Goanetters must have read enough about the Canadian truckers aka Freedom Convoy protests going on in parts of the country including one important border crossing.
So instead of posting links explaining it, here in a nutshell are the circumstances that surround the agitation. 1. How did it start? 20% of cross border (Canada/USA) truckers are unvaccinated. They started the protest when vaccines started to be required for truckers to cross the border. 2. Who joined it? All anti-Trudeau disgruntled elements including anti-vaxxers, anti-liberals, anti-immigration and conservative westerners joined the fray. Rednecks and conservatives including Bible Belt nuts in the US didn’t want to be left behind. 3. Why wasn’t it stopped? The authorities hesitated. They didn’t want enforcement violence and just hoped it would go away. Many of the enforcers, the police themselves, sympathized with the protestors and may have been reluctant to take physical action. Besides, truck drivers took along some children to prevent being forced out. 4. Is this a White thing? No definitely not. There is a lot of disgruntlement with unbridled immigration without strategic diversity resulting in most of the new people coming in being non-white. This leads to paranoia of early generation Canadians who before the the senior Trudeau government in the 1960s were all white. 5. How is it sustained? As the link below shows, the masterminds are government experienced people and the financing comes from the US groups mentioned in point 2 above. 6. Do truckers have anything to protest about trucking? North America relies more on road hauling than railways. There’s no good reason for this. Just the way it developed. In Canada, Punjabi Sikhs make up 20% of truckers and they say these protests are needlessly masking the real problems with the trucking industry. Insufficient compensation, excessive pressure, demands on drivers, unpaid wages by renegade companies and lack of regulation and oversight. 7. Is Trudeau really hiding? Ostensibly the PM is in quarantine in an unknown location because of infection in his family but he has not exerted strong leadership with this problem. Probably doesn’t know what to do due to lack of experience and getting conflicting advice. He’ll have to wake up soon and take a strong stand. 8. Is this hurting the country? In the short term, yes. Existing supply chain problems are worsened and trade is affected. But the economy is currently strong (the best in its peer group), the stock market fares well, the currency is holding up and all other markers including low unemployment, are favourable. 9. Is anybody laughing? Yes, the BJP in India. Trudeau gave unsolicited advice to Modi during the Indian farmers protest (the farmers were mostly Sikh and he has a strong vote bank with Canadian Sikhs). Now the BJP is saying that Modi is taking the higher ground by not giving him any advice with his troubles. (Notwithstanding Modi’s advice would be useless considering that the Indian farmers triumphed). https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/02/12/security-expert-mountie-soldier-meet-three-men-working-with-the-freedom-convoy.html Roland. Toronto.
