Trucks block a downtown road as truckers and their supporters continue to protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Ottawa, on Feb. 15.PATRICK DOYLE/Reuters
Is the truckers’ rebellion an isolated outbreak, or a harbinger of more destabilizing acts of defiance to come?
The easy answer is that the current convulsion is just a consequence of pent-up frustrations brought on by the pandemic. When COVID-19 restrictions are gone, Canada will become Canada again.
Maybe. But more likely this is mythful thinking. If the hard right didn’t have much of a foothold in Canada before, it does now. No matter what happens to them in the ensuing days, the convoy rebels have scored a clear triumph.
They goaded the governing class: You like lockdowns? Well, we’ll show you a lockdown. Their occupation is one of the great paybacks, one of the most punishing embarrassments ever inflicted on our political elites.
Immobilizing the nation’s capital, the ragtag rebels captured headlines and the imaginations of would-be demonstrators around the world. They have created a strong support network in the United States, achieving hero status with the more radical factions of Donald Trump’s huge Republican base. They have built a financial support network here and in the U.S., where much of their funding originated.
They now have the wherewithal, and all the tools, to pursue other so-called freedom causes.
Not to be overlooked is that millions of Canadians support Trumpism. It doesn’t mean they support what the truckers are doing. Most don’t. Not their tactics anyway. But it does suggest there is ample room for growth. On the first anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the United States Capitol, I opined in a column that as we watch Americans revisit the horror of that day, we should refrain from gloating. Given the Ottawa occupation, that view seems somewhat less mired in myopia than my usual prognostications.
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Whether we have more such protests depends on a variety of factors, starting with whether this alarming wake-up call prompts public authorities to take smart preventative measures to reduce the chances of copycat uprisings.
It depends on whether the political polarization of the left-right divide, which is far less severe in this country than south of the border, can be held in check.
On that note, we’ll see whether the People’s Party of Canada, which could have just as easily been called the “Freedom Party,” takes a big leap forward as a result of the insurgency. We’ll see what happens in the Conservative leadership race – whether the party opts for a polarizer such as Pierre Poilievre, or more of a moderator such as Jean Charest should he decide to campaign.
We’ll see what happens with Trumpism in the coming U.S. midterm elections. If the extremist tide is slowed in the U.S., any momentum it has here will likely be slowed as well. But by the looks of things now, the opposite is likely to happen. The election will give it a big boost.
The potent weapon of the insurgents, here as in the U.S., is disinformation. They prey on the gullible by selling claptrap: Vaccines can alter your DNA, vaccines can cause death, vaccines are illegal etc. etc.
The “disinfodemic” is increasingly a source of division. It’s free speech run amok, hogwash by the barrel. It’s hate speech, racist speech. It’s vicious online ad hominem attacks on public figures from cowards who hide behind pseudonyms. That’s not free speech. That’s fraud speech.
But calls to regulate the internet, as in Germany, have been met with outrage – look no further than reaction to the modest internet bill currently proposed by the Liberals.
Most everything in Canada, like in the U.S., has become politicized. The online world, giving boomboxes to everyone, has spawned an exponential growth in the number of negative voices that litter the landscape, creating a grievance culture.
Radical fringe groups are empowered. The national dialogue is increasingly vitriolic. The arenas of confrontation multiply.
The threat of instability doesn’t have the same degree of resonance as it does in the U.S., but signs are worrisome. When you see polls such as one after the 2020 U.S. election that showed 41 per cent of Canadian Conservatives (18 per cent of Canadians overall) agreed with Mr. Trump that the book looked to have been cooked, it should give us pause.
The truckers’ uprising has roots that go deeper than anger over COVID-19 mandates. While not agreeing with their tactics, large numbers of Canadians are at one with the truckers in their opposition to government overreach.
The truckers tapped into a smouldering level of discontent. There’s a big market for giving the elites their comeuppance, which could well lead to more upheavals.
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