
unless a lot of people are willing to meet them
with an equal force, which unfortunately Ottawa didn't have. Like
it's an Ottawas. Ottawa's a relatively large city in Canada's

(15:35):
there's over a million people that live here. It's also
by land mass, I think, the largest city in Canada,
like east to west. It's it's very spread out, so
it's a low population density. So even the affected area
downtown is actually like pretty small in relation to the
city itself, which is pretty unfortunate. And like it's not
a particularly packed downtown for a large downtown. I am.

(15:57):
I am curious kind of on the violent aspect um
has Like I know there's been like um of increase
in death threats to members of parliament, like specifically liberal
members of parliaments, specifically liberal members of parliament who are
women who are maybe not white. Um, so I would

(16:19):
curiously if if you have any more kind of information
on that side of things, and then how how violence
has popped up in a few places throughout the past
like a week. Basically, yeah, there's been a lot. So
I mean, even if you're going by what's reported, like
right now, there is by most estimates, under a thousand

(16:41):
maybe at most a few thousand, very fars spread out
people as part of the convoy. As of yesterday, there's
thirteen active police investigations. The police of the city, the
City of Ottawa said in the An Oppressor. We obviously
know when there's like thirteen active investigations in anything this big,
there's way more that's not being reported, not being invest stigated. Um,

(17:03):
like they took you know, like these things are going
to thirteen is going to be resultful of something bad.
So some of the things that happened Robert mentioned before
the illegit assault on a houseless person inside of Shepherds
of Good Hope in which a security guard was also
called a racial slur. Uh. There was a house that

(17:23):
diplayed displayed a rainbow flag outside of it, that had
harassment and poop thrown at it. Um they have been
we need to get a hundred thousand people together to
throw their own poop back at these people. It's the
only way they'll learn. Yeah, fighting fire with fire is
that that expression? I'm sure just emerged from just tossing

(17:44):
poop at each other's strategy. It's meant for this. Yeah,
there's been suggestions all of our social media channels on
like here's how you can poop in snowbanks without getting caught.
Businesses have been harassed, the violenced, So like what I
think maybe some context that isn't always known. In Ottawa
on Saturday and until recently, dining in in restaurants wasn't allowed.

(18:06):
We were actually in a relatively strict lockdown following around
a chrown wave, and a lot of people even coming
like didn't know that. Like I spoke to people on
Saturday who were like, hey, do you know like when
the restaurants around here open so we can like sit
down for a meal. And I was like, there's no
sitting down on autous. So what people were doing they
were going inside cafees like two horns and stuff, and

(18:26):
they were just refusing to leave in eating their food
there anyways, and if there was no seats, they were
just like eating in line. It was also minus twenty
eight degrees in Ottawa on Saturday and very very cold
On Sunday there was an extreme cold weather warning, so
especially when people brought their kids, there wasn't a lot
of other options other than like swarm the malls and
swarm restaurants. And even then the mall, the main mall
downtown Rito Center was closed probably throughout the day because

(18:48):
it was not a safe place. So I already talked
before about routes getting blocked. Also not physical violence, but
honking has been keeping people awake. There's been endless honking
if you watch video footage from it, and even in
the background right now, I'm coming from Ottawa, like I
can hear honking in my background. Um, some people allegedly

(19:09):
parked and then urinated on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
which is yeah, this isn't political. Is even the wrong
way to describe a lot of the what's fun about
this for these people, it's that they suck. Yes, fucking
it's just coolly. It's just fucking cooliganism. Uh. And that's yeah,

(19:30):
it's it's fucking cooliganism. There's gonna be a lot more
stories coming out, for sure. Uh as things progress. Um
of stories of harrassment, Like I've talked to people who
have gotten a cat call in the night. People getting
violent altercations, street fights. I'm sure you're going to break out.
It's kind of at a very tense point right now.

(19:50):
And Auto we're at that point we're like, okay, we're
seeing some signs like pops getting thrown at the houses.
What's gonna happen next? Because the police are saying they
don't have a plan, and the truckers are saying they're
not leaving. What's it like outside of Bottawa, across across
all the other places where there's like similar activity happening.

(20:12):
They're all looking to us and being concerned. From what
I'm talking to, UH, anti fascists and Alberta are particularly
concerned right now with the goop protests. There's ongoing to UH.
It keeps seeing popping up like US Canada border activities
in the same there's a few attempted convoys by Americans

(20:34):
and even before in Europe there was a few attempts.
Some got turned away, some Americans got turned away the
Canadian borders. They weren't vaccinated. M Yeah, which is you know,
like it's like you think, because that's the reason they're
saying they're protesting, they would have remembered that and thought
maybe that's gonna like come into play, but I don't. Yeah,

(20:57):
I don't know, because mean, there is a certain point
where if you get enough people going, it would be
interesting to see people really do just try to like
drive through the border. Yeah. Yeah, And I mean there's
been people like you look at social media channels, a
lot of them saying like the borders are blocked right
now with thousands of truckers supporting our cause. So if
you saw that and you believed it, and then you
went to the board and your turn away fading in vaccine,

(21:18):
you meant thought, well, I thought I had you know,
nine people the same causes being we're ready to use
for us, which begs the question, but what happens when
you do exactly? I don't want to find out. Yeah,
that's yeah. That's the thing is like if if if
they do, if they did have what they say they had,
would they just start doing those things and not even
think about it and not even think about like the

(21:39):
politics of it. They're just doing it to do it. Yeah.
I should also mention too, we talked last time about
a Plaid Army slash Diaglon members comments. Uh, they were
broadcast on the news about doing another quote January six,
uh and it came out the news to do was
first reported by Frank magazine and I think by the

(22:00):
Canadian antiad network that he was arrested on fire up
Striges and no a scotiap before coming here. Worth noting
he was reporting live on Info Wars on the Alex
Jonestones on Saturday before this came out and Derek still coverage. Yeah,
Derek Sloan and Ezrael Event were also on the same program.
So I mentioned Info Wars before. That's that's great, That's

(22:22):
what's going on there. Can you see any like beyond
the conservative leadership? What other kind of political implications are
people thinking about in Canada. It's really tense seeing what's
gonna come for other cities. Also, Otto was expecting a

(22:45):
second wave some other people in other places that kind
of didn't think the first one is going to be
huge success. We're saying, well now that it's an occupation,
we're coming and police are even saying there's a second wave.
It's a very tense place right now. We don't really
know what to do. Community places are taking direct community
members are talking about taking direct action. Because it's been

(23:07):
so long. This isn't something that the city of Otta
is particularly used to, unfortunately in my lifetime, and so
the ramifications of the future pretty jarring. But what's alarming
is how successful this occupation was with a relatively small number.
I think the highest estimate it was eighteen thousand people
into a city of over a million, which isn't really
that many when you think about it, but the strategy

(23:29):
was very, very effective. You think about how many fighters
it took for Josh to take control of mosl it
if people if there's not resistance, like, there's only really
a few areas of a city that you need to
occupy in order to have a great deal of control
over what can be done. Yeah, and that's the tough
part is they have a lot of control over that

(23:49):
small area in residents lives. They don't have a lot
of control over Parliament, which is what they're protesting for. Yeah.
I've also just to see has the Canadian mility, Harry
you said anything about these protests and the situation. So
the Attawa police chief in his pressure day was asked
a lot about that, and he's still shying away. He's
still saying he doesn't think military is the only option,

(24:13):
which if you're an activist on the other side of
things and worried about police escalation hurting you in the future,
that might be a good thing to hear. Ye, and
I see your shitty news. I'm not convinced that the
military would fix the problem. I'm not either. And also
Ottawa had other police forces coming to They said they're

(24:33):
spending eight hundred thousand dollars a day, uh, initially to
just cost of policing. Yeah. They also said they've only,
like bylaws, only had a hundred fifty tickets since this
whole thing started in the occupied zone. So it's it's
unclear what a lot of them did other than you know,
keep up appearances. Uh. Like I was walking around, I

(24:54):
saw York Region police officers walking around with their patches.
That's hundreds of kilometers away from Ottawa. So the police presence,
especially on the weekend, was not low. We we had
plenty mhm. They either didn't know what to do, I
thought it would die later, or a mixture of all
the above. And there's been talked to mixtures of Some

(25:16):
police officers have not been happy with it, but there
hasn't been really anything in the news yet, because no
one's come forward. A lot of like tweets of like
from reporter saying I have an anonymous source in the
auto police. It says they wish more actions were taken,
some saying otherwise, it's not really united right now. And yeah,
it's scary. Is there any counter protests being planned for Ottawa?

(25:41):
If I knew, i'd say so because by the time
this errors, it would have happened. So I think it'd
be safe to talk about. But fortunately, I'm not really insure.
I'm not actually sure that it might not be the
best person to ask. Yeah, we're keeping an eye out. Well,
the good news is that all men die, and so

(26:04):
long as men die, liberty will never perish. Right, that's good.
It's an upside. That is an upside. That's an up
positive shot. All right, Well, that's gonna do it for us.
We'll keep an eye on this and um what what
results from it, because it's all pretty concerning, um and
worth having having an eye And I'm particularly curious is

(26:26):
to just like what kind of direct community responses to
this develop because I think that's going to wind up
being the only long term solution, you know, it's kind
of what people saw in Portland that there's a there's
a degree to which like the only thing that really
works as a response is is outnumbering them. Yeah. On
on that note, it might be maybe not the smoothest transition,

(26:49):
but there are actually some Autoo mutual aid funds and
then Avoca Secret Yes that are doing some some cool
stuff and there's stuff with that. There's too many of
a list for every but others have compiled list and
I'm gonna point to you there. So Rose Ottawa, which
stands for Rainbow Outawa Student Experience, serves two s l
G B t q I A plus post secondary students

(27:13):
on unseated algonquin On a Shnave territory. Though they have
closed opt nations for themselves following a wonderful spike recently.
They have a list of black lead and black empowering
organizations on their website with donation links, and you can
reach that at Rose Ottawa dot org slash donations. Uh.
There's a cool little Instagram account called transis Beautiful. O
T T O T T stands for Ottawa and that's

(27:34):
all one word. It's been plugging small fundraisers for queer
folks affected by the convoy, including housing support on their Instagram. Again,
that's trans is beautiful. O t t on Instagram. Uh,
something we didn't get to talk about, which is ram
Ranch Ram Ranch dot c A r A m Dash
Ranch dot c A. A website was set up in
the name of trolling the convoy Zelo chats and has

(27:58):
been doing a fantastic job about There's a whole army
of trolls in the trucker's elo chats and it's been
really entertaining to tune into. They've compiled a list of
charities on their website. You can check that out at
ram Dash Ranch dot c A and clicking on the
Rancher's donation song. And yeah, where can where can people

(28:18):
find you on the internet? People can find me on
the internet. I'm super active on Twitter at at spineless
lt where it spineless the letter l fantastic. Well, hopefully,
hopefully this gets all resolved and I don't need to
fly up to Canada to go to a protest, and

(28:39):
if if we do, that'll be fun. I've been wanting
to go to Canada for a minute. Yeah I can,
we can. We can take drugs at to Morton's. That
would be fun. Yeah, god, you know, I haven't vomited
into Tim Horton's bathroom in a long time. Our local
McDonald's that got famous on the internet for fistfight that
someone pulled a record in another backpack during had to

(29:01):
actually stop being twenty four hours after the mayor pleaded
with them because it was using up too many police resources.
That is the best kind of place in a year.
That's so dope. Oh god, yeah, I want to I
want to set up somewhere on the border in the

(29:22):
East coast to Tim Horton's, directly across the street from
a waffle house and just let him fight. Well, yeah,
we we do we we do this. That here. That's
that's what you'll have to bring that for. You have
to bring that over, bring a waffle house. Fives over.
All you need to do is watch a man get
stabbed and then spiritually you're at a waffle house. That

(29:45):
and that that ties back to the future of the convoy.
You're right, well that that does it for us today, everybody,
We will see you later. It could happen here as
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(30:06):
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