when was the last time we were restricted from travelling within canada? I was just in Vancouver in November.
Here in BC last year, our government put up a sign at the BC/Alberta border recommending against it, but they didn't really enforce anything. I think Atlantic Canada was the most strict it got with the safety bubble thing.
The Alt-Right on Facebook Are Hijacking Canada’s Trucker Blockade
In Ottawa, a protest against vaccine mandates has become an international sensation. American far-right personalities are behind its online rise.
PHOTOGRAPH: DAVE CHAN/GETTY IMAGES
FOR TWO WEEKS now, truckers have brought the center of Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, to a standstill. What started as a localized dispute against vaccine mandates has now snowballed—co-opted as a cause célèbre of America’s radical right-wing into a protest that reaches far beyond Parliament Hill. On the ground, hundreds of trucks and cars have blocked the streets of the city and set up a tent commune to protest against the imposition of vaccination requirements for truck drivers. On social media, videos about the protest are racking up millions of views and crowdfunding campaigns, shared by the likes of Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino, have raised huge sums. Confederate flags, QAnon symbols, and swastikas have all reportedly been seen at the protest site.
Viewed from a distance, what’s happening in Ottawa seems like an organic uprising by disgruntled truckers. But the alt-right has seized on the opportunity to turn a local protest into another chapter in the unending culture war. Offline, 90 percent of Canadian truckers are vaccinated and the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents the industry in the country and does not support the convoy, has said most of the people in and around the protests “do not have a connection to the trucking industry.” Online, the incident has become a global sensation with supporters gathering on Facebook and Telegram in the hundreds of thousands—with many of them living outside Canada’s borders.
“The online chatter is very transnational,” says Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher at Queen’s University, Ottawa. “There are people from Brazil, Australia, and the US.” This global attention has seemingly galvanized those on the ground. While few protestors remain, policing the protest is costing an estimated CAD $800,000 ($630,000) a day. And, thanks to the backing of some of the biggest names in the US alt-right social media sphere, the protest, dubbed the Freedom Convoy by its supporters, has continued to gain momentum online, even as numbers on the ground dwindle.
The result is a strange disconnect between the offline and online versions of the protest—with many of the most successful social media posts coming from familiar figures from the American alt-right rather than the protestors. TenvideossupportingthetruckerssharedbyDonaldTrumpJr. between January 25 and February 7 have been viewed by 4.2 million people. The right-wing media machine has spun up its support for the protest, with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau calling it “an insult to memory and truth.”
“The story and protest was picked up by partisan, right-wing content creators and media in the US in particular,” says Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an online extremism-tracking think tank. O’Connor saw a similar phenomenon around the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory. The theory, that the pandemic is a global conspiracy to allow world leaders to reset the planet, remained niche until picked up by Rebel News, a Canadian equivalent of Breitbart News. From Rebel News the conspiracy theory reached the orbit of US right-wing commentators like Ben Shapiro and Laura Ingraham, who then further amplified the message, sending it to their millions of followers. The same process is happening with the Ottawa truck protests. Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, and Dan Bognino—alongside Trump Jr.—have shared their thoughts about the protests with millions of people worldwide.
The explosion of interest has been fueled by all the names you might expect: Current and former GOP officials like Mike Huckabee and Marjorie Taylor Greene have shared their support for the convoy on social media. More than 88,000 posts have been shared by Facebook pages, groups, or verified profiles between January 22, when the Freedom Convoy began, and February 8, according to CrowdTangle data analyzed by WIRED. Those posts have been interacted with 16.6 million times.
Questions have also been raised about the origins of several wildly popular Facebook groups created to support the Ottawa protest. One, Convoy to Ottawa 2022 Restart, has now been made private after it was overrun with conspiracy theorists. The group, which at the time of writing has almost 700,000 members, now has lengthy rules for admission, including a request that members will respect the police and not post baseless claims that Covid is a hoax or that vaccines to protect against it are dangerous.
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Facebook spokesperson Margarita Franklin says the platform has removed groups and pages run by spammers, including a troll farm in Vietnam, who capitalized on the protest’s popularity to monetize ad clicks off-platform. “We continue to see scammers latch onto any hot-button issue that draws people’s attention, including the ongoing protests,” Franklin says. “We continue to monitor the situation and will enforce against violations when we find them.” Telegram, through which large parts of the truckers’ movement has been amplified by sharing links to videos and Facebook groups that users should engage with, did not respond to a request for comment.
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While the accounts behind Facebook groups and pages promoting the Ottawa protests are a semi-anonymous hodgepodge of conspiracy theorists, QAnon supporters, and actual truckers with grievances against vaccine mandates, those appearing in videos uploaded to social media are well-known to extremism researchers in Canada. “All these people have been anti-government, anti-Trudeau, white nationalist actors for years now,” says Amarasingam. “They’re very much the ones who are the public face of the convoy.” Amarasingam argues that Canada’s far right has always been influenced by trends in the US, but believes the trucker protest is a liminal point for this relationship. “This is probably the first time in a while that it has entered the mainstream in a big way,” he says.
And that, in turn, is minting new right-wing celebrities. “Some of these guys who were fairly fringe organizers a couple of weeks ago now have over 200,000 followers and mass audiences,” says Amarasingam of the Canadians who have gained huge new followings in recent days. A lot of that increase is likely organic, but Amarasingam suggests bots are also having an effect. Pat King, who has posted dozens of live videos from the Ottawa protest, saw his Facebook following leap from 63,504 on January 1 to more than 205,000 by the end of the month, according to CrowdTangle data. He now has more than 286,000 followers.
The Canada trucker protest is, in effect, two protests. One run by a small group of people seemingly disowned by the wider Canadian trucking industry and another run by some of Facebook’s most successful operators. What was a protest against a work requirement has become something far bigger thanks to social media—and in particular thanks to America’s far right. “The narratives align globally,” says Amarasingam. “You have the anti-mandate, anti-lockdown, anti-quarantine component of the response to Covid that has had two years to grow and gel. That’s what the trucker movement is. It’s latched onto a broader angst and anxiety.”
The Alt-Right on Facebook Are Hijacking Canada’s Trucker Blockade
In Ottawa, a protest against vaccine mandates has become an international sensation. American far-right personalities are behind its online rise.
PHOTOGRAPH: DAVE CHAN/GETTY IMAGES
FOR TWO WEEKS now, truckers have brought the center of Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, to a standstill. What started as a localized dispute against vaccine mandates has now snowballed—co-opted as a cause célèbre of America’s radical right-wing into a protest that reaches far beyond Parliament Hill. On the ground, hundreds of trucks and cars have blocked the streets of the city and set up a tent commune to protest against the imposition of vaccination requirements for truck drivers. On social media, videos about the protest are racking up millions of views and crowdfunding campaigns, shared by the likes of Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino, have raised huge sums. Confederate flags, QAnon symbols, and swastikas have all reportedly been seen at the protest site.
Viewed from a distance, what’s happening in Ottawa seems like an organic uprising by disgruntled truckers. But the alt-right has seized on the opportunity to turn a local protest into another chapter in the unending culture war. Offline, 90 percent of Canadian truckers are vaccinated and the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents the industry in the country and does not support the convoy, has said most of the people in and around the protests “do not have a connection to the trucking industry.” Online, the incident has become a global sensation with supporters gathering on Facebook and Telegram in the hundreds of thousands—with many of them living outside Canada’s borders.
“The online chatter is very transnational,” says Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher at Queen’s University, Ottawa. “There are people from Brazil, Australia, and the US.” This global attention has seemingly galvanized those on the ground. While few protestors remain, policing the protest is costing an estimated CAD $800,000 ($630,000) a day. And, thanks to the backing of some of the biggest names in the US alt-right social media sphere, the protest, dubbed the Freedom Convoy by its supporters, has continued to gain momentum online, even as numbers on the ground dwindle.
The result is a strange disconnect between the offline and online versions of the protest—with many of the most successful social media posts coming from familiar figures from the American alt-right rather than the protestors. TenvideossupportingthetruckerssharedbyDonaldTrumpJr. between January 25 and February 7 have been viewed by 4.2 million people. The right-wing media machine has spun up its support for the protest, with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau calling it “an insult to memory and truth.”
“The story and protest was picked up by partisan, right-wing content creators and media in the US in particular,” says Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an online extremism-tracking think tank. O’Connor saw a similar phenomenon around the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory. The theory, that the pandemic is a global conspiracy to allow world leaders to reset the planet, remained niche until picked up by Rebel News, a Canadian equivalent of Breitbart News. From Rebel News the conspiracy theory reached the orbit of US right-wing commentators like Ben Shapiro and Laura Ingraham, who then further amplified the message, sending it to their millions of followers. The same process is happening with the Ottawa truck protests. Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, and Dan Bognino—alongside Trump Jr.—have shared their thoughts about the protests with millions of people worldwide.
The explosion of interest has been fueled by all the names you might expect: Current and former GOP officials like Mike Huckabee and Marjorie Taylor Greene have shared their support for the convoy on social media. More than 88,000 posts have been shared by Facebook pages, groups, or verified profiles between January 22, when the Freedom Convoy began, and February 8, according to CrowdTangle data analyzed by WIRED. Those posts have been interacted with 16.6 million times.
Questions have also been raised about the origins of several wildly popular Facebook groups created to support the Ottawa protest. One, Convoy to Ottawa 2022 Restart, has now been made private after it was overrun with conspiracy theorists. The group, which at the time of writing has almost 700,000 members, now has lengthy rules for admission, including a request that members will respect the police and not post baseless claims that Covid is a hoax or that vaccines to protect against it are dangerous.
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Facebook spokesperson Margarita Franklin says the platform has removed groups and pages run by spammers, including a troll farm in Vietnam, who capitalized on the protest’s popularity to monetize ad clicks off-platform. “We continue to see scammers latch onto any hot-button issue that draws people’s attention, including the ongoing protests,” Franklin says. “We continue to monitor the situation and will enforce against violations when we find them.” Telegram, through which large parts of the truckers’ movement has been amplified by sharing links to videos and Facebook groups that users should engage with, did not respond to a request for comment.
See What’s Next in Tech With the Fast Forward Newsletter
From artificial intelligence and self-driving cars to transformed cities and new startups, sign up for the latest news.
While the accounts behind Facebook groups and pages promoting the Ottawa protests are a semi-anonymous hodgepodge of conspiracy theorists, QAnon supporters, and actual truckers with grievances against vaccine mandates, those appearing in videos uploaded to social media are well-known to extremism researchers in Canada. “All these people have been anti-government, anti-Trudeau, white nationalist actors for years now,” says Amarasingam. “They’re very much the ones who are the public face of the convoy.” Amarasingam argues that Canada’s far right has always been influenced by trends in the US, but believes the trucker protest is a liminal point for this relationship. “This is probably the first time in a while that it has entered the mainstream in a big way,” he says.
And that, in turn, is minting new right-wing celebrities. “Some of these guys who were fairly fringe organizers a couple of weeks ago now have over 200,000 followers and mass audiences,” says Amarasingam of the Canadians who have gained huge new followings in recent days. A lot of that increase is likely organic, but Amarasingam suggests bots are also having an effect. Pat King, who has posted dozens of live videos from the Ottawa protest, saw his Facebook following leap from 63,504 on January 1 to more than 205,000 by the end of the month, according to CrowdTangle data. He now has more than 286,000 followers.
The Canada trucker protest is, in effect, two protests. One run by a small group of people seemingly disowned by the wider Canadian trucking industry and another run by some of Facebook’s most successful operators. What was a protest against a work requirement has become something far bigger thanks to social media—and in particular thanks to America’s far right. “The narratives align globally,” says Amarasingam. “You have the anti-mandate, anti-lockdown, anti-quarantine component of the response to Covid that has had two years to grow and gel. That’s what the trucker movement is. It’s latched onto a broader angst and anxiety.”
As i have mentioned before in this thread, i work in the public sector and was mandated to get the vaccine shots, or lose a job. I had them before it came out but in the end it should be my choice not the government. This is why i have been rooting the truckers along in their fight. No one but me should make that decision. And no one should be threatened like the people of PQ with an additional tax, or for all of us with the loss of EI if we didnt submit. I know that these were discussion at various levels, but thankfully nothing came to fruition.
I know you dont agree, but the way i see this convoy, is a finally a collection of people, backgrounds, etc coming together to stop the erosion of our rights. I want the current government to know, we joined in (what 80-90% of us vaccinated) to help in the fight, but thats enough of that- no more. going forward it should not be that same standard and the final choice, that of the people.
Freedom to travel province to province or wherever should not be hindered. These vaccine passports, what a joke, prior to Christmas the data on the Newfoundland App was hacked with all our personal information and what not- stolen ... And the last couple of days, a review of statistics canada procedures with our location/user data from CA\s Privacy Counsellor.
Questioning the overreach of our government during these difficult or even normal, times should always be questioned
You're opinion is valid and obviously shared. For what it's worth this comes down to a couple fundamental trains of thought.
Look at Sec. 1 of our Charter. Charter rights can be limited by law so long as those limits can be shown to be reasonable in a free and democratic society. This isn't as simple as it sounds and is why we have so much confusion and bitterness. Because who ultimately decides what is reasonable?
To me, and I know you don't agree... during a global pandemic it is reasonable to mandate a vaccine. I honestly wish all levels of government were much more transparent and explained in finer detail but I have faith that they are consulting the appropriate people. Which leads me to my other fundamental train of thought here...
You mention how great and important it is to see people of all backgrounds etc. coming together to stop the erosion of rights. We JUST had an election. And I fully believe that if the will of the people of Canada were that of what this freedom convoy is saying, PPC would have won and Maxime Bernier would be the PM. That simply didn't happen. Liberals won a minority. They won the most seats, and thus the election. Trudeau is the PM. Conservatives took the popular vote. Liberals and NDP combined crushed that Conservative popular vote. So what does that all mean compared to this freedom convoy in terms of what Canada actually represents? To me it's quite clear and quite telling.
Also, without doing in depth fact checking etc... I have personally witnessed across this country every political party in power basically doing the same thing. As an Ontarian on a personal level... all this hate towards the Liberals and Trudeau baffles me. Doug Ford, the Conservative businessman, is responsible for every mandate I've personally faced.
When faced with these kinds of numbers, figures, and facts of life... why would anyone expect overnight change? I'm all for protests but what do these freedom convoy morons really expect? This will go down as the most shameful and dumbest expression of ideas in our history I think. It's one thing to be against these mandates and the perceived government overreach (even though the so-called overreaching has been done by just about every level of government and every party in power) but to spend the kind of money and time doing this... is just plain stupid. Some protesters are so devoted to their cause that they will tie themselves to a tree for days. Others will have party buses, and bouncy castles, and barbeques, and live bands, and comfort stations, and hot tubs, and saunas.
So you might not agree with it, that's fine. But when discussing how reasonable a thing is in society...
Every party is doing or has done the same thing. Every level of government (municipal, provincial, federal) is doing the same thing. Majority of a population voted in a free and democratic election with campaign platforms suggesting the same thing.
I think about the pizza analogy. 10 people are getting 1 pizza. 6 want pepperoni, 4 want bacon. You can only have 1. Which pizza is more reasonable and fair to get? That to me is the difficult decision every government has been faced with. Having to get pepperoni, knowing it was going to piss off the bacon crowd. And just because a bunch of bacon loving pizza nuts are out in the streets and on the roads being loud... does not discount the fact that more people did in fact want pepperoni.
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
when was the last time we were restricted from travelling within canada? I was just in Vancouver in November.
Here in BC last year, our government put up a sign at the BC/Alberta border recommending against it, but they didn't really enforce anything. I think Atlantic Canada was the most strict it got with the safety bubble thing.
My brother... a generally smart fellow was lamenting to me a few weeks ago about how he was so tired of these 'lockdowns' and was upset that some of his friends didn't agree with his decision to go to Hawaii for a vacation in a couple days.
That was an easy argument to win. lol
"Bro, by hopping on a plane and going to Hawaii for vacation is the only evidence I need to say that you are nowhere near living in 'lockdown' circumstances."
"Yeah... I guess you're right."
"No, no... I AM right. This is not subject to debate."
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
Unrelated... but I think Marchand should get 10 games for his antics last night against the Pens. He likely won't.. but he should.
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
when was the last time we were restricted from travelling within canada? I was just in Vancouver in November.
Here in BC last year, our government put up a sign at the BC/Alberta border recommending against it, but they didn't really enforce anything. I think Atlantic Canada was the most strict it got with the safety bubble thing.
My brother... a generally smart fellow was lamenting to me a few weeks ago about how he was so tired of these 'lockdowns' and was upset that some of his friends didn't agree with his decision to go to Hawaii for a vacation in a couple days.
That was an easy argument to win. lol
"Bro, by hopping on a plane and going to Hawaii for vacation is the only evidence I need to say that you are nowhere near living in 'lockdown' circumstances."
"Yeah... I guess you're right."
"No, no... I AM right. This is not subject to debate."
haha, yah we're not really locked down. You need vaccines to do public indoor stuff like movies, restaurants, live events, and there's a 50% capacity restriction on live events... travel you can still do. So it's some mild restrictions here, but you can mostly do what you want to do.
I will agree I'm not entirely sure why we still have the testing requirement at the border. Omicron is rampant on both sides of the border. It makes little sense to test anymore. We're trying to go to Seattle in a few weeks and we need to figure out how to get a PCR test while down in Washington state. The thing is, we need to get it as soon as we arrive in the US so the result is in before we have to come back. Which means if we did get covid while down there, it's not going to show up on the test. lol.
There's a part of me that's starting to say fuck it to things. I've had 3 shots now, and I'll get more if I need to. I'll wear a mask to be safe, but something like 85% of our population in BC is vaccinated, and it didn't stop Covid. The vaccines wane quickly, and they've become moderately obsolete due to variants.
Even with the truckers, I'm like does it matter? I think we hit our overall targets for how many people we were aiming to vaccinate in Canada. We knew there would be a contingent who wouldn't get them, but we did a pretty damn good job getting them rolled out. Yet here we are at the target, and it doesn't feel like much changed. I realize our medical system is under strain, and our governments failed by not increasing capacity over the last 2 years, but at what point does it become a personal decision. If someone wants to play russian roulette with Covid, is that there choice? Such hard conversations to have given the fuck you response on both sides of the arguments.
I dunno.. I feel like things should open up a bit, but keep the clamp it back down card if a worse variant arrives.
The problem is the trucker protests are giving it such a bad name, I don't think the government is going to flinch because it'll look like they gave into the truckers.
I don’t pay that much attention to Canada….but what’s the relevance?
i wish more people would stop paying attention to Canada lol
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
We do not. In fact our legal system is insanely leniant. Sentences often feel short here compared to the severity of a crime. Like people getting less than 10 years for murder kind of thing.
Our federal government also passed law putting restrictions on how long police could hold people. So for crimes like theft, assault, and what not, the police arrest the person, then courts release them, and they do the crime again on the same day.
I've started to feel like we might need a harsher system. Like the US 3 strikes rule, but maybe we make it 4 strikes.. lol. If you have mental health problems then you forced into treatement, if you have drug problems then forced into rehab kind of thing. Do the time and cleaned up.
Basically, in regards to crime, it feels like the police can do very little, and people just do what they want. I remember having a social studies teacher that said there aren't many police. Laws work because people have the fear of getting caught and suffering consequences. It breaks down when that illusion is shattered, and to me it feels like that's where were at in Canada. Police spend all their time dealing with the mentally ill and/or drug addicts. There's not much resources left anymore for anything else.
when was the last time we were restricted from travelling within canada? I was just in Vancouver in November.
Here in BC last year, our government put up a sign at the BC/Alberta border recommending against it, but they didn't really enforce anything. I think Atlantic Canada was the most strict it got with the safety bubble thing.
My brother... a generally smart fellow was lamenting to me a few weeks ago about how he was so tired of these 'lockdowns' and was upset that some of his friends didn't agree with his decision to go to Hawaii for a vacation in a couple days.
That was an easy argument to win. lol
"Bro, by hopping on a plane and going to Hawaii for vacation is the only evidence I need to say that you are nowhere near living in 'lockdown' circumstances."
"Yeah... I guess you're right."
"No, no... I AM right. This is not subject to debate."
haha, yah we're not really locked down. You need vaccines to do public indoor stuff like movies, restaurants, live events, and there's a 50% capacity restriction on live events... travel you can still do. So it's some mild restrictions here, but you can mostly do what you want to do.
I will agree I'm not entirely sure why we still have the testing requirement at the border. Omicron is rampant on both sides of the border. It makes little sense to test anymore. We're trying to go to Seattle in a few weeks and we need to figure out how to get a PCR test while down in Washington state. The thing is, we need to get it as soon as we arrive in the US so the result is in before we have to come back. Which means if we did get covid while down there, it's not going to show up on the test. lol.
There's a part of me that's starting to say fuck it to things. I've had 3 shots now, and I'll get more if I need to. I'll wear a mask to be safe, but something like 85% of our population in BC is vaccinated, and it didn't stop Covid. The vaccines wane quickly, and they've become moderately obsolete due to variants.
Even with the truckers, I'm like does it matter? I think we hit our overall targets for how many people we were aiming to vaccinate in Canada. We knew there would be a contingent who wouldn't get them, but we did a pretty damn good job getting them rolled out. Yet here we are at the target, and it doesn't feel like much changed. I realize our medical system is under strain, and our governments failed by not increasing capacity over the last 2 years, but at what point does it become a personal decision. If someone wants to play russian roulette with Covid, is that there choice? Such hard conversations to have given the fuck you response on both sides of the arguments.
I dunno.. I feel like things should open up a bit, but keep the clamp it back down card if a worse variant arrives.
The problem is the trucker protests are giving it such a bad name, I don't think the government is going to flinch because it'll look like they gave into the truckers.
I can agree with some of this but not all. I agree that we should remove the border testing requirement; there’s never been much of any evidence that it has prevented transmission because incoming travellers never amounted to more than a percent or two of cases. It has caused way more expense and hassle than it was ever worth, and diverted testing materials from where they could have been better used, for actual diagnosis.
I think you’re wrong on the comment about the government failing to increase capacity in the health care system though. Unless you’ve been working in healthcare the last two years you have no idea how stressed the system has been. The idea of “increasing capacity” is pointless, in the face of a worldwide tsunami of a pandemic that has crashed every health care system and washed away resources of every type, human, equipment and infrastructure.
And regarding Seattle - I am getting tested at SeaTac when I fly in. I fly out 71.5 hours later, so am just going to get it done on arrival and then not have to bother about it. Unless I test positive, of course You can get a rapid PCR test at any point though and get the results back within an hour.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
when was the last time we were restricted from travelling within canada? I was just in Vancouver in November.
Here in BC last year, our government put up a sign at the BC/Alberta border recommending against it, but they didn't really enforce anything. I think Atlantic Canada was the most strict it got with the safety bubble thing.
My brother... a generally smart fellow was lamenting to me a few weeks ago about how he was so tired of these 'lockdowns' and was upset that some of his friends didn't agree with his decision to go to Hawaii for a vacation in a couple days.
That was an easy argument to win. lol
"Bro, by hopping on a plane and going to Hawaii for vacation is the only evidence I need to say that you are nowhere near living in 'lockdown' circumstances."
"Yeah... I guess you're right."
"No, no... I AM right. This is not subject to debate."
haha, yah we're not really locked down. You need vaccines to do public indoor stuff like movies, restaurants, live events, and there's a 50% capacity restriction on live events... travel you can still do. So it's some mild restrictions here, but you can mostly do what you want to do.
I will agree I'm not entirely sure why we still have the testing requirement at the border. Omicron is rampant on both sides of the border. It makes little sense to test anymore. We're trying to go to Seattle in a few weeks and we need to figure out how to get a PCR test while down in Washington state. The thing is, we need to get it as soon as we arrive in the US so the result is in before we have to come back. Which means if we did get covid while down there, it's not going to show up on the test. lol.
There's a part of me that's starting to say fuck it to things. I've had 3 shots now, and I'll get more if I need to. I'll wear a mask to be safe, but something like 85% of our population in BC is vaccinated, and it didn't stop Covid. The vaccines wane quickly, and they've become moderately obsolete due to variants.
Even with the truckers, I'm like does it matter? I think we hit our overall targets for how many people we were aiming to vaccinate in Canada. We knew there would be a contingent who wouldn't get them, but we did a pretty damn good job getting them rolled out. Yet here we are at the target, and it doesn't feel like much changed. I realize our medical system is under strain, and our governments failed by not increasing capacity over the last 2 years, but at what point does it become a personal decision. If someone wants to play russian roulette with Covid, is that there choice? Such hard conversations to have given the fuck you response on both sides of the arguments.
I dunno.. I feel like things should open up a bit, but keep the clamp it back down card if a worse variant arrives.
The problem is the trucker protests are giving it such a bad name, I don't think the government is going to flinch because it'll look like they gave into the truckers.
I can agree with some of this but not all. I agree that we should remove the border testing requirement; there’s never been much of any evidence that it has prevented transmission because incoming travellers never amounted to more than a percent or two of cases. It has caused way more expense and hassle than it was ever worth, and diverted testing materials from where they could have been better used, for actual diagnosis.
I think you’re wrong on the comment about the government failing to increase capacity in the health care system though. Unless you’ve been working in healthcare the last two years you have no idea how stressed the system has been. The idea of “increasing capacity” is pointless, in the face of a worldwide tsunami of a pandemic that has crashed every health care system and washed away resources of every type, human, equipment and infrastructure.
And regarding Seattle - I am getting tested at SeaTac when I fly in. I fly out 71.5 hours later, so am just going to get it done on arrival and then not have to bother about it. Unless I test positive, of course You can get a rapid PCR test at any point though and get the results back within an hour.
I see both sides here... and I mean regardless of points of view, COVID is bad, but preventable. Looking at the argument in terms of 'ok, let's just live with this and increase our capacity' while it's totally understandable it also has fallacies.
On a very basic level, we're essentially saying "we have to be ok with more sick people." "The solution here is to make more room for sick people." I know that sounds alarmist, but it's just fundamentally factual. I want things to open too, but before we land on option B which is fix our health care and capacity... I think we need to exhaust every preventable option. Let's prevent COVID, not deal with it as it comes. 85-90 is a good level... I think we should strive for UAE levels of 98 to be honest. And if it takes 4, 5, 6, 7 shots... then so be it. If they want me to sign up for my monthly COVID shot, awesome. Whatever it takes to resume normalcy SAFELY.
I think we're all optimistic that we're coming to an end here... but it's important to note that we could still face another variant. First world countries are doing great with our vaccines but we live in a globalist economy. If we just 'OPEN UP' before the rest of the world is ready... we risk another variant, another mutation, and possibly one that's worse.
Thinking even more outside of the box.. what if a totally different virus shows up. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it's that we are not prepared to handle any kind of serious problems. Government and health care are a problem yes, but our citizens are also equally problematic. I never thought I would see some of the thoughts, opinions, and speech from friends and family members as I have since this began. Folks blatantly suggesting that there is a percentage of loss of life that is acceptable so that most people can eat inside, go to hockey games, concerts, travel and have vacations. It's a sad reality showing how entitled, selfish, and greedy a lot of us have become. Doens't help at all that our leaders set piss poor examples... all of them.
Just to note.. I'm not saying being more prepared is a bad thing. But it's a pipe dream at this point. Governments are going to be keeping spending down. Saying after a devastating pandemic that we need to aggressively fund health care is smart... but in a year or so, you're going to be looking at unused ICUs, unused beds, loads of nurses and equipment (Which I think personally is a good thing). Like SimCity though, politicians and citizens will start complaining about taxes and look at these things to cut. Wise ones will say "But remember COVID and how unprepared we were?" And those warnings will be ignored. And the shit cycle will continue.
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
Just to note.. I'm not saying being more prepared is a bad thing. But it's a pipe dream at this point. Governments are going to be keeping spending down. Saying after a devastating pandemic that we need to aggressively fund health care is smart... but in a year or so, you're going to be looking at unused ICUs, unused beds, loads of nurses and equipment (Which I think personally is a good thing). Like SimCity though, politicians and citizens will start complaining about taxes and look at these things to cut. Wise ones will say "But remember COVID and how unprepared we were?" And those warnings will be ignored. And the shit cycle will continue.
Lol, I don't think that's going to happen. People act like our health care system only got f'd when Covid started. Our health care system was f'd long before covid started. I haven't had a family doctor in over a decade, many people haven't. Before Covid it was walk in clinics, but they were mostly full, you'd have to go to one at open and hope you could see a doctor in 3 to 4 hours. Waitlists for specialists, procedures and stuff could take months, half a year, etc.. We had no excess capacity when covid started. I don't think we're going to have any when it's done. There's no proactive nature to our health care system anymore. It's turned into a system of emergency medicine. It would need serious investment and changes to get it back on track.
At the same, we have the boomer generation aging out, which is going to increase demands on the system quite a bit.
I don't think there's any situation here in Canada, where Covid ends, and all of a sudden it's sunshine, rainbows, and excess capacity in our health care system. Maybe this is only in my province (BC), but I get the feeling the issues can be country wide.
Ambassador Bridge in Windsor is closed indefinitely…The mayor has no intention of interfering. He knows his constituents…Windsor is a strong union town. Never a good idea to break up a protest… and it’s a beautiful day today for protesting. I am heard of no churches being forced, business’s looted or statues toppled…they are still no to this protesting thing.
Just to note.. I'm not saying being more prepared is a bad thing. But it's a pipe dream at this point. Governments are going to be keeping spending down. Saying after a devastating pandemic that we need to aggressively fund health care is smart... but in a year or so, you're going to be looking at unused ICUs, unused beds, loads of nurses and equipment (Which I think personally is a good thing). Like SimCity though, politicians and citizens will start complaining about taxes and look at these things to cut. Wise ones will say "But remember COVID and how unprepared we were?" And those warnings will be ignored. And the shit cycle will continue.
Lol, I don't think that's going to happen. People act like our health care system only got f'd when Covid started. Our health care system was f'd long before covid started. I haven't had a family doctor in over a decade, many people haven't. Before Covid it was walk in clinics, but they were mostly full, you'd have to go to one at open and hope you could see a doctor in 3 to 4 hours. Waitlists for specialists, procedures and stuff could take months, half a year, etc.. We had no excess capacity when covid started. I don't think we're going to have any when it's done. There's no proactive nature to our health care system anymore. It's turned into a system of emergency medicine. It would need serious investment and changes to get it back on track.
At the same, we have the boomer generation aging out, which is going to increase demands on the system quite a bit.
I don't think there's any situation here in Canada, where Covid ends, and all of a sudden it's sunshine, rainbows, and excess capacity in our health care system. Maybe this is only in my province (BC), but I get the feeling the issues can be country wide.
You are correct
Toronto 2000
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013 Toronto I&II 2016 10C: 220xxx
Ambassador Bridge in Windsor is closed indefinitely…The mayor has no intention of interfering. He knows his constituents…Windsor is a strong union town. Never a good idea to break up a protest… and it’s a beautiful day today for protesting. I am heard of no churches being forced, business’s looted or statues toppled…they are still no to this protesting thing.
just imagine if this was an Aboriginal cause. these pictures are proof of white privilege.
Comments
www.headstonesband.com
your body your choice…
Mr. Blackface walking out of question period while being asked a question is more proof the moron is unhinged…
These mandates are coming off hell or high water…
your fear is not my fear.
time to move on
learn to live with it or not, your choice…the rest of us are moving on.
The Alt-Right on Facebook Are Hijacking Canada’s Trucker Blockade
FOR TWO WEEKS now, truckers have brought the center of Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, to a standstill. What started as a localized dispute against vaccine mandates has now snowballed—co-opted as a cause célèbre of America’s radical right-wing into a protest that reaches far beyond Parliament Hill. On the ground, hundreds of trucks and cars have blocked the streets of the city and set up a tent commune to protest against the imposition of vaccination requirements for truck drivers. On social media, videos about the protest are racking up millions of views and crowdfunding campaigns, shared by the likes of Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino, have raised huge sums. Confederate flags, QAnon symbols, and swastikas have all reportedly been seen at the protest site.
Viewed from a distance, what’s happening in Ottawa seems like an organic uprising by disgruntled truckers. But the alt-right has seized on the opportunity to turn a local protest into another chapter in the unending culture war. Offline, 90 percent of Canadian truckers are vaccinated and the Canadian Trucking Alliance, which represents the industry in the country and does not support the convoy, has said most of the people in and around the protests “do not have a connection to the trucking industry.” Online, the incident has become a global sensation with supporters gathering on Facebook and Telegram in the hundreds of thousands—with many of them living outside Canada’s borders.
“The online chatter is very transnational,” says Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher at Queen’s University, Ottawa. “There are people from Brazil, Australia, and the US.” This global attention has seemingly galvanized those on the ground. While few protestors remain, policing the protest is costing an estimated CAD $800,000 ($630,000) a day. And, thanks to the backing of some of the biggest names in the US alt-right social media sphere, the protest, dubbed the Freedom Convoy by its supporters, has continued to gain momentum online, even as numbers on the ground dwindle.
The result is a strange disconnect between the offline and online versions of the protest—with many of the most successful social media posts coming from familiar figures from the American alt-right rather than the protestors. Ten videos supporting the truckers shared by Donald Trump Jr. between January 25 and February 7 have been viewed by 4.2 million people. The right-wing media machine has spun up its support for the protest, with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau calling it “an insult to memory and truth.”
“The story and protest was picked up by partisan, right-wing content creators and media in the US in particular,” says Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an online extremism-tracking think tank. O’Connor saw a similar phenomenon around the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory. The theory, that the pandemic is a global conspiracy to allow world leaders to reset the planet, remained niche until picked up by Rebel News, a Canadian equivalent of Breitbart News. From Rebel News the conspiracy theory reached the orbit of US right-wing commentators like Ben Shapiro and Laura Ingraham, who then further amplified the message, sending it to their millions of followers. The same process is happening with the Ottawa truck protests. Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, and Dan Bognino—alongside Trump Jr.—have shared their thoughts about the protests with millions of people worldwide.
The explosion of interest has been fueled by all the names you might expect: Current and former GOP officials like Mike Huckabee and Marjorie Taylor Greene have shared their support for the convoy on social media. More than 88,000 posts have been shared by Facebook pages, groups, or verified profiles between January 22, when the Freedom Convoy began, and February 8, according to CrowdTangle data analyzed by WIRED. Those posts have been interacted with 16.6 million times.
Questions have also been raised about the origins of several wildly popular Facebook groups created to support the Ottawa protest. One, Convoy to Ottawa 2022 Restart, has now been made private after it was overrun with conspiracy theorists. The group, which at the time of writing has almost 700,000 members, now has lengthy rules for admission, including a request that members will respect the police and not post baseless claims that Covid is a hoax or that vaccines to protect against it are dangerous.
Facebook spokesperson Margarita Franklin says the platform has removed groups and pages run by spammers, including a troll farm in Vietnam, who capitalized on the protest’s popularity to monetize ad clicks off-platform. “We continue to see scammers latch onto any hot-button issue that draws people’s attention, including the ongoing protests,” Franklin says. “We continue to monitor the situation and will enforce against violations when we find them.” Telegram, through which large parts of the truckers’ movement has been amplified by sharing links to videos and Facebook groups that users should engage with, did not respond to a request for comment.
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While the accounts behind Facebook groups and pages promoting the Ottawa protests are a semi-anonymous hodgepodge of conspiracy theorists, QAnon supporters, and actual truckers with grievances against vaccine mandates, those appearing in videos uploaded to social media are well-known to extremism researchers in Canada. “All these people have been anti-government, anti-Trudeau, white nationalist actors for years now,” says Amarasingam. “They’re very much the ones who are the public face of the convoy.” Amarasingam argues that Canada’s far right has always been influenced by trends in the US, but believes the trucker protest is a liminal point for this relationship. “This is probably the first time in a while that it has entered the mainstream in a big way,” he says.
And that, in turn, is minting new right-wing celebrities. “Some of these guys who were fairly fringe organizers a couple of weeks ago now have over 200,000 followers and mass audiences,” says Amarasingam of the Canadians who have gained huge new followings in recent days. A lot of that increase is likely organic, but Amarasingam suggests bots are also having an effect. Pat King, who has posted dozens of live videos from the Ottawa protest, saw his Facebook following leap from 63,504 on January 1 to more than 205,000 by the end of the month, according to CrowdTangle data. He now has more than 286,000 followers.
The Canada trucker protest is, in effect, two protests. One run by a small group of people seemingly disowned by the wider Canadian trucking industry and another run by some of Facebook’s most successful operators. What was a protest against a work requirement has become something far bigger thanks to social media—and in particular thanks to America’s far right. “The narratives align globally,” says Amarasingam. “You have the anti-mandate, anti-lockdown, anti-quarantine component of the response to Covid that has had two years to grow and gel. That’s what the trucker movement is. It’s latched onto a broader angst and anxiety.”
You are the company you keep.
And now the cowherds are hiding behind their children.
Heroic.
Look at Sec. 1 of our Charter. Charter rights can be limited by law so long as those limits can be shown to be reasonable in a free and democratic society. This isn't as simple as it sounds and is why we have so much confusion and bitterness. Because who ultimately decides what is reasonable?
To me, and I know you don't agree... during a global pandemic it is reasonable to mandate a vaccine. I honestly wish all levels of government were much more transparent and explained in finer detail but I have faith that they are consulting the appropriate people. Which leads me to my other fundamental train of thought here...
You mention how great and important it is to see people of all backgrounds etc. coming together to stop the erosion of rights. We JUST had an election. And I fully believe that if the will of the people of Canada were that of what this freedom convoy is saying, PPC would have won and Maxime Bernier would be the PM. That simply didn't happen. Liberals won a minority. They won the most seats, and thus the election. Trudeau is the PM. Conservatives took the popular vote. Liberals and NDP combined crushed that Conservative popular vote. So what does that all mean compared to this freedom convoy in terms of what Canada actually represents? To me it's quite clear and quite telling.
Also, without doing in depth fact checking etc... I have personally witnessed across this country every political party in power basically doing the same thing. As an Ontarian on a personal level... all this hate towards the Liberals and Trudeau baffles me. Doug Ford, the Conservative businessman, is responsible for every mandate I've personally faced.
When faced with these kinds of numbers, figures, and facts of life... why would anyone expect overnight change? I'm all for protests but what do these freedom convoy morons really expect? This will go down as the most shameful and dumbest expression of ideas in our history I think. It's one thing to be against these mandates and the perceived government overreach (even though the so-called overreaching has been done by just about every level of government and every party in power) but to spend the kind of money and time doing this... is just plain stupid. Some protesters are so devoted to their cause that they will tie themselves to a tree for days. Others will have party buses, and bouncy castles, and barbeques, and live bands, and comfort stations, and hot tubs, and saunas.
So you might not agree with it, that's fine. But when discussing how reasonable a thing is in society...
Every party is doing or has done the same thing.
Every level of government (municipal, provincial, federal) is doing the same thing.
Majority of a population voted in a free and democratic election with campaign platforms suggesting the same thing.
I think about the pizza analogy. 10 people are getting 1 pizza. 6 want pepperoni, 4 want bacon. You can only have 1. Which pizza is more reasonable and fair to get? That to me is the difficult decision every government has been faced with. Having to get pepperoni, knowing it was going to piss off the bacon crowd. And just because a bunch of bacon loving pizza nuts are out in the streets and on the roads being loud... does not discount the fact that more people did in fact want pepperoni.
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
That was an easy argument to win. lol
"Bro, by hopping on a plane and going to Hawaii for vacation is the only evidence I need to say that you are nowhere near living in 'lockdown' circumstances."
"Yeah... I guess you're right."
"No, no... I AM right. This is not subject to debate."
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
What’s allz this truckerz business aboot, boyz?
On a very basic level, we're essentially saying "we have to be ok with more sick people." "The solution here is to make more room for sick people." I know that sounds alarmist, but it's just fundamentally factual. I want things to open too, but before we land on option B which is fix our health care and capacity... I think we need to exhaust every preventable option. Let's prevent COVID, not deal with it as it comes. 85-90 is a good level... I think we should strive for UAE levels of 98 to be honest. And if it takes 4, 5, 6, 7 shots... then so be it. If they want me to sign up for my monthly COVID shot, awesome. Whatever it takes to resume normalcy SAFELY.
I think we're all optimistic that we're coming to an end here... but it's important to note that we could still face another variant. First world countries are doing great with our vaccines but we live in a globalist economy. If we just 'OPEN UP' before the rest of the world is ready... we risk another variant, another mutation, and possibly one that's worse.
Thinking even more outside of the box.. what if a totally different virus shows up. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it's that we are not prepared to handle any kind of serious problems. Government and health care are a problem yes, but our citizens are also equally problematic. I never thought I would see some of the thoughts, opinions, and speech from friends and family members as I have since this began. Folks blatantly suggesting that there is a percentage of loss of life that is acceptable so that most people can eat inside, go to hockey games, concerts, travel and have vacations. It's a sad reality showing how entitled, selfish, and greedy a lot of us have become. Doens't help at all that our leaders set piss poor examples... all of them.
Just to note.. I'm not saying being more prepared is a bad thing. But it's a pipe dream at this point. Governments are going to be keeping spending down. Saying after a devastating pandemic that we need to aggressively fund health care is smart... but in a year or so, you're going to be looking at unused ICUs, unused beds, loads of nurses and equipment (Which I think personally is a good thing). Like SimCity though, politicians and citizens will start complaining about taxes and look at these things to cut. Wise ones will say "But remember COVID and how unprepared we were?" And those warnings will be ignored. And the shit cycle will continue.
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
Buffalo, Phoenix, Toronto 2003
Boston I&II 2004
Kitchener, Hamilton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto 2005
Toronto I&II, Las Vegas 2006
Chicago Lollapalooza 2007
Toronto, Seattle I&II, Vancouver, Philly I,II,III,IV 2009
Cleveland, Buffalo 2010
Toronto I&II 2011
Buffalo 2013
Toronto I&II 2016
10C: 220xxx
www.headstonesband.com