Long after blockade, Canada’s truckers have political champion
OTTAWA, Ontario — Canadians were shocked when a group of truckers rolled their rigs into the nation’s capital earlier this year, paralyzed the downtown area for weeks and demanded that the government lift all pandemic-related restrictions.
The demonstrations spread to border crossings, forcing car manufacturing plants to shut down and disrupting billions of dollars in trade with the United States. In the end, the prime minister took the extraordinary step of invoking an emergencies act allowing the government, among other things, to freeze protesters’ bank accounts.
But that was then. Now, the truckers and their supporters have become an important constituency and are being courted by the country’s Conservative Party, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s main political opposition.
Many in the party are busy rewriting what happened on those chaotic days in February, glossing over the blockades’ illegality and an arms cache found at a protest in Alberta, where authorities said protesters were ready to use violence to block a border crossing there.
And several would-be Conservative leaders are fighting each other to be seen as the true defender of the truckers and their claims that Canadians have lost their freedoms.
“The truckers have more integrity in their pinky finger than you had in your entire scandal-plagued Cabinet,” said Pierre Poilievre, the front-runner for the now vacant party leadership as he challenged a former Quebec premier, Jean Charest, in a debate last week.
With its multiparty system, Canada is not known for the kind of zero-sum politics that has come to define political life in the United States. But that is a narrative that obscures the struggles and intrigue that animates the contest for power in the country. That is especially true after the last elections in October, when Mr. Trudeau was returned to power for a third term as prime minister, with the far right party again failing to take any seats in the parliament.
The Conservatives, the only other party to form a government in Canada, are readying for a fight and see the truckers and their followers not as outcasts but as political currency that can bring in votes — and money.
“We should support our truckers and stand up for their freedoms,” Mr. Poilievre said at a recent rally in Ottawa.
Canada’s next federal election is expected in 2025, which in the world of politics is an eternity. Anything can happen between now and then.
The truckers may have a relatively small following
and may, in political terms, be seen as outsiders. But they have a highly motivated following that is angry, excited, engaged and eager for change.
The blockade began as a modest convoy of truckers and hangers-on that set out from Western Canada with a specific target: a Canadian rule that mirrored American law by requiring truck drivers returning from the United States to be vaccinated.
As the blockade traveled east to Ottawa and spurred copycat groups in other regions, the complaints of its members expanded to include all pandemic restrictions and general disaffection with government and Mr. Trudeau.
Ottawa’s police force, believing that the group would be staying only for a weekend, waved the trucks downtown toward the streets surrounding Parliament.
That assumption was devastatingly wrong. The police chief, who resigned during the nearly monthlong blockade, admitted that his overwhelmed force had lost control of the city.