Even Alberta, the prairie heart of Canadian conservatism, had imposed all three - with Jason Kenney, the province’s Conservative premier, arguing in September that a passport system was ” the only way to cut viral transmission without destroying businesses.”Īlberta and several other Canadian provinces are now in the process of lifting some of the more burdensome restrictions. Vaccine passports, school mask mandates, and even bans on private indoor gatherings larger than 10 people have been widely used across Canadian provinces. My experiences reflect the country’s much stricter government policies. When my daughter developed a fever from an ear infection, I was asked to provide a negative Covid-19 test upon entry to an urgent care facility without one, we were told we would have been turned away. At gas stations and rest stops in upstate New York, masks are treated as optional at best once you cross the border, virtually everyone you see indoors is masked up. The differences between the two countries become apparent almost immediately upon crossing the border. I’ve been to Canada several times since the beginning of the pandemic, driving over the Peace Bridge from Buffalo into southern Ontario. The so-called trucker movement is on the fringe, including among Canadian truckers - some 90 percent of whom are vaccinated. In reality, the mainstream consensus in Canada about Covid-19, and the nation’s institutions in general, is holding. News coverage of the convoy, especially from sympathetic anchors on Fox News, may lead Americans to believe that Canada is in the midst of a far-right popular uprising. Internationally, the freedom convoy has inspired copycat efforts in both the United States and France.īut it’s important to understand the broader context in Canada. The border crossing blockage is putting more stress on the US-Canada supply chain, costing (by one estimation) $300 million a day in economic damage. It has already contributed to a revolt against the Conservative party’s leader and is serving as an important organizing node for far-rightists. This doesn’t mean the movement will accomplish nothing. The current demonstration is quite unpopular with the general public, divisive even inside the center-right Conservative party. They have enjoyed broad public support in doing so even the strictest restrictions are less controversial in Canada than in the US. Demonstrators have shut down at least two border crossings between Canada and the United States.īut while the protests are generating a lot of noise and attention, the eruption actually points up a counterintuitive fact: The Canadian far right is weak and ineffectual, especially when it comes to pandemic restrictions.Ĭanada’s provinces have generally employed strict Covid-19 measures such as school mask mandates and vaccine passports, including during the recent omicron surge. As the situation in Ottawa continues, the freedom convoy movement has expanded across the country. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson has declared a state of emergency, and Trudeau’s government has deployed hundreds of Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the protests. In the first week of February, it received over 200 calls. Ottawa police, who have proven some combination of unwilling and unable to restore order, have even set up a special hotline to deal with a deluge of alleged hate crimes stemming from the protests. The demonstrators, which have included as many as 8,000 people at their peak, have terrorized Ottawa: blockading streets, harassing citizens, forcing business closures, and honking their extremely loud horns all night. Protester demands include an end to all Covid-19 restrictions in Canada and the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But the demonstrations have swiftly ballooned into a broader far-right movement, with some demonstrators waving Confederate and Nazi flags. The so-called “freedom convoy” is nominally protesting a vaccine mandate for truckers, implemented in mid-January on both sides of the US-Canada border. Since January 28, Canada’s capital city of Ottawa has been under siege by a convoy of angry truckers - a two-week running protest that has drawn support from right-wing extremists in Canada and abroad.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |