Ostensibly, the truckers are against a new rule mandating that, when they re-enter Canada from the United States, they have to be vaccinated. But that is not really it. The mandate is a moot point: The Americans have a similar requirement, and, anyway Canadian truckers, the vast majority, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, are vaccinated. (The CTA represents about 4,500 truckers nationwide.)
So it is about something else. Or many things: a sense that things will never go back to normal, a sense that they are being ganged up on by the government, the media, Big Tech, Big Pharma.
It is hard to capture how thoroughly Trudeau has misjudged the moment. This pandemic has sucked for all Canadians, he said Monday. As for the protest? It has to stop,declared the prime minister.
If he sauntered down to the mess of rigs on Wellington Street, across from the Parliament building, opposite the mall and the war memorial, if he talked to these people for a few minutes, he would understand It will not stop.
What is happening in Canada right now is bigger than the mandates.
The convoy is spearheaded by truckers, but its message of opposition to life under government control has brought onto the icy streets countless, once-voiceless people declaring that they are done being ignored. That the elites the people who have Zoomed their way through the pandemic had better start paying attention to the fentanyl overdoses, the suicides, the crime, the despair.
Or else.
