February 15, 2022 • 46 mins
How can a truck convoy turn into a full scale city occupation? In part one we dive into the initial organizing efforts and how what happened during the first weekend of protest laid the groundwork for the ongoing occupation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hundreds of truckers continue to roll east and with more
joining the movement. With each passing city, feelings towards vaccine
mandates have heightened, and I advocate civil war. If people
don't want to stand up, we got guns. We'll stand
up and we'll bring them off. Sucking a guys, let's
get pumped for this. Let's go to fucking Ottawa. I
(00:23):
want to see one of those truckers. I wouldn't probably
not not known of our guys obviously, but I would
like to see our own January six event. See some
of those truckers plowed right through that sixty football Welcome
to It could happen here, or in this case, it
(00:46):
did happen here, slashes still happening here and uh the
here in this case being Canada. In recent weeks, the
idea of only a few thousand people totally choking amy
your city, holding it hostage to bargain for political demands,
while overwhelming and getting a foot up on law enforcement,
(01:07):
taking over and shutting down a sizeable portion of a
popular metropolitan area and simultaneously blocking off supply lines, trade routes,
and multiple international border crossings is exactly the kind of
thing this podcast has been talking about for years as
a potential anti government resistance tactic that could become more
common as political tensions rise in North America. Specifically, a
(01:30):
few weeks ago, when the so called Trucker Convoy was
still in its planning stages, I wasn't super eager to
cover it on the pod. Actually, I assumed it would
be a flop and just another dumb anti COVID protest
in a long line of anti COVID protests happening in Canada.
Flash forward to me at the end of January, and
it became apparent that I was solely mistaken and this
(01:51):
thing was shaping up to be a significant factor in
Canada's political ecosystem going forward. In my haste to catch
up to the moment, I recorded two episodes with the
wonderful journalist Dan Cullen, explaining the situation as it was
at the prospective times of recording. But as the tensions
in Ottawa and all across Canada arose and the situation
(02:13):
gained more and more complexity, I decided that the convoy
and subsequent blockades required a more researched and scripted deep dive.
The more I dug into the situation, the more it
seemed to embody the exact thing I was warning about
in my two previous scripted episodes about Canada and the
far right, titled Canadian Fascism A the apologies for the title,
(02:36):
but you can find those if you scroll through the
It could Happen Here feed. Don't think they came out
around like November ish of what I wanted to get
across in those episodes is that Canada is often seen
as an escape from the more divisive, violent, and fascist
elements of US politics and culture. But just like climate change, capitalism,
(02:56):
or any other enveloping force cough cough, hyper objects cough cough,
fascism and the slide towards it can never be truly
escaped right. There is no other, There is no away,
and it's especially hard to see it when it's growing
on the back of your own head, primarily through Islamophobia.
(03:17):
Far right ethno nationalist tendencies have been bubbling under the
surface of Canada for a long while, and since Trudeau
has taken office in twenty fifteen, there has been a
perfect politically allowed boogeyman to blame every problem onto that
can include everything from Trudeau is taking away our oil
and gas jobs, or Trudeau is bringing in Muslim terrorists
(03:39):
to Canada, or Trudeau is starving your children through health
man dates. Canadian right wing protests has been steadily growing
the past five years. There's been multiple flare ups of
far right rhetoric with the Canadian Yellow Vests, the Westerns
that produced we Exit or Western Exit movement, and the
pseudo fascist People's Party of Canada. The incorporation of pandemic
(04:03):
conspiracies and anti vaccine sentiments into the already disaffected rural
Canadian right wingers, starting and continuing to the present, has
accelerated not only the conspiratorial fall right rhetoric among conservative voters,
but also what is seen as a valid political action
in those people's eyes. But before we get into how
(04:24):
the convoy started with anger concerning COVID nineteen health man
dates and misinformation concerning empty store shelves, we have to
first go back in time to even before the COVID
nineteen virus was a blip on anyone's radar. In February
twenty nineteen, the Canadian Yellowsts organized something called the United
We Roll Convoy. The result was around a hundred and
(04:47):
seventy trucks driving cross country through the more liberal East
to Ottawa. The result was around a hundred seventy trucks
driving from the West cross country to the more liberal
East and eventually to Ottawa. The goal was to represent
the concerns of disenfranchised oil and gas workers in the
Western provinces and their opposition to propose environmental and new
(05:09):
energy policies. Yellow Vests Canada was largely founded by individuals
already associated with Canada's far right, which at the time
was primarily united through anti Muslim racism and Islamophobia. Inspired
by the French Heelovest movement, they copied their aesthetics and
adopted new grievances and reaction ay maatoric and get them
a much larger audience. By the time United We Roll
(05:32):
arrived in Ottawa, the media started to catch on to
the more problematic elements about their organization. Neo Nazi faith
goal Eat spoke on a stage. Many members of hate
groups responded in attendance, and with the numbers so low,
it made their more extreme participants stick out. Instead of
focusing the message on oil and gas, as they claimed
to represent Western alienation from a distant Liberal Ottawa. Some
(05:56):
of its participants seemed more interested in protesting Ottawa's immigration
policies then arguing for specific fixes for Alberta's oil patch. Plus,
if you peeked inside any Canadian Yellow vest Facebook group,
you would be flooded with hundreds of examples of explicit
anti Muslim racism and calls for a Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's arrest and execution, a theme that remains common among
(06:20):
COVID conspiracy demonstrations today. But at the end of it,
United We Rull was widely considered a bust, with only
a few hundred participants in Ottawa, and despite raising almost
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the organizers failed to
disclose how much of that money was actually spent on
convoy expenses like gas and food. Afterwards, the Yellow Vests
(06:41):
Canada movement started to kind and die out, though some
holdouts kept smaller demonstrations going for months, particularly in the
conservative oil province of Alberta. But to us now United
We Rule can be seen as a small test run
for the current situation in in fact, it shares many
of the same organizers and even the same promotional materials
(07:01):
except this time they have the added weight of many
more people radicalized into conspiracism throughout the pandemic and much
more funding. So with that in mind, let's dive into
the components of the initial organizing effort. On January two,
go fund me account was set up for a so
called trucker convoy ahead of the January fifteenth adoption of
(07:25):
the mandate requiring all cross border transportation drivers to be
fully vaccinated against COVID. Nineteen Vaccine mandates in Canada have
been in effect since October for ship crews, railways and
airline workers, but effective January fifteenth, the federal government expanded
the requirement to truck drivers returning from the States, and
those who will remain unvaccinated will not be able to
(07:47):
enter Canada without quarantine. One week later, a reciprocal policy
went into effect in the United States for Canadian truckers
crossing into their border, which means going forward, you cannot
really cross the border at all, well remaining unvaccinated. At
this point in mid January, a majority of Canadians still
broadly supported health mandates aimed at limiting the spread of COVID,
but a big part of the early propaganda push for
(08:09):
the convoy was photos alleged to have been from current
Canadian grocery stores, which they were not, with barren empty shelves.
The idea was that COVID restrictions were already severely impacting
the supply line, and any additional mandates would begin to
start with the population and effectively shut down international trade.
Put a note in this idea, by the way, it
will come up later. Ideas for another truck convoy like
(08:34):
United We Roll have been tossed around for a while online,
and with this new mandate on truckers and vaccines, a
time presented itself to give the convoy idea another go.
In the early truck convoy organizing, they were primarily four
familiar far right faces who working together to set things up,
none of whom are truck drivers. By the way, the
(08:56):
originally listed organizers on the go fund me page where
Tomorrow and b. J. Ditcher both have notable experience with
far right organizing. Tamaraw Lich was born in my home
province of Saskatchewan, but now hails from the town of
Medicine Hat, Alberta, where she served as an organizer for
a Yellow Vests Canada, a regional coordinator for the separatist
(09:18):
Western Exit or we Exit movement in Alberta and now
the secretary for the Maverick Party, another far right, extreme
ac separatist movement and fringe political party. Litch started attending
and boosting Yellow Vest events starting in and her social
media posts from around the time show in one moment
calling out some hateful rhetoric from within the movement, while
also posting Islamophobic articles of her own and conspiracies about
(09:42):
the Muslim Brotherhood operating in Canada. A few days after
the go fund me was created, Benjamin B. J. Ditcher,
one time Conservative Party of Canada candidate, People's Party of
Canada booster and co founder of a Canadian far right
podcast network, appeared as a organizer on the go fund
me page. Twenty nineteen. He claimed that Islamist entryism is
(10:06):
rotting away our society like syphilis. Benjamin Ditcher was also
one of the first people to give a speech at
the first proto fascist People's Party of Canada conference in Quebec,
saying that the Conservative Party of Canada is suffering from
the stench of cultural relativism and political Islam, and a
whole bunch of stuff you know in that general vein.
James Botter was another one of the four key organizers
(10:29):
of the trucker convoy to Ottawa. Botter is an admitted
conspiracy theorist who has endorsed Q and on and called
COVID the biggest political scam in history. He's also a
former activist with the Yellow Vests Canada and United we role.
Potter's main project, however, is running the Canada Unity website,
which is one of the original nexus points for organizing
(10:50):
and spreading word about this convoy. The group contends that
vaccine mandates and passports are illegal under Canada's constitution, the
Nuremberg Code, and a host of other international conventions. Potter
has long been a fringe figure, but his movements started
picking up steam and support as announcements and continuations of
(11:10):
restrictions aimed at curbing COVID nineteen spread have continued. The
supposed plight of the truckers proved to be a sympathetic
cause on Facebook and attracted an array of fellow travelers.
The last big major player is Patrick King, another former
Yellow vestor one time major figure in the Wexit movement,
(11:30):
as well as United we Roll On January two, Pat
King hosted a live stream for James Botter to promote
the Canada Unity website and to announce it as the
official page for the Freedom Trucker Convoy, or as they
called it, Operation Bear Hug. King is a conspiracy theorist
and popular streamer that attracts the audience farther right than
(11:54):
Canada's usual conservatives. King's made headlines for drumming up fear
and then following through with his supporters with violence at
rally's put on by BLM and Antifa. King is also
known for spreading what are basically neo Nazi talking points.
And I'm just going to quote from an article by
the Canadian Anti Hate Network here because they did a
great job tracking his past extremism quote. In the past,
(12:18):
King has gone on record about his feelings on the
Anglo Saxon replacement that plans to quote flood Canada with
refugees and subvert the education system, which is a thin
rebranding of the Great Replacement theory touted by ethno nationalists.
At other points, the King is expressed overtly racist and
anti Semitic statements. In the twenty nineteen stream about the
(12:40):
then upcoming federal election. King complained that he had to
leave the movement due to their lack of success, saying, quote,
the election wote matter unless you want to change your
national language to Chinese, or Mandarin or Hebrew. He then
went on to compare Chinese names to the sound of
change falling downstairs. He is publicly distorted facts, but the
Holocaust of form of Holocaust denial, saying I do know
(13:02):
that the Holocaust was reduced to one point five million
and not the six million that it was said to be.
He then invoked the anti Semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish
people are secretly in control of world governance, media, and finances, saying, quote,
the questions that have been asked several times to the
A d L and to the Jewish government and communities,
(13:23):
we have Jewish world bankers who are dictating our government
policies and controlling our politicians unquote. So yeah. Considering King's
history of saying blatantly fascist things, some organizers and Convoy
supporters tried to distance King from the Freedom Convoy movement
to not damage the initial fundraising effort. The controversy around
(13:46):
King resulted in a statement being released onto the fundraising
page saying King is not and has never been affiliate
with our movement, nor has he been a part of
our great team of volunteers. The update was afterwards deleted,
and then King claimed in a video that the statement
was a public relations move because he was being attacked online.
For a while, King was still listed as the Northern
(14:08):
Alberta contact for the western portion of the convoy. So
those are the four people that laid the organizing groundwork
that spawned this entire thing and put it into motion.
But what made this convoy different from United We rule
One point, oh is the almost two years of COVID isolation,
which has given ample time for groups like the Yellow
Vests and extreme far right groups to completely fold into
(14:31):
the rapidly growing anti vax and COVID conspiracy movement in Canada,
and along with that, using people's seething hatred of Justin
Trudeau to radicalize thousands of thousands of people online to
getting them more comfortable with the idea of participating in
political protest. It's really important to mention that the protests
are not organized by Canadian trucking unions or really Canadian truckers.
(14:55):
The largest trucking unions have come out against the protests
and they do not appear to reflect the v use
of most Canadians or most Canadian truckers. More than of
the Canadian public is vaccinated, including a truckers, according to
Canada's Minister of Transport. The Canadian Trucking Alliance issued a
statement saying it does not support and strongly disapproves of
any protests on public roads, highways or bridges. The Canadian
(15:19):
Trucking Alliance president set in the joint statement with the
Ministers of Labor and Transport that the Government of Canada
and the Canadian Trucking Alliance both agree that vaccination, used
in combination with preventative health measures, is the most effective
tool to reduce the risk of COVID nineteen for Canadians
and to protect public health. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance,
the mandate could impact around twelve to sixteen thousand Canadian
(15:42):
commercial drivers, which is just about ten to fifteen percent
of the industry's cross border drivers. During the pandemic. Repeated
polls have shown that a majority of Canadians support public
health measures to contain the pandemic, but the number of
Canadians who would like to see restrictions in has risen
in recent weeks. With owner crown cases on the decline.
(16:04):
Some provinces are starting to remove restrictions and requirements. The
public sentiment appears to be moving in the direction of
opening up communities. Throughout the last two weeks of January,
the number of Canadians saying that they would like to
see restrictions and has risen by fifteen percentage points to
a majority of demonstrations have found a way to tap
(16:26):
into pandemic fatigue among conservatives across the country after months
of lockdown. More than two thirds of Canadians have said
they have very little in common with how the Autawa
protesters see things, but say that they have a lot
in common, according to a recent survey connected by a
Canadian research firm. Though the idea of vaccine mandates for
(16:54):
Canadian truckers kind of prompted what turned into this convoy,
very quickly became a general battle cry against pandemic restrictions
as a whole, and the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Unlike United we Roll, the Freedom Convoy against health mandates
was able to successfully capitalize on Western feelings of neglect
and isolation from the ruling liberal elite in the East
(17:17):
and in the capital of Ottawa. The right ingredients at
the right time flung the Trucker Freedom Convoy into the
conservative zeitgeist. The original and go fund me page, set
up on January fourteenth to financially support convoy participants, was
able to raise ten million dollars in just under three weeks.
As the truck convoy idea picked up steam, the first
(17:38):
expected wave of attendees were planned to arrive in Ottawa
on Saturday, January twenty ninth. Vehicles started rolling in a
few days prior, throughout Thursday and the Friday night before
the big day on the twenty nine, and as Saturday,
the twenty nine came, the numbers of trucks and protest
participants greatly exceeded the initial expected numbers that I and
(17:58):
many other people had figured well, obviously falling short of
the heavily marked fifty thod truckers prediction made by some
convoy supporters. While writing these episodes, I talked with Paul,
a citizen of Ottawa who has been living inside the
occupied zone since the twenty ninth of January. This is
what he had to say about expectations leading up to
the convoy's arrival. There was at least a week of
(18:21):
lead up where we it was about all we heard about.
So from when they sort of declared their intention to
come down to when they started rallying and b C.
And you know, in the west and coming across Um,
there was an anticipation that something was going to happen.
And you know, people around here because like where I'm
sitting right now is less than a kilometer from Parliament
(18:44):
Hill and directly in between two of the streets that
they've blocked off sort of on the way into town.
You know, we we were nervous, but we kind of
were just sort of assuming it was going to be
a one day affair. It was gonna be small at first,
but then you heard I mean, nobody believed the fifty
trucks and that like that was it. I mean, to
(19:05):
put in perspective, the numbers that they were claiming were
on their way here Um are larger than the entire
population of the city by like a couple hundred thousand people,
so that that didn't seem likely. But you know, when
we were hearing the thousand, when we heard about multiple
convoys with you know, a hundred to two d trucks
like that was when it was like, Okay, this isn't
(19:26):
gonna be great. So people started arriving on what Friday, Saturday.
The first group started rolling to town on Thursday night. UM.
They were they were small in numbers. They didn't really
start blocking anything off because they're just weren't enough of them. So,
but you could hear the horns starting on Thursday night, UM.
(19:47):
And I think a lot of some of them were
going into hotels. UM. They were smaller groups too, mostly
from sort of local groups. UM. And then around ten
or eleven in the morning on frid Day, UM, we
started hearing reports at Kingston, which is about an hour
issue away, an hour and a half UM that there
was a group moving out of there. So around one
(20:09):
o'clock in the afternoon Friday, the first group started to
arrive and started to congregate downtown. And one of the
things about Ottawa is, UM, it's a lot, like a
lot of big downtowns, it's a lot of one way streets.
So the moment you get the trucks starting to get
into intersections or near intersections, you're blocking off all passage
in certain directions, so they started blocking off the northbound
(20:30):
really quickly, just because that's where how they were coming in.
Um And there's only like three gas stations downtown as well,
which is it kind of plays a big factor in
the route that they took. So they all passed by,
especially the passenger cars that were running mow Um passed
by and through that way. And yeah, by about two
or three o'clock in the afternoon, everything south of Somerset,
(20:51):
which is about a kilometer and a half from Parliament,
was pretty much jammed at that point. As Saturday nights came,
much of the group supporters and truckers alike spent that
time partying late into the night as heavily backed up
traffic continued to effectively shut down roads and large areas
of the city around Parliament. Throughout the weekend, businesses in
(21:12):
the surrounding areas that did not close ahead of the
protests were swarmed by customers, many refusing to wear masks.
A local Homa shelter and soup kitchen was harassed by
convoy participants who were turned away from restaurants after refusing
to wear a mask. A large number of the convoy
attendees surrounded the shelter, demanding to be fed by the
facility staff. According to the shelters president, convoy participants assaulted
(21:35):
a client of the shelter and her old racial slurs
at a security guard who attempted to intervene. Workers and
volunteers at the shelter noted that parked vehicles blocked the shelter,
making it difficult for amliences to reach the facility and
for staff to assist community members in need. A home
in the downtown area was pelted with rocks and snow,
as well as vandalized with human feces, all for showing
(21:57):
a Pride flag in their window. The operations manner for
the Ottawa Paramedic Service said that an ambiliance was pelted
with rocks, and paramedics checking the damage were called racial
slurs by convoy participants. Ottawa Paramedics have since requested police escorts,
citing safety concerns. More public backlash was prompted after reports
surface of a monument dedicated to commemorating Terry Fox being
(22:18):
covered in protest signs and being staged to hold an
upside down Canadian flag. No restroomain Saturday night related to
the convoy but as the convoy stuck around even past
the weekend, there was this growing feeling of downtown residents
that they've been abandoned by the city and law enforcement,
with the whole situation and response to the situation making
them afraid to leave their homes. I asked Paul what
(22:41):
his experience on the first weekend of the occupation was
and the general feeling in the area of downtown Ottawa.
And you're living like right in the middle of this.
How much has this affected like your day to day
life and all your neighbors and stuff, like what what
what are you able to do and not do at
this point, Well, it's the weekend was it was especially bad,
(23:02):
and we're all kind of bracing for what this weekend
is going to be because that's when you had just
you know, there were between somewhere between ten and fifteen
eighteen thousand people as the estimates I've heard, um all
crowding downtown in the streets. So at that point, I mean,
that was when the police were telling people not to
wear a mask out um because you know, you're kind
of putting yourself at risk, uh, because it'll be targeted
(23:26):
for violence. Yeah, So I mean I was like basically
anytime I've left the house. So we have a mask
mandate still an effect in Ottawa, So you have to
wear them indoors pretty much everywhere. UM, So I have
to wear at my building, I have to wear at
the convenience store. If I'm gonna go go buy say,
you know, pack of cigarettes, I'm not going to take
it off. It's a thirty second walk. And so that
was that. The harassment around that started on Friday. UM,
(23:49):
and then it just became anyone who was out and
about that didn't look like they were part of it,
UM started getting hassled. UM. Other people I know who
live in the area, as specially women, UM, have been
targeted a great deal. UM. Anyone who's part of you know,
the LGBTQ community has been It's it's not really just
(24:11):
it's just not safe to be out on the streets
and it's not really safe to show that you don't
support what they're doing. At points since the convoy started
arriving in Ottawa, the extreme elements of the protest have
been pretty visible. Among the thousands of attendees were recognizable
members of white nationalists, hate groups, you know, not seeing
Confederate flags were seen flying too and on. Logos were
emblazoned on trucks and sides, and stickers were paced up
(24:33):
on telephone polls around the occupied area, baring Trudeau's face
reading wanted for crimes against humanity, the official line from
original convoy organizers minus Pat King, of course, however, has
tried to remain focused. In a Facebook live broadcast, James
Bodder of Canada Unity instructed his supporters to stop talking
with the vaccine and instead stick the messages of freedom.
(24:56):
The goal of adopting a more restricted and relatable protest
cause is to hopefully drop up more widespread support and validity,
and it initially worked in some ways and not in others.
Numerous members of the Conservative Party have come out to
meet protesters, especially throughout the first few days now. Former
Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole met with Convoy participants, albeit
(25:17):
away from the main protest site. Both People's Party of
Canada leader Maxie and Bernair and Ontario Member of provincial
Parliament and leader of the de facto Ontario arm of
the PPC, Randy Healer, who has made many recent and
semitic comments, both gave speeches on Saturday the twenty nine
in front of the Parliament building. People like Elon Musk
(25:37):
and Donald Trump have both endorsed the convoy, and Fox
News has been endlessly broadcasting glowing updates of the convoy
since its arrival in Ottawa. According to the convoy participants
and organizers, they are vowing to camp out in front
of the Parliament until their demands of dropping all COVID
nineteen health measures are met. Wild stated grievances can be
(25:58):
broader and more vast on the ound. The current Memorandum
of Understanding, posted on the Canada Unity website, which collected
over thirty signatures, served as a sort of bargaining pitch
between the convoy and the Canadian government. The Memorandum of Understanding,
or the m OU, calls on Canada's appointing senators and
Canada's Governor General, the representative of Queen Elizabeth the second
(26:22):
in Canada's constitutional monarchy, to abolish all COVID nineteen related
restrictions and to allow all unvaccinated workers whose employment was
terminated because of vaccine mandates to get their jobs back.
James Potter, the guy who runs the Canada Unity insisted
to his followers that the m o U would force
the government's hand and possibly even trigger fresh elections if
(26:43):
enough people signed. Another Canada Unity organizer went further, saying
it would require the Senate to go after the Prime
Minister for corruption and fascism, which, of course there's no
legal basis for any of these claims around the m
O you, but you know that doesn't really matter in
the end, because we'll still believe it. So it's going
to have an impact on what they do. The more
(27:03):
controversial Pat King laid out an alternative, however, a more
direct plan of action to the occupiers. In a January
Facebook livestream, King said that what we want to focus
on is our politicians, their houses, their locations. If political
pressure doesn't work, blocking major supply chains will be later on,
so more more on that idea later. After the first
(27:26):
weekend of protests kind of turned occupations, go fund Me
released a reported one million dollars of the total ten
million raised for the convoy. As the end of the
weekend approached, many convoy participants who rolled into the nation's
capital began heading home, and the highways on Sunday night
saw no shortage of vehicles heading away from Ottawa with
their approachest signs and flags still in tow, but plenty
(27:50):
of people stuck around to continue the fight. Thousands and
thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles, including a fleet
of semitrucks, commercial vehicles, r V campers, and regular of
cars were more than enough to keep the roads in
a large portion of Ottawa around Parliament effectively shut down.
I can't help but draw comparisons to the fearmongering narrative
of bus fuls of Antifa, you know, protesters coming from
(28:14):
out of town into places they don't live, terrorizing locals,
shutting down cities. You know. The other comparison is to
like the chop where the chas in Seattle was taking
over a large portion of the city and how that
was so vilified. Except you know, this is so much
bigger and impactful than anything so called Antifa or the
Black Lives Matter protests have ever done, especially in Canada,
(28:37):
in terms of actually impacting the functionality of a city
and restricting the local, national, and international capitalist trade. The
Freedom Convoy has done everything and more its proponents warned
that Antifa was going to do to Canada. Obviously, part
(29:02):
of the reason the Convoy protest was able to get
to this point is not just because of its large size,
but also the initial hands off approach by police that
allowed the convoy participants the opportunity to get a strong
foothold within the city. The difference in initial law enforcement
reaction to the protest Convoy made up of largely you know, conservative,
(29:23):
middle class white Canadians, compared to other protests like you know,
the Black Lives Better protests or say the RCMPS typical
response to First Nations protests and blockings defending their land.
The comparisons cannot be over analyzed. You know, the latter
two forms of protest I mentioned actually do challenge societal
power structures that prop up white Canada, while as this
(29:45):
convoy protest does not and instead plays into those very
power structures. That dynamic played a major role into how
the police handled or didn't handle the first few days
of the protest, in which during those early days the
convoy attendees were free to build infrastructure that resulted in
the protest escalating into a full scale occupation. The Monday
(30:06):
after the first initial weekend, the city's mayor, Jim Watson,
declared a state of emergency, but at that point Attawa
police thought it was already too late for the protest
to be ended by sheer force without vastly increasing the
likelihood of severe damage and life threatening outcomes to the
convoy participants, police officers, and regular citizens of Ottawa. On
(30:27):
February twod Ottawa Police Chief Peter Slowly explicitly said that
there may not be a police solution to ending the
convoy and occupation. There are similar demonstrations taking place in
many other parts of this country, indeed many other parts
around this continent in the world. What happens here effects there,
(30:47):
What happens there affects here. We have seen in the
last twenty four hours attempts by other police and other
jurisdictions to do just what you have suggested. They were
not effective and they created additional safety issues, potential life
threatening safety issues. I have great compassion for those that
(31:08):
have been significantly affected, if not traumatized, and we know
criminally victimized. We will do everything we can to hold
those who have done that to account. Will continue arresting
and charging people as we have been. But any action
taken without understanding the totality of the context, the totality
(31:28):
of the risk, would be irresponsible. You're trying to be responsible, lawful,
ethical and measured. My last comment when I wrapped up,
I'll share again now. The longer this goes on, the
more I am convinced there may not be a police
solution to this demonstration. There are police chiefs commissioners across
(31:54):
this country that are dealing with demonstrations that are starting
underway and signal effectively advanced. This is a national issue,
not an Autawa issue. From the start. Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau has been playing down the notion of a military
response to the ongoing Ottawa protest. During the first week,
he said that sending in troops is not in the
(32:15):
cards right now. On February two, the Automa police chiefs
said that all options are on the table, including eventually
calling in the military, but one must be very very
cautious about deploying troops in Canadian soil in such cases.
Trudeau said that a news conference under the February that
it's not something that anyone should enter into lightly with
police basically leaving the Ottawa residents who live near and
(32:38):
within the convoy occupation to fend for themselves. I was
curious what sorts of things the local community might be
doing to live around this massive, conspiracy filled group of
reactionary out of town campers. What sort of things have
the has the community been doing to kind of help
survive this this Like has there been like mutual aid
(32:58):
projects in the neighborhood to help support other neighbors, you
know that that sort of thing there have Um, it's
actually been kind of wonderful the way the community has
been coming together, especially after two years of pandemic where
we've all been kind of like Ottawa and Ontario have
been one of the more restricted jurisdictions in North America. UM.
I mean, and I say this as a restaurant manager, like,
in my opinion, rightly, so, like it's about keeping people safe,
(33:20):
and we've done a fairly good job of that by
and large. But the thing is that, you know, our
community hasn't felt a lot like a community in a while.
And this week, I mean, one of the few positives
has been UM both individuals and organizations, So I mean,
Rose and some of the other organizations that we mentioned
on Friday have done a great job. There's also been
some really really great organic organizing coming out of UM.
(33:43):
Some activists as well as just people in the community.
So there's a a few discord servers set up right now.
So there's been a huge issue with people, people with
disabilities and the elderly getting groceries because deliveries aren't possible downtown. UM.
So it started on Twitter. UM, but there's been an
organized station set up to help people get those groceries.
Whether it's a cost issue or just a physical delivery issue,
(34:05):
We're ensured. People are ensuring that that's happening. UM. As
of today. UM, there's gonna be a safe Walks program. UM.
There's well, there's two. There's one on discord where it's
people offering to you know, make sure that you can
get through the space safe today. Though, UM, in a
positive and more passive sense, we kind of started taking
the streets back. So UM, we had about four or
(34:27):
five groups of people ranging from ten to fifty just
just walking the streets and not not confronting anybody, not
getting getting into any direct engagement, just going out to
show that we can still walk on our streets and
letting our you know, our our neighbors know that we
can actually be together and you know, stand up just
to be together, which is something that I think a
(34:47):
lot of people have lost over the last week. I mean,
like the fact that that's even a big step is
showing how tired the situation is. The fact that just
getting to that point we're walking around in a group
where you feel safe is like a big thing. That, Yeah,
that's like a really interesting and horrible indicator of what
(35:08):
the mood has been like there for people like living
in this area. That is. Yeah, that is a big
part of it. And it's something that was actually talked
about a lot today, which was how refreshing it was
to be able to do it, but also that it
shouldn't feel radical to take a safe walk in your community,
but it somehow did um and it speaks a lot
to the feelings the lack of safety or the loss
(35:31):
of you know, safety in this community and has been
pretty immense. I should mention that another community led effort
to deal with the occupation is the ram Ranch Resistance,
a loosely organized counter movement to the Chuck Our Convoy
that started with people joining the convoys online communications channels
and blasting the homo erotic country song ram Ranch. The
(35:54):
song is by a Canadian artist and features some flawless
lyrics like eight teen naked cowboys wanting to be fucked.
Cowboys in the showers at ram Ranch on their knees
wanting to suck cowboy cox. Ram Ranch really rocks. The
result is not only making the convoy folks uncomfortable because gay,
(36:15):
but also it is hijacking and making their online communications
channels kind of useless for any non cowboy cock sucking
political organizing efforts. Disruptive resistance to the convoys online communications
is not just limited to the ram Ranch song, however,
Other vulgar songs have also been introduced into the chats
as well. I'm gonna just kind of give you a
(36:35):
brief look at what it's like inside these chats, right yeah,
I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna role play it. The
ram Ranch guys are finally gone. It's about freaking time.
I've had to shut that stuff off. One person has
heard saying and a clip from a chat, immediately followed
by a robotic voice saying, welcome to the come zone.
Only come inside anime girls, quivering clip, double jointed pussy
(36:57):
fresh balls. Since then, the movement is taken on as
something of a life of its own. The ram Ranch
Resistance hashtag has been used as a way for people
to share information regarding the convoy, and Welcome to the
ram Ranch signs have been popping up at convoy counter
protests around the country. Another ram rancher created the website
ram Ranch dot c a linking to downtown organizations that
(37:19):
have been impacted by the trucker convoy, as well as
charities aiding indigenous people's As the convoy settled in, it
appeared at the demonstrators and the government had reached a
sort of stalemate. Currently, there are more than four hundred
trucks parked downtown and Ottawa Police say that they can't
move them because the too operators with city contracts are
(37:40):
refusing to help, making matters only more difficult. Police say
that families with children are sleeping in approximately a quarter
of those trucks. To get an idea of what some
Autawa residents who live within the occupied zone see in
terms of a potential end in sight, I posed Paul
this question, how do you even see this situation resolving
(38:01):
at this point? Like, do do you think they're like
the truckers and the people who are in the city
are gonna are gonna back down and leave eventually? Or
like or do you think they have to be forced out?
Like what do you see kind of an end to
this at this point? Well, it's at this point. Probably
one of the hardest things to admit is that I don't, um,
the hardest core that are here committed and they have
(38:23):
a significant amount of funding behind them. And the thing
is that you know, with an occupation protests, they if
you don't nip it in the bud, it's snowballs and
gathers momentum for a while. Um, and I mean eventually
they either peter out or they have to be removed.
And this one is still snowballing. Um. We've seen some
more extreme elements come into the city this week. Um,
(38:45):
yesterday Romana did dulo the human on Queen of Canada
arrived in birth Brent the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill,
which whatever you think about the Canadian flag, and it's
simple as a simpler propression. Um, you know, that's not
a great look for them. But the other side of
it is is that this is a woman with seventy
followers who you know has called for the mass execution
(39:08):
of her enemies and you know is currently parked in
or Winnebago two and a half blocks from my house
right now, um so, and with a bunch of her
followers down with her, And so they're committed. They know
they don't know that I did occupy a lot of
(39:29):
years ago. And the question that people asked us, and
sometimes it was the police, was what gets you out
of the park. And in a weird way, there's a
parallel here, which is that the hardest answer with occupy
was always kind of like everything is kind of fucked,
So how do we fix everything? That's the discussion we
should be having. So in this case, to these people,
(39:50):
in their worldview, everything is kind of fucked, and there's
no answer that you can give those kind of people
in negotiations. The police right now are are not looking
at removal as a serious option, I don't think, or
if they are, they haven't figured out how to get
to that place yet. And one of the weird things
about Ottawa is is that technically in various spaces, because
(40:13):
the way it's designated, there's a whole mishmash of jurisdictions
between the various police agencies. So like again with Occupy,
that we picked the park, like the park that was
occupied was partially picked because it was on like this
weird jurisdictional black hole where it was hard to figure
out who the cops were at, who should police it were,
um so, and they've ended up in the same park
(40:35):
where they now have like fifty five cylinders appropane, sitting
about five yards from the Department of National Defense. So it's, uh,
it's tricky to figure out how you how you get
get out of that because all it's going to take
is one of them with something in their cab and
it's done. Yep ye. Well, do you have any hope
for anything? Do you have any indicators for how it
(40:57):
can turn out? Well, I mean in terms of the occupation.
I mean, we'll see how it goes. Um maybe there
can become some kind of modus vivendi between them and
the rest of the city. I don't know how that happens,
but maybe there can be, but I don't know. It's
the only silver lining I see right now is you know,
(41:17):
the walk that I was on earlier today and the
chat that I was having with other people in the
community and the discord server and everywhere else, like this
is a really strong community that cares a great deal
about itself and sometimes needed to be needs to be
reminded of that, and uh, I think this is an
opportunity for that to happen. Then I think that that's
the positive that can come out, is that we will
(41:38):
take care of ourselves and we'll take care of each other.
And that's you know what, what more can you ask
where I guess out of this? Reports of assaults perpetrated
by members of the Convoy protest have been steadily ruling
in the past few weeks, not to mention the seemingly
constant presence of honking in the downtown area that's been
affecting residents every day and even into the night. I
(41:58):
will offer you this short sample to help complete the
picture of what it's like both indoors and outdoors in
downtown Ottawa. So apologies about that. Yeah, that was pretty
(42:23):
bad and as annoying and frustrating as it may be.
Before I close out part one, I'm going to play
some audio from one of the truckers or you know,
just Convoy participants as he addresses fellow Convoy ors on
why it's good and in fact revolutionary to hunk horns
late into the night. I think it gives you some
valuable insight into how these people frame their actions in
(42:45):
their own heads. And you know it will give you
an opportunity to hear some of these convoy people directly.
So here we go. Let's starting on. There was quiet
when I got here, but now they're starting to be
there're starting to make some noise. Now I get it.
I saw some comments saying that you want to go
from nine to five and you want to turn your
horns off, and you want to you know, be respectful
(43:06):
and play the optics war. And you've done You've done
all the map, man, I get it. I we've done everything.
Every piece of garbage has been picked up. Statistically, there
is no crime. And when I mean statistically, if you
have some drunk guy acted, you know, silly on one
street quickly gets you know, talk to and then the
Patriots taken back to his car, and maybe there was
some incident of mischief. I've heard reports of anti for
(43:28):
throwing rocks and trucks, tag and stuff. They're the ones
committing the crime. But other than that, this has been
the most well to have revolution on earth. And now
the big complaint is can you get them to only
blow their horns between nine and five. I'm sorry, what
has compliant got you guys so far? What is just
little by little? Oh? Just do this, Yeah, just just
(43:49):
go peep your horns between nine and five. That's all
we're gonna ask. Then were two masks, Then just go
right back to square one. How about you put your
blame right where it belongs, right in the eye of
Sauron And that's who we handle this with and every mandate.
We're not allowed to exist in society. I'm not allowed
to go to a movie. I'm not allowed to go
to a restaurant. I'm not allowed to leave the country.
(44:12):
You can't even leave, you can't travel on planes, you
can't do anything that Trudeau can get his fingers on
to discriminate against us in society. Meanwhile, he'll blame us
for side effects of his guinea pigs. It's an insane world.
And you've complied long enough, guys, and the madness in
the horn stop. But I am in no place to
(44:32):
go tell these guys, Oh excuse me? Can you turn
your horn off? Can you get used to complying again?
We want freedom. We're not asking for anything unreasonable, and
we're doing it on your behalf. The least you can
do is turn off your televisions and stop letting their
horrible objections to this revolution, and they're horrible false flags
and whatever else they bring. I'm sorry about the noise complaints.
(44:53):
Now are you sorry about banishing me from society and
treating me like I'm some sort of lever because I
want to keep my immute is done? Sorry, guys, the
Horns stuck it up your ass. Anyone that has a
problem with loud noises, we have a problem be advantished
from society. Apologies for that, But now I hope you
(45:14):
have a better understanding of the type of conspiratorial thinking
among the people in this convoy and the importance this
whole thing means to them. So with this, that wraps
up my part one of my deep dive into the
Canadian Freedom Convoy. In the next episode, we'll get into
the border blockades both in Alberta and the Ambassador Bridge,
(45:36):
which is preventing some international trade. We'll get into some
of the smaller protests and attempted occupations in other cities
across Canada, and how the situation is evolving in Ottawa
and what types of long term political ramifications this protest
and any attempt to suppress it will have so with that,
see you on the other side. It could Happen Here
(45:58):
is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.
Hundreds of truckers continue to roll east and with more
joining the movement. With each passing city, feelings towards vaccine
mandates have heightened, and I advocate civil war. If people
don't want to stand up, we got guns. We'll stand
up and we'll bring them off. Sucking a guys, let's
get pumped for this. Let's go to fucking Ottawa. I
(00:23):
want to see one of those truckers. I wouldn't probably
not not known of our guys obviously, but I would
like to see our own January six event. See some
of those truckers plowed right through that sixty football Welcome
to It could happen here, or in this case, it
(00:46):
did happen here, slashes still happening here and uh the
here in this case being Canada. In recent weeks, the
idea of only a few thousand people totally choking amy
your city, holding it hostage to bargain for political demands,
while overwhelming and getting a foot up on law enforcement,
(01:07):
taking over and shutting down a sizeable portion of a
popular metropolitan area and simultaneously blocking off supply lines, trade routes,
and multiple international border crossings is exactly the kind of
thing this podcast has been talking about for years as
a potential anti government resistance tactic that could become more
common as political tensions rise in North America. Specifically, a
(01:30):
few weeks ago, when the so called Trucker Convoy was
still in its planning stages, I wasn't super eager to
cover it on the pod. Actually, I assumed it would
be a flop and just another dumb anti COVID protest
in a long line of anti COVID protests happening in Canada.
Flash forward to me at the end of January, and
it became apparent that I was solely mistaken and this
(01:51):
thing was shaping up to be a significant factor in
Canada's political ecosystem going forward. In my haste to catch
up to the moment, I recorded two episodes with the
wonderful journalist Dan Cullen, explaining the situation as it was
at the prospective times of recording. But as the tensions
in Ottawa and all across Canada arose and the situation
(02:13):
gained more and more complexity, I decided that the convoy
and subsequent blockades required a more researched and scripted deep dive.
The more I dug into the situation, the more it
seemed to embody the exact thing I was warning about
in my two previous scripted episodes about Canada and the
far right, titled Canadian Fascism A the apologies for the title,
(02:36):
but you can find those if you scroll through the
It could Happen Here feed. Don't think they came out
around like November ish of what I wanted to get
across in those episodes is that Canada is often seen
as an escape from the more divisive, violent, and fascist
elements of US politics and culture. But just like climate change, capitalism,
(02:56):
or any other enveloping force cough cough, hyper objects cough cough,
fascism and the slide towards it can never be truly
escaped right. There is no other, There is no away,
and it's especially hard to see it when it's growing
on the back of your own head, primarily through Islamophobia.
(03:17):
Far right ethno nationalist tendencies have been bubbling under the
surface of Canada for a long while, and since Trudeau
has taken office in twenty fifteen, there has been a
perfect politically allowed boogeyman to blame every problem onto that
can include everything from Trudeau is taking away our oil
and gas jobs, or Trudeau is bringing in Muslim terrorists
(03:39):
to Canada, or Trudeau is starving your children through health
man dates. Canadian right wing protests has been steadily growing
the past five years. There's been multiple flare ups of
far right rhetoric with the Canadian Yellow Vests, the Westerns
that produced we Exit or Western Exit movement, and the
pseudo fascist People's Party of Canada. The incorporation of pandemic
(04:03):
conspiracies and anti vaccine sentiments into the already disaffected rural
Canadian right wingers, starting and continuing to the present, has
accelerated not only the conspiratorial fall right rhetoric among conservative voters,
but also what is seen as a valid political action
in those people's eyes. But before we get into how
(04:24):
the convoy started with anger concerning COVID nineteen health man
dates and misinformation concerning empty store shelves, we have to
first go back in time to even before the COVID
nineteen virus was a blip on anyone's radar. In February
twenty nineteen, the Canadian Yellowsts organized something called the United
We Roll Convoy. The result was around a hundred and
(04:47):
seventy trucks driving cross country through the more liberal East
to Ottawa. The result was around a hundred seventy trucks
driving from the West cross country to the more liberal
East and eventually to Ottawa. The goal was to represent
the concerns of disenfranchised oil and gas workers in the
Western provinces and their opposition to propose environmental and new
(05:09):
energy policies. Yellow Vests Canada was largely founded by individuals
already associated with Canada's far right, which at the time
was primarily united through anti Muslim racism and Islamophobia. Inspired
by the French Heelovest movement, they copied their aesthetics and
adopted new grievances and reaction ay maatoric and get them
a much larger audience. By the time United We Roll
(05:32):
arrived in Ottawa, the media started to catch on to
the more problematic elements about their organization. Neo Nazi faith
goal Eat spoke on a stage. Many members of hate
groups responded in attendance, and with the numbers so low,
it made their more extreme participants stick out. Instead of
focusing the message on oil and gas, as they claimed
to represent Western alienation from a distant Liberal Ottawa. Some
(05:56):
of its participants seemed more interested in protesting Ottawa's immigration
policies then arguing for specific fixes for Alberta's oil patch. Plus,
if you peeked inside any Canadian Yellow vest Facebook group,
you would be flooded with hundreds of examples of explicit
anti Muslim racism and calls for a Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's arrest and execution, a theme that remains common among
(06:20):
COVID conspiracy demonstrations today. But at the end of it,
United We Rull was widely considered a bust, with only
a few hundred participants in Ottawa, and despite raising almost
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the organizers failed to
disclose how much of that money was actually spent on
convoy expenses like gas and food. Afterwards, the Yellow Vests
(06:41):
Canada movement started to kind and die out, though some
holdouts kept smaller demonstrations going for months, particularly in the
conservative oil province of Alberta. But to us now United
We Rule can be seen as a small test run
for the current situation in in fact, it shares many
of the same organizers and even the same promotional materials
(07:01):
except this time they have the added weight of many
more people radicalized into conspiracism throughout the pandemic and much
more funding. So with that in mind, let's dive into
the components of the initial organizing effort. On January two,
go fund me account was set up for a so
called trucker convoy ahead of the January fifteenth adoption of
(07:25):
the mandate requiring all cross border transportation drivers to be
fully vaccinated against COVID. Nineteen Vaccine mandates in Canada have
been in effect since October for ship crews, railways and
airline workers, but effective January fifteenth, the federal government expanded
the requirement to truck drivers returning from the States, and
those who will remain unvaccinated will not be able to
(07:47):
enter Canada without quarantine. One week later, a reciprocal policy
went into effect in the United States for Canadian truckers
crossing into their border, which means going forward, you cannot
really cross the border at all, well remaining unvaccinated. At
this point in mid January, a majority of Canadians still
broadly supported health mandates aimed at limiting the spread of COVID,
but a big part of the early propaganda push for
(08:09):
the convoy was photos alleged to have been from current
Canadian grocery stores, which they were not, with barren empty shelves.
The idea was that COVID restrictions were already severely impacting
the supply line, and any additional mandates would begin to
start with the population and effectively shut down international trade.
Put a note in this idea, by the way, it
will come up later. Ideas for another truck convoy like
(08:34):
United We Roll have been tossed around for a while online,
and with this new mandate on truckers and vaccines, a
time presented itself to give the convoy idea another go.
In the early truck convoy organizing, they were primarily four
familiar far right faces who working together to set things up,
none of whom are truck drivers. By the way, the
(08:56):
originally listed organizers on the go fund me page where
Tomorrow and b. J. Ditcher both have notable experience with
far right organizing. Tamaraw Lich was born in my home
province of Saskatchewan, but now hails from the town of
Medicine Hat, Alberta, where she served as an organizer for
a Yellow Vests Canada, a regional coordinator for the separatist
(09:18):
Western Exit or we Exit movement in Alberta and now
the secretary for the Maverick Party, another far right, extreme
ac separatist movement and fringe political party. Litch started attending
and boosting Yellow Vest events starting in and her social
media posts from around the time show in one moment
calling out some hateful rhetoric from within the movement, while
also posting Islamophobic articles of her own and conspiracies about
(09:42):
the Muslim Brotherhood operating in Canada. A few days after
the go fund me was created, Benjamin B. J. Ditcher,
one time Conservative Party of Canada candidate, People's Party of
Canada booster and co founder of a Canadian far right
podcast network, appeared as a organizer on the go fund
me page. Twenty nineteen. He claimed that Islamist entryism is
(10:06):
rotting away our society like syphilis. Benjamin Ditcher was also
one of the first people to give a speech at
the first proto fascist People's Party of Canada conference in Quebec,
saying that the Conservative Party of Canada is suffering from
the stench of cultural relativism and political Islam, and a
whole bunch of stuff you know in that general vein.
James Botter was another one of the four key organizers
(10:29):
of the trucker convoy to Ottawa. Botter is an admitted
conspiracy theorist who has endorsed Q and on and called
COVID the biggest political scam in history. He's also a
former activist with the Yellow Vests Canada and United we role.
Potter's main project, however, is running the Canada Unity website,
which is one of the original nexus points for organizing
(10:50):
and spreading word about this convoy. The group contends that
vaccine mandates and passports are illegal under Canada's constitution, the
Nuremberg Code, and a host of other international conventions. Potter
has long been a fringe figure, but his movements started
picking up steam and support as announcements and continuations of
(11:10):
restrictions aimed at curbing COVID nineteen spread have continued. The
supposed plight of the truckers proved to be a sympathetic
cause on Facebook and attracted an array of fellow travelers.
The last big major player is Patrick King, another former
Yellow vestor one time major figure in the Wexit movement,
(11:30):
as well as United we Roll On January two, Pat
King hosted a live stream for James Botter to promote
the Canada Unity website and to announce it as the
official page for the Freedom Trucker Convoy, or as they
called it, Operation Bear Hug. King is a conspiracy theorist
and popular streamer that attracts the audience farther right than
(11:54):
Canada's usual conservatives. King's made headlines for drumming up fear
and then following through with his supporters with violence at
rally's put on by BLM and Antifa. King is also
known for spreading what are basically neo Nazi talking points.
And I'm just going to quote from an article by
the Canadian Anti Hate Network here because they did a
great job tracking his past extremism quote. In the past,
(12:18):
King has gone on record about his feelings on the
Anglo Saxon replacement that plans to quote flood Canada with
refugees and subvert the education system, which is a thin
rebranding of the Great Replacement theory touted by ethno nationalists.
At other points, the King is expressed overtly racist and
anti Semitic statements. In the twenty nineteen stream about the
(12:40):
then upcoming federal election. King complained that he had to
leave the movement due to their lack of success, saying, quote,
the election wote matter unless you want to change your
national language to Chinese, or Mandarin or Hebrew. He then
went on to compare Chinese names to the sound of
change falling downstairs. He is publicly distorted facts, but the
Holocaust of form of Holocaust denial, saying I do know
(13:02):
that the Holocaust was reduced to one point five million
and not the six million that it was said to be.
He then invoked the anti Semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish
people are secretly in control of world governance, media, and finances, saying, quote,
the questions that have been asked several times to the
A d L and to the Jewish government and communities,
(13:23):
we have Jewish world bankers who are dictating our government
policies and controlling our politicians unquote. So yeah. Considering King's
history of saying blatantly fascist things, some organizers and Convoy
supporters tried to distance King from the Freedom Convoy movement
to not damage the initial fundraising effort. The controversy around
(13:46):
King resulted in a statement being released onto the fundraising
page saying King is not and has never been affiliate
with our movement, nor has he been a part of
our great team of volunteers. The update was afterwards deleted,
and then King claimed in a video that the statement
was a public relations move because he was being attacked online.
For a while, King was still listed as the Northern
(14:08):
Alberta contact for the western portion of the convoy. So
those are the four people that laid the organizing groundwork
that spawned this entire thing and put it into motion.
But what made this convoy different from United We rule
One point, oh is the almost two years of COVID isolation,
which has given ample time for groups like the Yellow
Vests and extreme far right groups to completely fold into
(14:31):
the rapidly growing anti vax and COVID conspiracy movement in Canada,
and along with that, using people's seething hatred of Justin
Trudeau to radicalize thousands of thousands of people online to
getting them more comfortable with the idea of participating in
political protest. It's really important to mention that the protests
are not organized by Canadian trucking unions or really Canadian truckers.
(14:55):
The largest trucking unions have come out against the protests
and they do not appear to reflect the v use
of most Canadians or most Canadian truckers. More than of
the Canadian public is vaccinated, including a truckers, according to
Canada's Minister of Transport. The Canadian Trucking Alliance issued a
statement saying it does not support and strongly disapproves of
any protests on public roads, highways or bridges. The Canadian
(15:19):
Trucking Alliance president set in the joint statement with the
Ministers of Labor and Transport that the Government of Canada
and the Canadian Trucking Alliance both agree that vaccination, used
in combination with preventative health measures, is the most effective
tool to reduce the risk of COVID nineteen for Canadians
and to protect public health. According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance,
the mandate could impact around twelve to sixteen thousand Canadian
(15:42):
commercial drivers, which is just about ten to fifteen percent
of the industry's cross border drivers. During the pandemic. Repeated
polls have shown that a majority of Canadians support public
health measures to contain the pandemic, but the number of
Canadians who would like to see restrictions in has risen
in recent weeks. With owner crown cases on the decline.
(16:04):
Some provinces are starting to remove restrictions and requirements. The
public sentiment appears to be moving in the direction of
opening up communities. Throughout the last two weeks of January,
the number of Canadians saying that they would like to
see restrictions and has risen by fifteen percentage points to
a majority of demonstrations have found a way to tap
(16:26):
into pandemic fatigue among conservatives across the country after months
of lockdown. More than two thirds of Canadians have said
they have very little in common with how the Autawa
protesters see things, but say that they have a lot
in common, according to a recent survey connected by a
Canadian research firm. Though the idea of vaccine mandates for
(16:54):
Canadian truckers kind of prompted what turned into this convoy,
very quickly became a general battle cry against pandemic restrictions
as a whole, and the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Unlike United we Roll, the Freedom Convoy against health mandates
was able to successfully capitalize on Western feelings of neglect
and isolation from the ruling liberal elite in the East
(17:17):
and in the capital of Ottawa. The right ingredients at
the right time flung the Trucker Freedom Convoy into the
conservative zeitgeist. The original and go fund me page, set
up on January fourteenth to financially support convoy participants, was
able to raise ten million dollars in just under three weeks.
As the truck convoy idea picked up steam, the first
(17:38):
expected wave of attendees were planned to arrive in Ottawa
on Saturday, January twenty ninth. Vehicles started rolling in a
few days prior, throughout Thursday and the Friday night before
the big day on the twenty nine, and as Saturday,
the twenty nine came, the numbers of trucks and protest
participants greatly exceeded the initial expected numbers that I and
(17:58):
many other people had figured well, obviously falling short of
the heavily marked fifty thod truckers prediction made by some
convoy supporters. While writing these episodes, I talked with Paul,
a citizen of Ottawa who has been living inside the
occupied zone since the twenty ninth of January. This is
what he had to say about expectations leading up to
the convoy's arrival. There was at least a week of
(18:21):
lead up where we it was about all we heard about.
So from when they sort of declared their intention to
come down to when they started rallying and b C.
And you know, in the west and coming across Um,
there was an anticipation that something was going to happen.
And you know, people around here because like where I'm
sitting right now is less than a kilometer from Parliament
(18:44):
Hill and directly in between two of the streets that
they've blocked off sort of on the way into town.
You know, we we were nervous, but we kind of
were just sort of assuming it was going to be
a one day affair. It was gonna be small at first,
but then you heard I mean, nobody believed the fifty
trucks and that like that was it. I mean, to
(19:05):
put in perspective, the numbers that they were claiming were
on their way here Um are larger than the entire
population of the city by like a couple hundred thousand people,
so that that didn't seem likely. But you know, when
we were hearing the thousand, when we heard about multiple
convoys with you know, a hundred to two d trucks
like that was when it was like, Okay, this isn't
(19:26):
gonna be great. So people started arriving on what Friday, Saturday.
The first group started rolling to town on Thursday night. UM.
They were they were small in numbers. They didn't really
start blocking anything off because they're just weren't enough of them. So,
but you could hear the horns starting on Thursday night, UM.
(19:47):
And I think a lot of some of them were
going into hotels. UM. They were smaller groups too, mostly
from sort of local groups. UM. And then around ten
or eleven in the morning on frid Day, UM, we
started hearing reports at Kingston, which is about an hour
issue away, an hour and a half UM that there
was a group moving out of there. So around one
(20:09):
o'clock in the afternoon Friday, the first group started to
arrive and started to congregate downtown. And one of the
things about Ottawa is, UM, it's a lot, like a
lot of big downtowns, it's a lot of one way streets.
So the moment you get the trucks starting to get
into intersections or near intersections, you're blocking off all passage
in certain directions, so they started blocking off the northbound
(20:30):
really quickly, just because that's where how they were coming in.
Um And there's only like three gas stations downtown as well,
which is it kind of plays a big factor in
the route that they took. So they all passed by,
especially the passenger cars that were running mow Um passed
by and through that way. And yeah, by about two
or three o'clock in the afternoon, everything south of Somerset,
(20:51):
which is about a kilometer and a half from Parliament,
was pretty much jammed at that point. As Saturday nights came,
much of the group supporters and truckers alike spent that
time partying late into the night as heavily backed up
traffic continued to effectively shut down roads and large areas
of the city around Parliament. Throughout the weekend, businesses in
(21:12):
the surrounding areas that did not close ahead of the
protests were swarmed by customers, many refusing to wear masks.
A local Homa shelter and soup kitchen was harassed by
convoy participants who were turned away from restaurants after refusing
to wear a mask. A large number of the convoy
attendees surrounded the shelter, demanding to be fed by the
facility staff. According to the shelters president, convoy participants assaulted
(21:35):
a client of the shelter and her old racial slurs
at a security guard who attempted to intervene. Workers and
volunteers at the shelter noted that parked vehicles blocked the shelter,
making it difficult for amliences to reach the facility and
for staff to assist community members in need. A home
in the downtown area was pelted with rocks and snow,
as well as vandalized with human feces, all for showing
(21:57):
a Pride flag in their window. The operations manner for
the Ottawa Paramedic Service said that an ambiliance was pelted
with rocks, and paramedics checking the damage were called racial
slurs by convoy participants. Ottawa Paramedics have since requested police escorts,
citing safety concerns. More public backlash was prompted after reports
surface of a monument dedicated to commemorating Terry Fox being
(22:18):
covered in protest signs and being staged to hold an
upside down Canadian flag. No restroomain Saturday night related to
the convoy but as the convoy stuck around even past
the weekend, there was this growing feeling of downtown residents
that they've been abandoned by the city and law enforcement,
with the whole situation and response to the situation making
them afraid to leave their homes. I asked Paul what
(22:41):
his experience on the first weekend of the occupation was
and the general feeling in the area of downtown Ottawa.
And you're living like right in the middle of this.
How much has this affected like your day to day
life and all your neighbors and stuff, like what what
what are you able to do and not do at
this point, Well, it's the weekend was it was especially bad,
(23:02):
and we're all kind of bracing for what this weekend
is going to be because that's when you had just
you know, there were between somewhere between ten and fifteen
eighteen thousand people as the estimates I've heard, um all
crowding downtown in the streets. So at that point, I mean,
that was when the police were telling people not to
wear a mask out um because you know, you're kind
of putting yourself at risk, uh, because it'll be targeted
(23:26):
for violence. Yeah, So I mean I was like basically
anytime I've left the house. So we have a mask
mandate still an effect in Ottawa, So you have to
wear them indoors pretty much everywhere. UM, So I have
to wear at my building, I have to wear at
the convenience store. If I'm gonna go go buy say,
you know, pack of cigarettes, I'm not going to take
it off. It's a thirty second walk. And so that
was that. The harassment around that started on Friday. UM,
(23:49):
and then it just became anyone who was out and
about that didn't look like they were part of it,
UM started getting hassled. UM. Other people I know who
live in the area, as specially women, UM, have been
targeted a great deal. UM. Anyone who's part of you know,
the LGBTQ community has been It's it's not really just
(24:11):
it's just not safe to be out on the streets
and it's not really safe to show that you don't
support what they're doing. At points since the convoy started
arriving in Ottawa, the extreme elements of the protest have
been pretty visible. Among the thousands of attendees were recognizable
members of white nationalists, hate groups, you know, not seeing
Confederate flags were seen flying too and on. Logos were
emblazoned on trucks and sides, and stickers were paced up
(24:33):
on telephone polls around the occupied area, baring Trudeau's face
reading wanted for crimes against humanity, the official line from
original convoy organizers minus Pat King, of course, however, has
tried to remain focused. In a Facebook live broadcast, James
Bodder of Canada Unity instructed his supporters to stop talking
with the vaccine and instead stick the messages of freedom.
(24:56):
The goal of adopting a more restricted and relatable protest
cause is to hopefully drop up more widespread support and validity,
and it initially worked in some ways and not in others.
Numerous members of the Conservative Party have come out to
meet protesters, especially throughout the first few days now. Former
Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole met with Convoy participants, albeit
(25:17):
away from the main protest site. Both People's Party of
Canada leader Maxie and Bernair and Ontario Member of provincial
Parliament and leader of the de facto Ontario arm of
the PPC, Randy Healer, who has made many recent and
semitic comments, both gave speeches on Saturday the twenty nine
in front of the Parliament building. People like Elon Musk
(25:37):
and Donald Trump have both endorsed the convoy, and Fox
News has been endlessly broadcasting glowing updates of the convoy
since its arrival in Ottawa. According to the convoy participants
and organizers, they are vowing to camp out in front
of the Parliament until their demands of dropping all COVID
nineteen health measures are met. Wild stated grievances can be
(25:58):
broader and more vast on the ound. The current Memorandum
of Understanding, posted on the Canada Unity website, which collected
over thirty signatures, served as a sort of bargaining pitch
between the convoy and the Canadian government. The Memorandum of Understanding,
or the m OU, calls on Canada's appointing senators and
Canada's Governor General, the representative of Queen Elizabeth the second
(26:22):
in Canada's constitutional monarchy, to abolish all COVID nineteen related
restrictions and to allow all unvaccinated workers whose employment was
terminated because of vaccine mandates to get their jobs back.
James Potter, the guy who runs the Canada Unity insisted
to his followers that the m o U would force
the government's hand and possibly even trigger fresh elections if
(26:43):
enough people signed. Another Canada Unity organizer went further, saying
it would require the Senate to go after the Prime
Minister for corruption and fascism, which, of course there's no
legal basis for any of these claims around the m
O you, but you know that doesn't really matter in
the end, because we'll still believe it. So it's going
to have an impact on what they do. The more
(27:03):
controversial Pat King laid out an alternative, however, a more
direct plan of action to the occupiers. In a January
Facebook livestream, King said that what we want to focus
on is our politicians, their houses, their locations. If political
pressure doesn't work, blocking major supply chains will be later on,
so more more on that idea later. After the first
(27:26):
weekend of protests kind of turned occupations, go fund Me
released a reported one million dollars of the total ten
million raised for the convoy. As the end of the
weekend approached, many convoy participants who rolled into the nation's
capital began heading home, and the highways on Sunday night
saw no shortage of vehicles heading away from Ottawa with
their approachest signs and flags still in tow, but plenty
(27:50):
of people stuck around to continue the fight. Thousands and
thousands of people and hundreds of vehicles, including a fleet
of semitrucks, commercial vehicles, r V campers, and regular of
cars were more than enough to keep the roads in
a large portion of Ottawa around Parliament effectively shut down.
I can't help but draw comparisons to the fearmongering narrative
of bus fuls of Antifa, you know, protesters coming from
(28:14):
out of town into places they don't live, terrorizing locals,
shutting down cities. You know. The other comparison is to
like the chop where the chas in Seattle was taking
over a large portion of the city and how that
was so vilified. Except you know, this is so much
bigger and impactful than anything so called Antifa or the
Black Lives Matter protests have ever done, especially in Canada,
(28:37):
in terms of actually impacting the functionality of a city
and restricting the local, national, and international capitalist trade. The
Freedom Convoy has done everything and more its proponents warned
that Antifa was going to do to Canada. Obviously, part
(29:02):
of the reason the Convoy protest was able to get
to this point is not just because of its large size,
but also the initial hands off approach by police that
allowed the convoy participants the opportunity to get a strong
foothold within the city. The difference in initial law enforcement
reaction to the protest Convoy made up of largely you know, conservative,
(29:23):
middle class white Canadians, compared to other protests like you know,
the Black Lives Better protests or say the RCMPS typical
response to First Nations protests and blockings defending their land.
The comparisons cannot be over analyzed. You know, the latter
two forms of protest I mentioned actually do challenge societal
power structures that prop up white Canada, while as this
(29:45):
convoy protest does not and instead plays into those very
power structures. That dynamic played a major role into how
the police handled or didn't handle the first few days
of the protest, in which during those early days the
convoy attendees were free to build infrastructure that resulted in
the protest escalating into a full scale occupation. The Monday
(30:06):
after the first initial weekend, the city's mayor, Jim Watson,
declared a state of emergency, but at that point Attawa
police thought it was already too late for the protest
to be ended by sheer force without vastly increasing the
likelihood of severe damage and life threatening outcomes to the
convoy participants, police officers, and regular citizens of Ottawa. On
(30:27):
February twod Ottawa Police Chief Peter Slowly explicitly said that
there may not be a police solution to ending the
convoy and occupation. There are similar demonstrations taking place in
many other parts of this country, indeed many other parts
around this continent in the world. What happens here effects there,
(30:47):
What happens there affects here. We have seen in the
last twenty four hours attempts by other police and other
jurisdictions to do just what you have suggested. They were
not effective and they created additional safety issues, potential life
threatening safety issues. I have great compassion for those that
(31:08):
have been significantly affected, if not traumatized, and we know
criminally victimized. We will do everything we can to hold
those who have done that to account. Will continue arresting
and charging people as we have been. But any action
taken without understanding the totality of the context, the totality
(31:28):
of the risk, would be irresponsible. You're trying to be responsible, lawful,
ethical and measured. My last comment when I wrapped up,
I'll share again now. The longer this goes on, the
more I am convinced there may not be a police
solution to this demonstration. There are police chiefs commissioners across
(31:54):
this country that are dealing with demonstrations that are starting
underway and signal effectively advanced. This is a national issue,
not an Autawa issue. From the start. Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau has been playing down the notion of a military
response to the ongoing Ottawa protest. During the first week,
he said that sending in troops is not in the
(32:15):
cards right now. On February two, the Automa police chiefs
said that all options are on the table, including eventually
calling in the military, but one must be very very
cautious about deploying troops in Canadian soil in such cases.
Trudeau said that a news conference under the February that
it's not something that anyone should enter into lightly with
police basically leaving the Ottawa residents who live near and
(32:38):
within the convoy occupation to fend for themselves. I was
curious what sorts of things the local community might be
doing to live around this massive, conspiracy filled group of
reactionary out of town campers. What sort of things have
the has the community been doing to kind of help
survive this this Like has there been like mutual aid
(32:58):
projects in the neighborhood to help support other neighbors, you
know that that sort of thing there have Um, it's
actually been kind of wonderful the way the community has
been coming together, especially after two years of pandemic where
we've all been kind of like Ottawa and Ontario have
been one of the more restricted jurisdictions in North America. UM.
I mean, and I say this as a restaurant manager, like,
in my opinion, rightly, so, like it's about keeping people safe,
(33:20):
and we've done a fairly good job of that by
and large. But the thing is that, you know, our
community hasn't felt a lot like a community in a while.
And this week, I mean, one of the few positives
has been UM both individuals and organizations, So I mean,
Rose and some of the other organizations that we mentioned
on Friday have done a great job. There's also been
some really really great organic organizing coming out of UM.
(33:43):
Some activists as well as just people in the community.
So there's a a few discord servers set up right now.
So there's been a huge issue with people, people with
disabilities and the elderly getting groceries because deliveries aren't possible downtown. UM.
So it started on Twitter. UM, but there's been an
organized station set up to help people get those groceries.
Whether it's a cost issue or just a physical delivery issue,
(34:05):
We're ensured. People are ensuring that that's happening. UM. As
of today. UM, there's gonna be a safe Walks program. UM.
There's well, there's two. There's one on discord where it's
people offering to you know, make sure that you can
get through the space safe today. Though, UM, in a
positive and more passive sense, we kind of started taking
the streets back. So UM, we had about four or
(34:27):
five groups of people ranging from ten to fifty just
just walking the streets and not not confronting anybody, not
getting getting into any direct engagement, just going out to
show that we can still walk on our streets and
letting our you know, our our neighbors know that we
can actually be together and you know, stand up just
to be together, which is something that I think a
(34:47):
lot of people have lost over the last week. I mean,
like the fact that that's even a big step is
showing how tired the situation is. The fact that just
getting to that point we're walking around in a group
where you feel safe is like a big thing. That, Yeah,
that's like a really interesting and horrible indicator of what
(35:08):
the mood has been like there for people like living
in this area. That is. Yeah, that is a big
part of it. And it's something that was actually talked
about a lot today, which was how refreshing it was
to be able to do it, but also that it
shouldn't feel radical to take a safe walk in your community,
but it somehow did um and it speaks a lot
to the feelings the lack of safety or the loss
(35:31):
of you know, safety in this community and has been
pretty immense. I should mention that another community led effort
to deal with the occupation is the ram Ranch Resistance,
a loosely organized counter movement to the Chuck Our Convoy
that started with people joining the convoys online communications channels
and blasting the homo erotic country song ram Ranch. The
(35:54):
song is by a Canadian artist and features some flawless
lyrics like eight teen naked cowboys wanting to be fucked.
Cowboys in the showers at ram Ranch on their knees
wanting to suck cowboy cox. Ram Ranch really rocks. The
result is not only making the convoy folks uncomfortable because gay,
(36:15):
but also it is hijacking and making their online communications
channels kind of useless for any non cowboy cock sucking
political organizing efforts. Disruptive resistance to the convoys online communications
is not just limited to the ram Ranch song, however,
Other vulgar songs have also been introduced into the chats
as well. I'm gonna just kind of give you a
(36:35):
brief look at what it's like inside these chats, right yeah,
I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna role play it. The
ram Ranch guys are finally gone. It's about freaking time.
I've had to shut that stuff off. One person has
heard saying and a clip from a chat, immediately followed
by a robotic voice saying, welcome to the come zone.
Only come inside anime girls, quivering clip, double jointed pussy
(36:57):
fresh balls. Since then, the movement is taken on as
something of a life of its own. The ram Ranch
Resistance hashtag has been used as a way for people
to share information regarding the convoy, and Welcome to the
ram Ranch signs have been popping up at convoy counter
protests around the country. Another ram rancher created the website
ram Ranch dot c a linking to downtown organizations that
(37:19):
have been impacted by the trucker convoy, as well as
charities aiding indigenous people's As the convoy settled in, it
appeared at the demonstrators and the government had reached a
sort of stalemate. Currently, there are more than four hundred
trucks parked downtown and Ottawa Police say that they can't
move them because the too operators with city contracts are
(37:40):
refusing to help, making matters only more difficult. Police say
that families with children are sleeping in approximately a quarter
of those trucks. To get an idea of what some
Autawa residents who live within the occupied zone see in
terms of a potential end in sight, I posed Paul
this question, how do you even see this situation resolving
(38:01):
at this point? Like, do do you think they're like
the truckers and the people who are in the city
are gonna are gonna back down and leave eventually? Or
like or do you think they have to be forced out?
Like what do you see kind of an end to
this at this point? Well, it's at this point. Probably
one of the hardest things to admit is that I don't, um,
the hardest core that are here committed and they have
(38:23):
a significant amount of funding behind them. And the thing
is that you know, with an occupation protests, they if
you don't nip it in the bud, it's snowballs and
gathers momentum for a while. Um, and I mean eventually
they either peter out or they have to be removed.
And this one is still snowballing. Um. We've seen some
more extreme elements come into the city this week. Um,
(38:45):
yesterday Romana did dulo the human on Queen of Canada
arrived in birth Brent the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill,
which whatever you think about the Canadian flag, and it's
simple as a simpler propression. Um, you know, that's not
a great look for them. But the other side of
it is is that this is a woman with seventy
followers who you know has called for the mass execution
(39:08):
of her enemies and you know is currently parked in
or Winnebago two and a half blocks from my house
right now, um so, and with a bunch of her
followers down with her, And so they're committed. They know
they don't know that I did occupy a lot of
(39:29):
years ago. And the question that people asked us, and
sometimes it was the police, was what gets you out
of the park. And in a weird way, there's a
parallel here, which is that the hardest answer with occupy
was always kind of like everything is kind of fucked,
So how do we fix everything? That's the discussion we
should be having. So in this case, to these people,
(39:50):
in their worldview, everything is kind of fucked, and there's
no answer that you can give those kind of people
in negotiations. The police right now are are not looking
at removal as a serious option, I don't think, or
if they are, they haven't figured out how to get
to that place yet. And one of the weird things
about Ottawa is is that technically in various spaces, because
(40:13):
the way it's designated, there's a whole mishmash of jurisdictions
between the various police agencies. So like again with Occupy,
that we picked the park, like the park that was
occupied was partially picked because it was on like this
weird jurisdictional black hole where it was hard to figure
out who the cops were at, who should police it were,
um so, and they've ended up in the same park
(40:35):
where they now have like fifty five cylinders appropane, sitting
about five yards from the Department of National Defense. So it's, uh,
it's tricky to figure out how you how you get
get out of that because all it's going to take
is one of them with something in their cab and
it's done. Yep ye. Well, do you have any hope
for anything? Do you have any indicators for how it
(40:57):
can turn out? Well, I mean in terms of the occupation.
I mean, we'll see how it goes. Um maybe there
can become some kind of modus vivendi between them and
the rest of the city. I don't know how that happens,
but maybe there can be, but I don't know. It's
the only silver lining I see right now is you know,
(41:17):
the walk that I was on earlier today and the
chat that I was having with other people in the
community and the discord server and everywhere else, like this
is a really strong community that cares a great deal
about itself and sometimes needed to be needs to be
reminded of that, and uh, I think this is an
opportunity for that to happen. Then I think that that's
the positive that can come out, is that we will
(41:38):
take care of ourselves and we'll take care of each other.
And that's you know what, what more can you ask
where I guess out of this? Reports of assaults perpetrated
by members of the Convoy protest have been steadily ruling
in the past few weeks, not to mention the seemingly
constant presence of honking in the downtown area that's been
affecting residents every day and even into the night. I
(41:58):
will offer you this short sample to help complete the
picture of what it's like both indoors and outdoors in
downtown Ottawa. So apologies about that. Yeah, that was pretty
(42:23):
bad and as annoying and frustrating as it may be.
Before I close out part one, I'm going to play
some audio from one of the truckers or you know,
just Convoy participants as he addresses fellow Convoy ors on
why it's good and in fact revolutionary to hunk horns
late into the night. I think it gives you some
valuable insight into how these people frame their actions in
(42:45):
their own heads. And you know it will give you
an opportunity to hear some of these convoy people directly.
So here we go. Let's starting on. There was quiet
when I got here, but now they're starting to be
there're starting to make some noise. Now I get it.
I saw some comments saying that you want to go
from nine to five and you want to turn your
horns off, and you want to you know, be respectful
(43:06):
and play the optics war. And you've done You've done
all the map, man, I get it. I we've done everything.
Every piece of garbage has been picked up. Statistically, there
is no crime. And when I mean statistically, if you
have some drunk guy acted, you know, silly on one
street quickly gets you know, talk to and then the
Patriots taken back to his car, and maybe there was
some incident of mischief. I've heard reports of anti for
(43:28):
throwing rocks and trucks, tag and stuff. They're the ones
committing the crime. But other than that, this has been
the most well to have revolution on earth. And now
the big complaint is can you get them to only
blow their horns between nine and five. I'm sorry, what
has compliant got you guys so far? What is just
little by little? Oh? Just do this, Yeah, just just
(43:49):
go peep your horns between nine and five. That's all
we're gonna ask. Then were two masks, Then just go
right back to square one. How about you put your
blame right where it belongs, right in the eye of
Sauron And that's who we handle this with and every mandate.
We're not allowed to exist in society. I'm not allowed
to go to a movie. I'm not allowed to go
to a restaurant. I'm not allowed to leave the country.
(44:12):
You can't even leave, you can't travel on planes, you
can't do anything that Trudeau can get his fingers on
to discriminate against us in society. Meanwhile, he'll blame us
for side effects of his guinea pigs. It's an insane world.
And you've complied long enough, guys, and the madness in
the horn stop. But I am in no place to
(44:32):
go tell these guys, Oh excuse me? Can you turn
your horn off? Can you get used to complying again?
We want freedom. We're not asking for anything unreasonable, and
we're doing it on your behalf. The least you can
do is turn off your televisions and stop letting their
horrible objections to this revolution, and they're horrible false flags
and whatever else they bring. I'm sorry about the noise complaints.
(44:53):
Now are you sorry about banishing me from society and
treating me like I'm some sort of lever because I
want to keep my immute is done? Sorry, guys, the
Horns stuck it up your ass. Anyone that has a
problem with loud noises, we have a problem be advantished
from society. Apologies for that, But now I hope you
(45:14):
have a better understanding of the type of conspiratorial thinking
among the people in this convoy and the importance this
whole thing means to them. So with this, that wraps
up my part one of my deep dive into the
Canadian Freedom Convoy. In the next episode, we'll get into
the border blockades both in Alberta and the Ambassador Bridge,
(45:36):
which is preventing some international trade. We'll get into some
of the smaller protests and attempted occupations in other cities
across Canada, and how the situation is evolving in Ottawa
and what types of long term political ramifications this protest
and any attempt to suppress it will have so with that,
see you on the other side. It could Happen Here
(45:58):
is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media
dot com, or check us out on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks
for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!