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Canadian truck drivers who oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandates plan to participate in “The Convoy for Freedom,” a cross-country protest, on Jan. 23. The truckers will drive from the country’s westernmost province, British Columbia, thousands of miles east, towards Ottawa.
“We are taking our fight to the doorsteps of our federal government and demanding that they cease all mandates against its people,” said Go Fund Me organizer Tamara Lich. “Small businesses are being destroyed, homes are being destroyed, and people are being mistreated and denied fundamental necessities to survive.”
The protest stems from a Jan. 15 order by the Canadian federal government mandating the COVID vaccine for all cross-border U.S. and Canadian truckers.
On a recent episode of “TimCast,” journalist and political commentator Tim Pool covered how the federal mandate could affect the supply chain and the truckers who are protesting.
Pool argued that while the jobs of the police, healthcare workers and firefighters are important, the important work of truckers often gets overlooked.
Pool said:
“If truckers, for one day, don’t show up for work, basically the entire country shuts down … all of a sudden there would be a massive derailment of the economy and that would be from just one day. I think it’s important to point out that truckers might be the most powerful group of [workers] in the country.”
Pool mentioned an article in Canada’s Global News about recent protests at the Canada-U.S. border where truckers used their big rigs to stop traffic in protest of the vaccine mandate.
Truck drivers were “blocking all lanes heading south to the United States and Northbound traffic coming from the USA,” according to Global News.
“Bravo gentleman, you gotta hand it to these truckers, non-violent civil disobedience,” said Pool.
Mandating the vaccine for truckers “is one of the stupidest things that I have ever heard considering they mostly drive in trucks by themselves,” Pool said. “It makes almost no sense.”
Pool said the mandate could have serious effects on Canadians’ ability to buy anything, including food.
Bloomberg reported that the mandate for truckers “goes against the advice of top food supply experts.”
Canada’s plans to turn away unvaccinated truckers at the border is “a move that threatens to upend the flow of everything from food to auto parts to building supplies between two of the world’s largest trading partners,” the Bloomberg article explained.
According to an estimate from the American Trucking Associations, “only 50% to 60% of U.S. truckers are vaccinated,” making thousands of drivers ineligible for cross-border shipments due to Canada’s mandate rule.
“I think we’re going to see two things: We’re going to see shortages on our shelves… and we’re going to see increased costs,” Mike Millian, president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, told CTVNews in an interview.
Watch the “TimCast” segment here:
