Canada’s Anti-Vax Answer to Jan. 6 Is an Indefinite Blockade of Ottawa
Now that thousands of protesters have shut down Canada’s capital, they say they want all vaccine requirements quashed and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau removed from office.
The blockade is perhaps the most drastic, organized, COVID-19-inspired demonstration the world has yet seen. Its organizers are a Voltron of various political factions: There’s the right-wing nationalist who is vowing to blockade MPs’ homes; the QAnon follower who wants Trudeau tried for treason; the political activist running a $7 million fundraiser, trying desperately to stop GoFundMe from seizing the dough; and a plethora of other characters who have assembled to shut down the capital.
Their mix of pseudo-science, grassroots organizing, and a dash of legal mysticism have combined to create a really potent rally cry.
And while the parka-clad protesters, shivering in sub-zero temperatures, may look perfectly Canadian—it may be a sign of things to come elsewhere.
As soon as the first leg of the convoy began on Jan. 22, from northern British Columbia, speculation ran wild over just how many people were heading to Ottawa and what, exactly, they planned to do when they arrived.
The boosters of the convoy were more than happy to offer wild estimates about the size of their movement. Former NHL right-winger turned right-wing conspiracy theorist Theo Fleury told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that “50,000 truckers and about 1.4 million people are headed to the parliament in Ottawa,” repeating an oft-mentioned estimate that bounced around the convoy Facebook and Telegram groups. One image claimed they had already “made the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest convoy ever!!!” (They had not.)
As the vehicles began converging on Ottawa Friday, it was clear the estimates were grossly overstated. Reuters, citing a government source, said they expected 2,700 trucks.
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The sea of signs offered a glimpse into what, exactly, the crowd was asking for: Signs called for an end to all vaccine mandates and restrictions across the board. Dozens of signs extolled the dangers of vaccines: “Vaccines = genocide,” one read. In front of a war memorial, facing Parliament Hill, another read: “WANTED: JUSTIN CASTRO,” a reference to the prolific (and bizarre) conspiracy theory that deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is actually Trudeau’s father. Some even-more extreme symbols were spotted: A photo of a Nazi swastika flying alongside a Gadsden flag, and a few “Fuck Trudeau” banners were uploaded by one local Reddit user.
Most of the protesters were on their best behavior—organizers pleaded with attendees to “kill them with kindness,” as one put it. But the reason these people had come to Ottawa was a little less polite.
I arrived in Ottawa to find my hotel was also putting up dozens of the protesters. I shared an elevator with one man and, for four floors we made small talk about the weather. “Could be worse,” I said, arriving on my floor. “Could be worse,” he agreed. As the doors closed, he offered some parting wisdom:
“Could be better. It’ll be better when we get that fucker.”
Before January, truckers crossing the U.S-Canada border weren’t obligated to present a negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination, like most other travelers.
Last year, the Canadian government signaled that exemption was going to end—with the Biden administration following suit not long after.
Ottawa and Washington announced they would require that all cross-border truckers, responsible for nearly half of the 10 million trips made across the border each year, would need to show proof of their vaccine — otherwise, they would have to pay for a COVID-19 test or spend 14 days in quarantine.
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The slow mounting of vaccine mandates appears to be working. Of those eligible for the shot (5 years of age and older) 88 percent of Canadians have received the vaccine, making it one of the most-vaccinated countries in the world.
But with every new restriction, the noise from the anti-vaccine minority has risen as well. Rolling protests have crawled through Canada’s major cities weekly—weather permitting—since the vaccination campaign first began. Some doctors gained infamy, then reprimand from their medical associations, for handing out dodgy vaccine exemptions. Organizations have popped up to serve as hubs for disinformation and coordination amongst the anti-vaxxers.
The symbol of a circle with a red line painted through it has become an increasingly-common sign in rallies across the country: It represents anti-lockdown group The Line, a group which has recently advertised “PureBlood Dating,” a dating website for unvaccinated people.
There’s also Strong and Free Canada: An organization that has become a core proponent of the idea that the pandemic was all a ruse to get the world on a Chinese-style social credit program. They advertise a “jabless job board” and, perplexingly, another dating website: “Sovereign Citizens Canada.”
There are anti-vaccine politicians, like Maxime Bernier, leader of the far-right People’s Party, which garnered nearly 850,000 votes in last year’s national election; and Randy Hillier, who sits in Ontario’s Provincial Parliament.
A constellation of media operations, from DIY livestreams to full broadsheet newspapers, have sprung up to offer a voice to the anti-vaxxers. The largest of which is The Rebel News, which has been more than happy to publish articles with misleading, or outright false, accusations such as “Pfizer lied, people died?”
And then there’s the doctors. A number of self-styled experts, often with a “Dr.” in front of their name, have emerged to offer the veneer of science to the anti-vaxxers opposition.
Dr. Laura Braden, for example, warned in an interview last year that vaccinating children against COVID-19 meant letting “big pharma experiment on your children.” Braden advertises herself as “a PhD with molecular immunology with about 15 years experience in research and science.” She does not disclose, however, that her career has been studying the immunology of salmon. (Ironically enough, Braden works for a company pioneering how to genetically engineer salmon.)
Few of the doctors joining this movement have any expertise in virology or immunology. One of the most prominent, Dr. Byram Bridle, teaches at the Ontario Veterinary College. (Though he has done work on human cancers, including the development of a cancer vaccine.) Dr. Roger Hodkinson has claimed COVID-19 itself is a hoax—he is not, as he has claimed, a past chairman of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
Other organizations climbed aboard. Anti-vaccine groups like Taking Back Our Freedoms, Strong and Free Canada, and The Line; politicians like Hillier and Bernier; media outlets including Rebel News. Suddenly, Bauder’s tiny convoy had exploded into the most significant cross-country coalescing of anti-vaccine groups to date.
As their stature grew, their GoFundMe page started raking in donations: It hit $5 million CAD ($3.9 million USD) before the convoy even began in earnest.
In the days before the convoy arrived, a podcast called Bigots Corner celebrated the idea that the protest could spawn it’s own Canadian insurrection. One host said: “I would like to see our own January 6 event and see some of those truckers plow right through that 16 foot wall,” referring to a temporary barrier that surrounds the Parliament.
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In the days before the convoy arrived, a podcast called Bigots Corner celebrated the idea that the protest could spawn it’s own Canadian insurrection. One host said: “I would like to see our own January 6 event and see some of those truckers plow right through that 16 foot wall,” referring to a temporary barrier that surrounds the Parliament.
Concerns mounted that Canada was gearing up for its own version of the Jan. 6 insurrection after video emerged of King warning that the “only way this is going to be solved is with bullets.” On Friday, the Sergeant-at-Arms, who is responsible for security on the Hill, sent an email to Members of Parliament, warning that “solicitations were issued to the online community for Members’ residential addresses.”
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One thing is for sure: The movement has benefited from a tremendous credibility bump. Not only were right-wing politicians tripping over themselves to appeal to the crowd, but the mainstream Conservative Party —the second-largest party in Parliament—came out to show support for the movement. Leader Erin O’Toole met with truckers Saturday morning to “support their right to be heard,” while other members of his party, and potential challengers for the leadership, came out to more enthusiastically get behind the truckers. One Member of Parliament, Michael Cooper, was filmed on Parliament Hill standing, seemingly unaware, next to an upside down Canadian flag with a swastika drawn on it.
GoFundMe has shut down a fundraising campaign for the anti-vaxxer trucker convoy that is now camped out in Ottawa, Canada, defying authorities’ efforts to disperse them. “GoFundMe supports peaceful protests and we believe that was the intention of the Freedom Convoy 2022 fundraiser when it was first created,” the platform said in a statement on Friday. “We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.” GoFundMe had already released $1 million of the money raised to Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers and will now give donors refunds for the rest. Police in Ottawa have not ruled out asking for troops to be sent in to remove the remaining 200-plus demonstrators surrounding the parliament.
Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.
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Justin Ling
