Encouraged by the exit of Liberal MP Joël Lighbound on Tuesday, the “captain” of Quebec truckers present in Ottawa for almost two weeks believes that her movement is gaining popularity, even among vaccinated people. No question for her to leave the federal capital as long as the vaccine proof of Quebec will not be abandoned.
One thing is clear: the lifting of certain health measures announced by the Legault government for mid-March did not meet the expectations of the Quebec organizer of the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa, Joanie Pelchat.
“If the health passport remains, no. we will stay [à Ottawa] until all measurements cease. A free citizen does not have an assigned number to move around, has a free choice over his body,” chants the 39-year-old woman, who is staying in an Ottawa hotel with her husband, her one-year-old daughter and his dog Mika.
The duty met him in a conference room that has been reserved, she says, for negotiations with the government on Tuesday. Despite the invitation issued the day before during a press briefing broadcast on the Web, no politician showed up. It’s only a postponement, believes the organizer, convinced that the departure of the trucks will have to be negotiated.
“I was approached by the Liberal Party, certain ministers from Quebec,” she says. The Conservative Party also contacted us. During the interview, she incorrectly claimed that the Conservatives held “seats in government”, and said she had the ambition to “find the right people, the right countries, to have the help, the necessary support” to his cause. She insists: “The whole world is rising! »
The Prime Minister’s office confirmed that no minister had contacted the organization of the convoy. A spokesman for the Conservative Party said “it has no information on this subject”. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson on Wednesday rejected any proposed meeting.
Quebec organization
Joanie Pelchat coordinated the arrival of Quebec convoys on January 29 in Ottawa, whose hard core still occupies the streets in front of Parliament, to the great misfortune of the neighborhood. She is the one who responds to requests from francophone truckers, or who translate in French the number one of the movement, Tamara Lich.
The woman from Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu is not herself a truck driver. A graduate in international management, she has made a career in the field of medical technologies. It was only in January, during her parental leave, that she decided to get involved in the organization of the Canadian convoy, which then had no branch in Quebec. Her main motivation: the Quebec health measures that she considers liberticidal.
“When I saw it go, it was fear that inhabited me. Fear for my daughter’s future, fear, truly sincerely […]. When I saw that there was the “Freedom convoy” leaving from the West, I called immediately! »
After trying to reach “everyone in Quebec”, like the groups of nurses opposed to compulsory vaccination, Ms.me Pelchat rose in the national convoy organization. She shares the group’s decision-making with other “captains” from different provinces, she explains, such as silencing the horns on Monday following advice from lawyers.
“One of my team leaders lost his job yesterday,” she illustrates to demonstrate what truckers are ready to do to be always present in the capital. Despite the reimbursement of the donors of a first fundraising campaign on GoFundMe, a new kitty was created on a competing site, GiveSendGo. At the time these lines were written, it reached nearly eight million US dollars.
Not terrorists
The organizer dissociates herself from the mishmash of causes observed during the gatherings. However, she confirms that Keven Bilodeau, a person associated with the Farfadaas group, led by a former organizer of the La Meute identity group, “helped her a lot” to start the convoy. She says she is not responsible for the ubiquitous insults directed at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“We never said we were going to overthrow the government. We are not terrorists either,” she said, when asked about the pseudo-legal document published on the organization’s website until Tuesday, which falsely claimed that the Senate and the Governor General could force the government to put an end to the sanitary measures or to resign. A protest leader also spoke on Monday of wanting to meet with opposition parties to form a coalition.
Mme Pelchat believes that COVID-19 vaccines are “experimental”, although Health Canada states the opposite, stating for example that they “must meet regulatory requirements for safety, efficacy and quality before be able to be sold in Canada”. Mme Pelchat argues that the media is “lying”, and “not fair since the pandemic”. She doesn’t believe any police estimates on the size of her move. “We are talking about millions of people,” she recalls. The police estimated at 418 the trucks still present in the city center on Tuesday.
Surprisingly, she says she never received a police order to clear the trucks from the streets. ” [Les policiers] are very cooperative. They really help us a lot. The mayor of Ottawa contradicted her on Wednesday, recalling that more than 1,300 tickets were issued and that several arrests were made. The Ottawa police, who now speak of “illegal occupation”, evenclarified on Wednesday blocking the street is a criminal offence.