The movement of truckers that converged on Ottawa over the weekend has less to do with the obligation to vaccinate them than with the general fed up of a tiny part of society, fiercely libertarian, who is tired of sanitary measures. The merry carnival is to the right what the Occupy Montreal movement of 2011 was to the left. A collection of heterogeneous groups and individuals exults in the exercise of a counter-power bearing the hope of radical change.
At the time these lines were written, the apprehended outbursts and insurrection had not taken place, although the real test for the peaceful character of this movement will come in the coming days with the inevitable dispersal of the demonstrators and the return of the deputies to the Communes. Journalists on the ground in Ottawa, insulted and threatened, described a weekend oscillating between exultation and exasperation on the part of the thousands of participants. We are far from the insurrection of January 6, 2021 in the United States, of which certain commentators evoked the specter. Neither deaths, nor attacks in order against the forces of order, nor forced irruption in the precincts of the parliament. At most, middle fingers and shameful banners for the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, subversive violations of the obligation to wear the mask, vandalism on monuments and criticism of sanitary measures that border on simplism when they don’t simply fall into denial. It’s an ambient background noise, detestable, but certainly not harmful enough to panic.
The parade will pass. But unlike the Occupy Montreal movement, the truckers’ convoy was co-opted by the far right. The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CCA) has disassociated itself from the so-called “freedom convoy”. An estimated 85% to 90% of the ACC’s 120,000 members are already vaccinated. A problem that affects fewer than 18,000 truckers would never have generated such a great surge without external forces injecting their sinister ambitions in motion. The group Canada Unity, the main organizer of the convoy, proposes the overthrow of the government on the basis of a far-fetched theory of the powers conferred on the Governor General and the Senate.
It is this fury that we must worry about and it is this that we must vehemently denounce. To theorize on the joviality and general bonhomie of the demonstrators, while erasing these embarrassing expressions of hatred and conspiracy that have emerged through the populist clamor, is intellectual cowardice. It’s not every day that a demonstration in the nation’s capital attracts cowards who brandish swastikas or openly fantasize about overthrowing an elected government. We cannot ignore the abject immorality of those who take advantage of the distress caused by the health emergency to try to destabilize Canadian democratic institutions and stir up division, hatred and rejection of the other.
Some political leaders have chosen to analyze the situation with a narrow-mindedness that borders on indecency. The leader of the People’s Party, Maxime Bernier, shows no shame in strutting around in a demonstration where sympathy for the neo-Nazi movement is displayed. Among the Conservatives, former leader Andrew Scheer supported the movement, calling Prime Minister Trudeau “the greatest threat to freedom in Canada”. Finance critic and party heavyweight Pierre Poilievre spoke to the truckers to show his support. Poilievre saw only “peaceful, gentle and patriotic” people.
Strongly contested within his party, the Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, also met the organizers far from the heart of Ottawa. His calls for extremists to desist from the protest and his condemnation of hatred and violence came too late. If he was so concerned about the undesirable elements of the movement, he would have done like the Ontario premier, Doug Ford, or the opposition leaders, Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet. He would have stayed away.
Unafraid of hyperbole, O’Toole said he had never seen Canada as divided as it is today, with 91% of the population having had their first dose of the vaccine, and 88 % a second dose. It is a restless minority to which the Conservative Party pays excessive attention, at the risk of a willful blindness that will push training to the periphery of relevance.
The truckers’ movement will at least have served to expose the turpitude of the conservatives and their slow and worrying march towards antisanitary populism. This does not bode well for the near future of Erin O’Toole and the future of the Conservatives as an alternative to the Liberals.