Home » Canada’s trucker convoy may be over, but the problems are hardly over for the truckers – and for the rest of us

Comments

Canada’s trucker convoy may be over, but the problems are hardly over for the truckers – and for the rest of us — 26 Comments

  1. One could hope the clueless Canadians start to feel the loss of truckers. Living in an extreme climate should support common sense but, given the lunacy in Minneapolis, it may have the opposite effect.

  2. Sent this letter to my bank’s CEO yesterday:
    (CEO name)
    (company address)

    (CEO name here),

    I have been banking with (bank name deleted) for more than 30 years, and I have been pleased with the services you offer, and the compassionate way your bank treated me when I was unemployed for nearly a year back in the 90’s.

    I am writing to you now because we find ourselves in unprecedented times. My $6,000 in my savings account earned me all of a nickel in interest last month. This, while inflation is officially at 5.2%, and, in reality, much higher since the official inflation figures don’t contain such “volatile” expenses as food and gasoline. If I were to pull my money out of your bank and stuff it under my mattress, I would not miss the pocket change in interest that it earns me in a year.

    That means that, aside from implicit safety, there is no upside to my keeping my money in your bank. What has gone on in Canada however means there is a serious potential downside to the safety of leaving my money in your bank. As I’m sure you’re aware, the Canadian Prime Minister declared a state of emergency and “asked” the banks to freeze all the assets of thousands of citizens that had either participated in or supported the trucker’s protest in that country. And the banks, from all reports, complied meekly, if not enthusiastically, with nary a whimper of protest. Now he’s asked them to unfreeze the accounts, and there is a significant run on Canadian banks for customers to get their money out before it’s seized again.

    If President Biden were to declare such a situation and ask or order your bank to freeze the assets of anyone who organized or supported the January 6th event, or a new Republican president were to order the same for anyone who contributed to Black Lives Matter or any organization that he deemed supportive of those who took to the streets over the George Floyd matter, would (name deleted) comply like the Canadian banks without taking the issue to court before taking such an action?

    What the Prime Minister has done has irreparably damaged the banking industry in Canada. For your own industry’s sake, I ask you to come out now publicly and state categorically that this will not happen in the United States. That at the very least, any such mass freezing of assets without individual, legitimate court orders will not happen until the matter has been litigated to the highest court in the land. Even if that is what you would do, if you do not state it publicly now, it will be too late once the attempt is announced.

    I well know that most people would not consider such drastic action as taking their money from institutions such as yours, but if 10% of your customers decided to do that, how would that affect your bottom line? That number is not farfetched, as you can well see by the number of people in this country who have refused the COVID vaccines despite having to leave their jobs to do so. Ten percent may seem a small number to take such drastic action, but can you afford to lose 10% of the assets invested in your bank, and the panic that would follow such a step?

    If you firmly believe such actions as have occurred in Canada will not and cannot happen here, you owe it to your customers to publicly say so in the firmest terms to prevent any future government from contemplating such an action. As a leading institution in your industry, I think it will redound to you and your company’s benefit to take the leadership on this issue.

    Sincerely,

    (my signature)

    (my name and address)

  3. Today Giulio Tremonti, who was minister of Economy in Italy several times, has sarcastic words for the western world: in an interview he says that the final communiqué of both the recent G7 and G20 had a few lines about Russia and China and “whole pages about gender equality, and the world palingenesis expected from their ecological, social and digital policies”.
    No doubt, Putin and Xi Jinping can see the same mounting stupidification of our ruling class.

  4. The majority of adult Canadians who do not care what Trudeau has done to the protesting, peaceful truckers now deserve what Trudeau has planned for them.

    Frank,

    That’s a fine letter, please let us know if you get a response and of what it might consist.

  5. @Mike K:One could hope the clueless Canadians start to feel the loss of truckers.

    I think the truckers who protested are too small a share of the total number of Canadian truckers for this to happen.

  6. The media needs to tell these truckers stories! That is their role in society; a voice for the voiceless.

    Where are the news stories about business owners who lost their lives’ work in the pandemic? The stories of people who died alone in convalescent homes? The stories of High School and College students who lost a year or more of their lives, academic careers, athletic careers?

    Surely there are still some news outlets left who will tell these peoples’ stories?

  7. Rufus T. Firefly,

    According to Jordan Peterson very few even occasionally report objectively. Ezra Levant and Truth North are the only reliable ones that I know of who regularly report anything contrary to the narrative. Reporting on the devastation is not supportive of the narrative.

    Besides the majority of Canadians don’t care.

  8. Re Canadian media (specifically the CBC):
    “Tara Henley: Why I quit the CBC;
    “‘To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity'”—
    https://nationalpost.com/opinion/tara-henley-why-i-quit-the-cbc
    Key graf:
    “…When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press….”
    – – – – – – –
    Frank, great letter.
    I’m not sure, though, why one would assume that if the bank assured you they would never ever do what those Canadian banks did, that they should be believed, given the power of the government under “emergency” (so-called) regulations.

  9. I doubt that Frank will put much faith in the substance of any response. I suspect he is challenging the bank to take a position, and I also suspect it won’t. Sure it may send a bafflegab response, but it will be of little meaning and even less consequence.

  10. My wife is talking about taking some of her money out of the financial institution where she has money. I certainly understand, but I am not there yet. But do know it could happen here.

  11. Geoffrey and Ray, If I receive a reply, I’ll post it. I sent it snail mail with only my address for reply because email is too easily to discard or ignore. Of course, since I’m a customer, the CEO could easily look up my email and phone number, but I expect to hear nothing. Still I say these things in the hope of setting something gnawing at the back of the brains of people who don’t consider the whole perspective. “I don’t believe that no one wants to know,” as the song says.

  12. Ray van Dune,

    “Bafflegab?!” Just looked it up. That’s wonderful! Can’t wait to use it!

  13. I’m not sure about Canada, but in Australia we have a concept called “Work to Rule” which Unions would call in lieu of a strike. Basically it was an acknowledgement that following ALL the rules (especially in Union awards) was impractical as it led to such extreme slowdowns that the effect wasn’t much short of a strike.
    Watching the Canadian Truckers drama unfold from afar, I couldn’t help but wonder if in pushing the demonstrators too far, the Government isn’t inviting a work-to-rule style slowdown, or I suppose just a general slowdown. Stuff like requiring a legal opinion for deliveries to Ottawa to ensure no rules are being broken and the delivery driver can’t arrested, their rig confiscated etc for parking or honking their horn. Requiring every regulation “t” to be crossed and “i” dotted to ensure the delay cannot be labelled illegal. Or getting lost, or maximisation of driver break times for fatigue reasons, or bad/dangerous weather conditions (many safety issues could be exploited) ….. all the while innocently proclaiming “we are doing our best”.
    A classic passive aggressive response to legal authority. No need to stop the flow of goods, just slow it enough that the shortages are felt. It would be interesting to see if something along those lines occurs.

  14. In re Frank’s magnificent letter – my only editing would be to shorten it a bit, as the attention span of most people these days is the length of a Sesame Street quip or the ad on a cereal box.

    “Still I say these things in the hope of setting something gnawing at the back of the brains of people who don’t consider the whole perspective.”

    I applaud you whole-heartedly, but predict the primary result will be to put your name on the list to be frozen first when the Brandon Administration gives the word.

    @ Shirehome > “My wife is talking about taking some of her money out of the financial institution where she has money.”

    Well, as Frank said, your mattress gives as good a return as the bank, it’s just a bit more cumbersome.
    We have one major account in a bank I have some hope will maintain its sanity (USAA chartered in Texas); and minor amounts in 2 credit unions and a local bank, all of which I am beefing up; and the retirement money in 2 separate investment institutions, one local and one national but conservative.
    I also have more cash in the house than I’ve ever “stocked” in my life, and just added a stash in the car for emergencies.

    The enthusiastic followers of the Brandon Bunch frighten me more than anything I can remember.

  15. @ Barry in re Tara Henley’s manifesto – I read that on her Substack when she left CBC in January, and will quote from there so others will have the link to her articles.
    The whole thing is a masterful indictment of the press as is exists today.
    IIRC, she was not the only anchor to walk off the set (or out the door, for print media) in the last few years, for the same reasons.

    https://tarahenley.substack.com/p/speaking-freely?utm_source=url

    When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.

    Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted.

    It used to be that I was the one furthest to the left in any newsroom, occasionally causing strain in story meetings with my views on issues like the housing crisis. I am now easily the most conservative, frequently sparking tension by questioning identity politics. This happened in the span of about 18 months. My own politics did not change.

    To work at the CBC in the current climate is to embrace cognitive dissonance and to abandon journalistic integrity.

    Cue Ronald Reagan’s “…the Democratic party left me.”
    We see that bolded sentiment a lot these days, in addition to the people who have had an actual change in ideological point of view.

    Here’s a very recent one; see her personal comments beginning 2:32.
    https://www.prageru.com/video/how-to-end-systemic-racism
    5-Minute Video by Amala Ekpunobi on February 28, 2022

    She was on the woke side until a few years ago, and even got a BLM tattoo.
    Then she actually started looking at the facts.

  16. @ Richard > “I’m not sure about Canada, but in Australia we have a concept called “Work to Rule” which Unions would call in lieu of a strike.”

    Same thing in America, and it gets used.
    A big worry about the Trucker Convoy heading for DC for the SOTU tomorrow is when Biden will do the same thing to them, even if the protests aren’t full of provocateurs itching to trigger an analog to the Canadian Emergency Powers Act, and we have plenty of statutes that will serve.

    (You may have seen the FBI Team meme with the big rigs)
    https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/download-5-3.jpg?w=900&ssl=1

    https://townhall.com/columnists/markdavis/2022/02/21/americas-freedom-convoy-makes-headlines-before-it-even-starts-n2603566?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

    At first glance, the notion of an army of truckers protesting authoritarianism in a cross-country trek is inspiring to the millions of Americans who have looked on in admiration as Canadian truckers have taken their stand. Those supporters have also looked on in revulsion as Canada’s government and police forces have overreacted in word and deed, slandering the movement with Nazi imagery and threatening participants and supporters alike with crackdowns on expression and freezing of bank accounts.

    The U.S. Constitution precludes some of the heavy-handed response seen in Canada, but that is no guarantee that the American left will restrain itself, rhetorically or behaviorally. It is easy to imagine the American truckers condemned as the Canadians have been, with support for them similarly denounced as domestic terrorism. That suggests the backfire may be as glorious to watch as the convoy itself, but there are figurative land mines along the route.

    It will be interesting to see if American convoy support wavers when it is our roads and bridges being blocked. It is one thing to watch a traffic snarl in Ottawa, and quite another when it is our commutes and other travels impeded.

    Presuming a wide latitude of forgiveness in that regard (from sympathetic Americans at least), it will also be a good idea to observe some imagery control. Let’s have everybody leave the swastikas at the house, even if the idea is to project Third Reich stigma onto others. And I’ve spent a lifetime explaining to people that confederate imagery does not necessarily connote racism, but let’s leave those flags at home as well. One of the most basic rules of winning people over is: no unforced errors. Don’t needlessly give your critics material to slam you with.

    The Canadian convoy was often mislabeled as “anti-vaccine” when its main point was against mandates and government overreach. Similar mischaracterizations are a certainty if an American convoy takes shape, but those can be navigated with persistence and clarity.

    As for the over-the-top attacks that will rain down from the parts of America that fear the convoy’s message of freedom and self-determination, our truckers can wear those as a badge of honor.

    I don’t necessarily agree with Bonchie here, but he makes some good points.
    https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/02/27/the-american-trucker-convoy-is-a-really-bad-idea-n529100

    … I was a strong supporter of the Freedom Convoy in Canada. I felt their cause was just and that the crackdown by PM Justin Trudeau was truly authoritarian and disturbing.

    The thing about that protest movement, though, was that it had a clear goal: To get rid of the federal vaccine mandate affecting truckers. While the ideological boundaries were stretched at times, it was never a question that the Freedom Convoy was fighting for something tangible and just.

    On that note, what is this American trucker convoy protesting? There is no federal vaccine mandate for truckers (or private employees in general) in the United States. COVID-19 mandates at the state level have also been nearly universally lifted. Further, the fact that the U.S. is a republic has always presented a far different dynamic compared to Canada’s top-down, federal control of the populace. In short, you cannot have a successful political movement if it isn’t focused, and if the point is just to bait law enforcement in hopes of getting attention on CNN, that doesn’t seem like a very good reason for its existence.

    Still, the murkier nature of the American trucker convoy wouldn’t normally be enough for me to speak against it. After all, people are free to protest for whatever reason they want, whether I agree with it or not.

    Rather, the reason I’m addressing the matter is because of how politically stupid it is.

    Understand that Joe Biden is not just on the ropes. He’s been thrown out of the ring already. The president’s latest approval numbers are horrific, and with the Russian invasion of Ukraine underway, leading to serious issues abroad and at home, things could actually get worse. It’s not just Biden who’s in the dumps, though. Republicans lead on the congressional generic ballot by a large margin. 2022 is shaping up to be a massive wave year for the GOP.

    Given all that, the one thing Biden and Democrats are desperately hoping is a political event to reignite their right-wing, domestic terrorism trope. The biggest gift in the world to the left-right now would be for this trucker convoy to shut down traffic and become a big story, serving as a distraction from Biden’s State of the Union, which is likely to be an utter disaster. When your opponent is drowning, do not throw them a life-ring.

    There are some very selfish elements on the right, and they don’t just exist within the establishment. Be skeptical of anyone pushing something that could actually be counter-productive to your cause. The goal is to survive the Biden administration via obstruction, and the time to be strategic in achieving that goal is now. If Biden’s federal vaccine mandate hadn’t been struck down by the Supreme Court, I’d be on board with an American trucker convoy. But right now, it doesn’t make sense and is handing fodder to a Democrat Party already in full-scale collapse. Let them burn.

    But on the gripping hand:
    https://redstate.com/tladuke/2022/02/28/the-american-trucker-convoy-is-a-really-good-idea-n529710

    Bonchie is a strong supporter of what happened in Canada, as I have been,…

    I agree with almost everything in his opening statement [about the clear goals of the Freedom Convoy]…I will concede that the convoy heading to D.C. does not have the same organization and messaging that its counterpart in Canada had. As Bonchie acknowledges, that goal did morph a bit in the three weeks that the protest shut down Ottawa. However, there is a United States federal mandate that needs to be eliminated. The Biden administration introduced a mandate that truckers heading back from Mexico or Canada into the United States must be vaxxed just a week after the Trudeau government instituted theirs.

    Then last week the Republicans in the United States Senate introduced a bill to repeal the Biden mandate.

    “The Biden Administration’s decision to impose a vaccine mandate on cross-border truckers transporting goods to and from Americans makes zero sense,” Rubio said. “Our bill will put an end to this craziness, help relieve the ongoing supply chain crisis, and restore freedom for North American truckers.”

    As I said above, this has not been clearly communicated, and Bonchie is spot on about that. Most people have no clue about the Administration’s vax requirement for cross-border truckers and might think this is just solely a reaction to what happened in Canada.

    Where I diverge with my distinguished colleague is where he says this:
    “Rather, the reason I’m addressing the matter is because of how politically stupid it is.”


    I heard similar arguments during the Tea Party days, which were akin to playing it safe and just waiting until the next election. Do you know what that got us? It got us Obamacare 12 years later, which will never be repealed. It got us a larger government that’s just not as large (kinda) when the R’s are in charge.

    Bonchie is right that the Biden administration is a disaster. In my opinion, the overall fear that another Jan 6th could occur and take some of the steam out of the Biden team sinking is playing defense and we don’t have time for that anymore. This country is in some major trouble, and if you want the Republicans to actually do something other than pay lip service if they take control in November you had better put the fear of the Lord Jesus into them. One way you do that is to show up at places they are — including Washington D.C. Let them know you are watching and will be voting and will tell all your friends to vote for or against them. Be polite but let them know that the time for filling hot air balloons with political rhetoric is over.

    Do not worry about what the media says or spins, because they already hate you. I do not say this lightly, but it is shown to be true each and every day. The mainstream media in this country hates what Main Street Americans stand for, and we have allowed them to spin their crap for way too long. Worrying about what Jake Tapper is gonna spew on CNN or any other alphabet news outlet regarding any event that real Americans who care enough show up for is no longer a consideration in my book. They are going to call you a racist, homophobe, and/or hater of any and all pronouns regardless of whether you go to a rally or not.

    So I guess I’m just sick of being defensive for essentially breathing or because I have the damn audacity of thinking and writing Let’s Make Words Mean Things Again.

    The worry for the drivers, and supporters, is not about the media spin per se, but about how that spin augments and abets the judicial tyranny that has been unleashed against conservatives, including the IRS targeting Tea Party supporters going forward to the DOJ running its J6 Gulag.

    I do like Duke’s conclusion, though:

    Tomorrow, you are going to undoubtedly read about the 10 year anniversary of the passing of Andrew Breitbart. I did not know him well but had the pleasure of breaking bread with the man on occasion, and he shaped how I view the media and the world today. One of his greatest shove it back in your face moments involved the type of smear job that lefties love to inflict.

    At a 2010 rally/gathering of the Tea Party folks on Capitol Hill, a gaggle of Democrats, including revered Congressman John Lewis, said that the folks protesting at the Capitol had used the N-word to Lewis and others as they walked by them. Breitbart and his team went through hours of cell phone video and could not find any evidence that this was the case. Andrew was so sure that this did not happen he later offered a 10,000 dollar reward for any proof that the slur had been used. No one ever collected that reward, but I imagine if someone 12 years later could find the proof they could still collect.

    The reason why is that the media repeated a lie that was told by people who specialize in lying. No apologies were ever issued and never will be.

    The left hates us and will destroy you whether or not you show up at a rally or just post a meme on Facebook they dislike or that hurts their feelings. The time for caring about what they think is long past, in my opinion, and the folks in Canada gave us a bit of a wake-up call on that.

    Whip those cell phones out tomorrow and have a good rally. If some idiots get out of line, grab a cop, and don’t let them ruin your right to protest the idiotic things the government does on a daily basis.

    Truly, that is the most American thing to do.

  17. Andrew Breitbart RIP – it’s somehow fitting that the Brandon SOTU will be on the anniversary of his death.

    https://media.babylonbee.com/articles/article-10595-1.jpg

    Remarks in his honor last week.
    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/25/cpac-tribute-andrew-breitbart-knew-fake-news-well-before-it-became-catchphrase/

    No warranty implied, but whereas in 2012 I would have dismissed this not-very-professionally-written post as a tin-foil-hat screed, I am no longer confident that is the case.

    https://www.truthandaction.org/ex-cia-agent-obama-killed-breitbart-clancy/

    And Epstein didn’t kill himself.

  18. I think Mr. Solway is giving more weight to the threats made against the truckers than is probably deserved.

    Based on the legal analysis I’ve seen, the withdrawal of the EA will result in their accounts and property being returned unless there’s a proper adjudication of specific criminal charges found to justify their seizure.

    That goes for the 39 business and truck license suspensions as well. Those are ostensibly to preserve potential evidence in anticipation of future police investigations. But it’s not clear that the police intend to investigate those parties nor why an entire business operation needs to be shut-down to preserve some undeclared evidence.

    And I’m not sure why he believes the truckers are ‘crushed’ – I’m not in Canada but the Canadian sources I read don’t convey that. I wonder if he’s relying on ‘mainstream’ sources that are presenting the movement as crushed and demoralized.

    If anything, it’s apparent that a lot of Canadians have awoken to the fact that the Trudeau government are deeply corrupt and dishonest.

  19. I disagree that Canadian liberals don’t care about the truckers and their repression by the government. They do care. They enjoy the repression. They celebrate it.

    Canadian liberals are just as evil as American liberals. They hate and they hate deeply.

  20. It’s a blue collar protest movement. They are undervalued and looked down upon by the laptop class, but are the ones who get the stuff to the stores that their betters could have delivered to them during the pandemic, keeping their sorry asses safe from the pandemic. And then their betters declared that the truckers, spending their days self quarantining in their big rigs, had to accept jabs of dangerous experimental gene therapy vaccines to remain employed as truckers.

    But it is much more than merely a trucker protest. That is just the ostensible justification. These convoys are, in the end, generalized working class protests, against their self assigned betters. Progressive elitists imposed idiotic draconian restrictions on the populaces of democracies around the world in the name of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly just to show that they could. And these protests are saying just the opposite, that they can’t.

    The protests are for moral legitimacy. The protesters are pushing the other side to overreact and give up moral legitimacy, and that is exactly what is happening. When protesters arrived in DC in early January last year, to protest the stolen election, the leftists in power had them arrested, and held without bail, in deplorable conditions, contrary to our Constitution, because they could. Another 1/6 protester killed himself the other day, adding another martyrdom to the cause.

    Does this sort of protest work. Sometimes. Though we no longer remember the names of the miners and their families machine gunned by company police, near Pueblo, CO, a bit over a century ago, it was the beginning of the end of company police who could put property rights over individual rights, and murder those who challenged their power. Without those protests, and those willing to sacrifice, the union movement throughout the 20th century may well have been very different. The big companies utilizing these techniques went beyond the pale, and society ultimately rejected them. And that is what happened with the 1/6 protesters, and seems to be happening with these truck convoy protests – the autocrats and despots on the left are ripping off their own masks, and showing their true faces. They are showing, to the world, that they are brutal despots, only conforming to societal norms, and our Rule of Law, when convenient.

  21. The next liberal that chimes in with “we’re all in this together” is going to get a beating so severe that I cannot advocate it on Facebook.

  22. The trucker protest was extremely effective for people who get their information from other than the MSM. In that regard, they were preaching to the choir. Frankly, I’m more than a little surprised that there wasn’t more false flag mischief. I guess Canada hasn’t caught up to the U.S. government in that regard.

    I can’t even imagine what the effects of the loss of confidence in Canadian banking would be, or how many people are capable of seeing them for what they are: organizations that are more than willing to violate morality (and probably the law) when a politician says so. Is there anyone you can trust now?

    On my walk with my wife last night I mentioned that it turns out Dr. House was right all along: Everyone lies.

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned about our government here in the States is that I used to think the government was extremely incompetent and mostly corrupt. Now I believe that they are far more corrupt than incompetent, and that anything they are doing that seems stupid or bad is almost certainly bad on purpose. As cynical as I already was, I lost a lot of faith in human institutions the last two years.

  23. I suspected, and probably mentioned here as well as other places the Truckers were going to get Jan6th just as our January 6 ralliers have been scooped up and tossed in jails. My heart goes out to them, and their troubles are most likely barely started.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>