On Sunday morning, the day after the massive Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa, Canada, to protest vaccine mandates that would force unvaccinated Canadian truckers crossing into the United States to quarantine once they’ve returned home, the CBC reported that the Transport Minister for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government stated that there was “working being done” to implement interprovincial vaccine mandates for truckers.
On interprovincial vaccine mandates for truckers Transport Minister @OmarAlghabra tells @RosieBarton “there is working being done to get us there” #cdnpoli
— Travis Dhanraj (@Travisdhanraj) January 30, 2022
Meanwhile, while the truckers arrived in Ottawa, Trudeau and his family reportedly fled their home and moved to an undisclosed location in the city.
Asked about claims that his vaccine mandates were causing supply chain disruptions, Trudeau stated, “I regret that the Conservative party and conservative politicians are fearmongering to Canadians about the supply chain, but the reality is that vaccination is how we’re going to get through this,” The Guardian reported.
CTV News delineated some other vaccine mandates that have been foisted on the Canadian citizenry by Trudeau’s government:
Along with the recent mandate for cross-border truckers, the federal government on Nov. 30, 2021, barred unvaccinated travellers over the age of 12 from boarding a plane or passenger train in Canada, regardless if they have a negative COVID-19 test. The federal government also has required core federal public servants, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to be fully vaccinated, a policy affecting approximately 267,000 workers with exceptions made for medical or religious reasons or on human rights grounds.
In mid-January, Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, acknowledged to Bloomberg News that Canada was already 23,000 drivers short of what’s needed to meet demand, a key reason for supply chain problems across the nation.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has tried to get the Canadian and U.S. governments to exempt truckers from vaccine mandates at the border. He stated, “The decision to require unvaccinated truckers to quarantine after they cross the border has basically taken thousands of long-haul truckers out of the cross-border transportation logistics system.” He added that the government of Alberta was “just calling on the two federal governments to simply exercise a bit of common sense here and to extend an exemption for unvaccinated cross-border truckers. … This policy I don’t think makes any compelling public-health sense, but it will worsen what we know is a growing supply chain issue.”
Jay Hill, a former Conservative member of Canada’s parliament, stated of the Freedom Convoy:
This thing has really taken on a life of its own. The vast majority of the people that have either come on board to participate in the truck convoy or those donating to support it financially have just reached a point of frustration and exasperation with these lockdowns and continuation of restrictions that they want someone to speak up and say “enough” to the federal government.
“Mr. Trudeau’s new cross-border mandate has raised concerns for other reasons. Like many countries, Canada is dealing with rising inflation and a supply chain already strained by the pandemic, labour shortages and bad weather. Prices are on the rise, including for food and petrol. It’s been getting harder to find some products on grocery store shelves — and Canada’s economy is heavily dependent on the men and women who drive the vast majority of food and goods consumed in in the country across the border,” the BBC noted.