Truckers in Canada have been protesting against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions since late January. They stopped traffic in the capital city of Ottawa as a part of their demonstrations, slowing down supply chains and closing nearly all businesses and daily activities. The self-proclaimed Freedom Convoy have also halted key border crossings, furthering the issues caused to the needed unification of the country during a confusing political time. As many are struggling to support each other during the still-looming pandemic, groups of extremists are consciously choosing to negatively impact public health and the international economy by taking a stance against proven science.
Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau chose to invoke the National Emergencies Act to curb the protests. He stated that “It is high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop,” indicating that the anti-vaccination stance of the truckers was against the government’s rules. Since the “Freedom Convoy” is mainly representative of the nation’s far right, they have adopted a stance that has been widely accepted by the American right as well. The Canadian government’s choice to respond with the Emergencies Act and use of police force has received a lot of backlash, since it was seen as a disproportionately hostile way to deal with the truckers’ disconcerted opinion. Even though the protestors usually support a far- right party that does not currently hold any seats in the Canadian parliament, their organization has presented extreme demands that they hope to obtain through their protests. These demands include the lifting of all pandemic restrictions and the dissolution of the current parliament, including the removal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from office.
While Trudeau has repeatedly justified his invocation of the act, many still view it as an infringement of the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. But does this right still apply when an international economy and public health is at stake – especially when no real alternative to the pandemic is applicable?
A small fringe group of extremists have managed to slow down supply chains and force certain automakers to cancel shifts because of the reduced supply flow. Even as the vaccine mandate is accepted by a majority of Canadians, it is clear that not everybody has the desire to follow the rules set in place by the authorities to promote public health and reinvigorate the previously declining economy. Such remonstration only pushes the country backwards after all of the progress that has been made towards settling into a ‘new normal.’
Along with the national emergency order, the Canadian government also indicated that the demonstrators’ personal bank accounts can be frozen, along with the accounts of any other citizens that may have financially contributed to the cause. The police, who have increased protestor arrests, struggle to balance allowing protesters to voice their opinions to the authorities and arresting them based on mischief and conspiracy charges. As such, several forces were afraid to move forward with moving against the protestors, especially since multiple of them were armed extremists and veterans.
Nearly 44% of the Freedom Convoy’s funding comes from right-wing American donors. The left wing has indicated that the right’s use of extreme methods has put them at a disadvantage instead of garnering support for their cause.
This raises the question: should protests like these be terminated when they begin in order to reduce their potential future impact? The protesters had been dismissed as a small group in late January, and now it has entirely disrupted international supply chains, with the knowledge that the government has not and will not have any intentions to change the pandemic restrictions. As such, were the retaliatory actions taken by the Canadian authorities too extreme?
Disruption is not necessarily a bad thing to use against protest efforts that have more bad impacts than good ones. For the right-wing truckers’ cause to have real effect in the pragmatic sense, they would have to use lobbying and negotiation with the corporations that enforce the government mandates. Shutting down roads and cities only hurts their own business potential and the entirety of the economy that depends on them. The fact that the police were fearful of utilizing force against the protestors indicates that the authorities’ response wasn’t wrong, but the protestors’ methods were.
Nandini Sharma is an Opinion staff writer. She can be reached at nandis2@uci.edu.