Canadians Take a Shift

The trucker convoys that have arrived at Ottawa and at the US border crossings in Alberta and Manitoba cannot be ignored. They have brought a new level of political engagement not seen for many years.

Lack of Political Leadership

Why have the trucks rolled? Canadians, most of whom are working-class, have supported the truck protest because they see no representative leadership available. Of course, there are MP’s who have been elected. But the fact is that the Opposition does not provide much in the way of real critique towards the government. The government itself has operated in a realm that doesn’t seek parliamentary filtering but acts independently. This is the way that many Western governments have operated, moving away from consensus-building democracy to state-directed democracy.

The trucker convoys have been supported by people of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, but they do not see representative leadership voicing the concerns that they have. The convoy is not merely a ‘conservative’ movement but is more like a rap on the knuckles to the political class. The convoy calls down the old political curse, “A pox on both your houses”.

The dismay of Canadians is shown to be well-placed when the Prime Minister fails to exemplify the traits which he has always projected, namely, empathy and authenticity. When these traits are only selectively employed, they reveal a deeper and more damning character trait, hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of Prime Minister Trudeau is becoming so large that international attention is being drawn to it, which appears to be the audience he favours the most.

Riding the Tiger of Identity Politics

The trucker convoy has clarified a further problem in the Canadian political scene. The divisive identity politics of the Trudeau circle cannot be branded as “sunny ways,” in the manner of Wilfred Laurier, a slogan which the Liberals embraced after the defeat of Stephen Harper. The convoy, with all of its ethnic and geographic diversity, was not given an inch by Trudeau. Instead, he doubled down on slanderous accusations against the convoy. The evidence for the appearance of a nazi flag and a Confederate flag at the rally has been widely suspected of being planted. One news organization has a cash reward available to discover the identity of either of these flag holders. It has even been suspected that Justin Trudeau’s personal photographer was following the flag bearer around when both quickly disappeared.

Only the opprobrium of white supremacy could give Trudeau the moral authority to dismiss the convoy. Yet as many non-caucasian convoy supporters have attested, they are not white supremacists.

Unlike the Black Lives Matter protests, the trucker convoy is not promoting identity politics, but unifying politics. The Liberal government has been riding the tiger of these identity politics and there is nowhere for them to easily get off.

Even the Twitterati in India thought Trudeau was due for a comeuppance. Pundits thought it was highly ironic that Trudeau was condemning a protest in Canada when he had the presumption to support a protest in India.

Yet his too-quick quarantine looked cowardly, and his positive Covid test communicated the very point that the truckers were trying to make: vaccines might be okay, but mandatory vaccination does not limit the spread of Omicron. However, mandates have crushing consequences on lives and livelihoods.

The Creative Offence

In an internet age, you would expect the protests of working-class Canadians to take place in some kind of online boycott. But the brilliance of the truckers’ convoy lies in their physicality. Like a large winger parked in front of the goalie, a large Kenworth is nearly impossible to move. The convoy has shown a creative offence that politicians would never have dreamed up. But in this new power play, anything can happen as the truckers effectively “crash the net”. Working-class Canadians are taking a shift on the offence. In so doing they are creating a shift in the whole game.

If It Was Me

If it was me, and I was organizing the truck convoy in Ottawa, I would rapidly build out the organization of convoy so that there is a lasting political movement. I’ve heard they have provincial ‘captains’. They ought to work at identifying federal, provincial and municipal allies, media allies, and allies in the corporate world. They have made their voices heard, but the next step is to build some lasting foundations for their movement. Maybe they should institute a series of lawsuits at multiple levels (see Brian Peckford’s lawsuit). They could also hire some well-known new media people (youtube or podcasting) who could begin a direct content drip that can last after the convoy is over. Their greatest challenge is getting their message out to the insulated classes in the major cities. Currently the Rogers/CTV/CBC media consortium has been just as creative as the convoy in finding story angles to undermine the convoy’s legitimacy. However, the fact of government-subsidized media being unable to hide their bias creates further distrust among the populace. All of this costs money to pull off, but they appear to have raised more than the Liberal party did last year.

Those are some thoughts, but what do I know, I’m simply a shepherd.