Exasperated by what they denounce as a vaccination obligation, Canadian truckers converged on the capital Ottawa. They have been joined by antivax and a number of conservative, ultra-conservative, and even far-right movements.
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While anti-Covid health measures were the subject of an urgent debate in the Canadian Parliament on Monday evening, hundreds of trucks continue to lay siege to Ottawa. The mayor of the city asked the help of the federal authorities to put an end to the show of force of the truckers dubbed “convoy of freedom”. “This is a real crisis for Canada, which has never experienced an event of this magnitude”explained on Tuesday February 8 on franceinfo Serge Jaumain, co-director of AmericaS, the Center for American Studies at the Free University of Brussels and professor of contemporary history.
franceinfo: What triggered this anger?
Serge Jaumain: It is the vaccination obligation that is imposed on Canadian truckers who cross the American border. The vast majority are vaccinated, 90% are, according to the main union. But a certain number of them believe that this poses a problem and they wanted to denounce this obligation to vaccinate which was imposed on them. They converged on the capital Ottawa, which is usually a pretty quiet little town. They have been joined in this movement by part of the antivax population and by a certain number of conservative, ultra-conservative, even extreme right movements because they find an opportunity to be heard. They have been very present for 10 days and it is a real crisis for Canada, which has never experienced an event of this magnitude.
Does the population share their opinion?
The population is divided. As everywhere there is a fairly strong polarization around the vaccine and one can even wonder if there is not the image of what happened on January 6, 2020 (the assault on the Capitol). Even Donald Trump has shown his support for truckers, his son as well.
Is it hiding something else?
Behind what the first demonstrators say, the demand for vaccine freedom, there is a fairly strong criticism of the Liberal government, but also of the Canadian system which is being challenged by ultra-conservative groups. We have the impression that we are using this movement to relaunch debates that we find in the United States. There is a strong desire to put pressure on Canadian institutions and say that they are no longer representative of part of the population.
What can the government do to get out of this crisis?
We have seen very little Justin Trudeau in the past few days. For him, there is no question of backtracking, but getting these hundreds of trucks out of the center of Ottawa is very complicated because there is support from a small part of the population and from a number of political figures. For the moment, everyone throws the ball a little, but the citizens can no longer live. There are horns going on day and night and the Supreme Court decided to intervene and ban them at least at night. For the moment, we do not see the outcome of this conflict. In Quebec, the demonstrations were much better managed and there is no blockage like in Ottawa.