CONVOY BRINGS LITANY OF COMPLAINTS
Group delivers variety of messages from pro-pipeline, anti-carbon tax campaigns
The United We Roll convoy rolled up to Parliament Hill on Tuesday, the culmination of a five-day journey that began on Feb. 14 in Red Deer, Alta., picking up support as it zeroed in on Ottawa and the federal government.
The group came to deliver its pro-oil pipeline and anti-carbon tax message, but also brought with it a potpourri of other complaints. According to organizer Glen Carritt, a town councillor from Innisfail, Alta., the group also takes issue with Bill C-69, known as the Impact Assessment Act, which imposes new environmental assessment measures on Canada’s resource sector; Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which bans large oil tankers from British Columbia’s northern coastline; and the United Nations Compact on Migration.
“It was a good journey,” said Carritt, “and we got lots of support along the way, especially in Ontario, which shows that Canada needs to be united and wants to be united.
“We need to get pipelines into the ground immediately,” he added. “We need Bill C-48 and 69 and the carbon tax abolished, and we need the UN Compact investigated. But we need to start using Canadian oil.”
To this list, however, some of the approximately 250 people who took to the Hill — close to half of them wearing yellow vests and jackets made popular by a grassroots, populist movement in France — brought other issues, including taxation, the government’s intervention in business in the first place; and its treatment of veterans, farmers and fathers.
If a single thing really united them, though, it was their collective hostility toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Some protesters wore buttons that read “Never Elect a Trudeau Again” or waved placards reading “Make Trudeau a Drama Teacher Again”, “Justin! Can You Hear Me Now?” and “Trudeau! Your Job: Protect Our Borders Like You Protect Your Own Home and Family.” At least one person had Sharpied an election slogan onto his yellow vest: “Flush the Turd 2019.” Many in Tuesday’s crowd agreed. “We’re tired, we’re mad, we’re ready to get even,” said Les Michaelson, who drove from Edmonton. “We have over 100 years’
supply of oil in the oilsands, and for Trudeau to come and want to shut it down is a slap in the face of anyone out in the West. We’re looking at jobs, oil and the economy. We can’t just leave it in the ground. We want a better economy for all Canadians.”
Tom Taylor, 50, a hardwood floor specialist who made the trek to Ottawa from Strathcona County, just east of Edmonton, brought with him a laminated copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which he had other protesters sign.
“I’ve come to be heard and I have a lot to say. I’m here for no carbon tax. And I’m here for taxation; we’re paying too much tax in this country. I’m here for legal immigration. I’m here for my children’s future. I want Canada the way Canada is now. I want people’s rights upheld. I want people working. I want prosperity. I want hope for the future. And the direction I see we’re being dragged is not good for Canada.”
Taylor and Michaelson were among those in Tuesday’s protest who only recently became politically active, in Taylor’s case as he watched his family’s farming lifestyle eroded by government.
Similarly, Brandin Jones joined the convoy at the last minute as it rolled through Regina, where he lives, the first time he’s got actively involved in current affairs.
“The country is a business, a massive business, and you need morale to keep people together,” he said. “Right now, people don’t know if they have a job two years down the road. We need to build up morale in this country, because once you get a negative vibe, everything falls apart, and I think that’s what’s happened.
“The government is tax collectors,” he added. “They shouldn’t be in business.”
They didn’t all come from the Prairie Provinces, either. Senior Dale Larose drove in from Almonte with a friend to lend her support. “I support the pipeline,” said the Ontario Landowners Association member.
“We want our rights respected, our property rights and anything that goes along with that.”
Throughout the late morning and early afternoon, speakers, including Opposition leader Andrew Scheer, Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre and noted right-wing political commentator Faith Goldy, warmed the crowd with similar sentiments.
“It is time that Canada had a prime minister that is proud of our energy sector,” stumped Scheer. “That doesn’t go to Europe to tell his famous friends that he’s trying to phase out our oil and gas, but fights for it, fights for markets for you and fights to get you back to work.
“I am sick and tired of watching people chain themselves to trees and laying down in front of bulldozers,” he added as listeners cheered and Make Canada Great Again caps nodded in agreement, “trying to block Canadian energy from reaching markets, but yet day after day we see tanker after tanker of foreign oil coming into our markets. It’s time for that to stop.”
And while Scheer understandably urged those present to help elect his Tory party to power this fall, Saskatchewan Conservative Senator David Tkachuk had a quicker and far more dramatic, if somewhat less democratic, plan.
“This is not about Bill C-68, this is not about Bill 48, this is not about Bill C-69,” he said. “This is a clear attempt by the government of Canada to destroy the energy industry, and with that … the pipeline industry.
“I know you’ve rolled all the way here, and I’m going to ask you one more thing: I want you to roll over every Liberal left in the country, because when they’re gone, these bills are gone.”
Just outside the Hill, meanwhile, in among the trucks on Wellington Street, a group of 60 or so counter-protesters tried to have their voices heard above the blare of horns and megaphoned United We Roll supporters.
“I think it’s really important to counter some of the hate speech and far-right rhetoric associated with this,” said Adrian Murray. “We understand people’s livelihoods are being undermined and they don’t feel like they’re represented, which is symptomatic of a lot of discontent in the world. But I think this is the exact opposite response to take. It’s regressive, right-wing nationalism.
“I’m also here to stand in solidarity with Indigenous land and water defenders, because they’re on the front line in the struggle against pipelines. And I’m here for myself, as a Canadian citizen. I have an interest in oil staying in the ground. We live in an economy dependent on fossil fuels, and we need to start transitioning away from that, in a way that ensures people have good jobs.”
The convoy protest continues Wednesday on Parliament Hill.