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TRUCKER-LED PROTESTS against coronavirus restrictions in Canada shut down a new US border crossing today, as copycat movements gathered steam as far afield as Europe and New Zealand.
The border blockades have already impacted business, with the key Ambassador Bridge linking Ontario and Detroit shut for several days – and major automakers forced to cut back production at several plants as a result.
A second crossing in the western province of Alberta has been blocked for days, and today protesters closed down a third – in central Manitoba.
Citing supply shortages, Ford said it was forced to slow production at factories in Canada, while some Stellantis factories in the United States and Canada halted work last night, and Toyota said its plants were also hit.
With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warning the two-week-long protests are threatening Canada’s economy, rallies inspired by the trucker movement have sprung up in other countries around the world, from New Zealand to France and Belgium.
An anti-vaccine protest turned ugly in Wellington, with police clashing with demonstrators in the grounds of parliament and more than 120 people arrested.
In France, thousands inspired by the Canadian truckers planned to converge tomorrow evening on Paris, with some aiming to move onwards to Brussels.
Paris police moved to prevent the demonstration, saying they would ban so-called ‘Freedom Convoys’ and would stop roads from being blocked, threatening hefty fines or jail.
Belgian authorities vowed similar action.
Canada’s self-styled ‘Freedom Convoy’ began last month in the country’s west – launched in anger at requirements that truckers either be vaccinated, or test and isolate, when crossing the US-Canada border.
Having occupied the capital Ottawa for two weeks, the trucker-led protesters have caused significant economic disruption by shutting down the Ambassador suspension bridge – a trade corridor used daily by more than 40,000 commuters and tourists, and trucks carrying US$323 million worth of goods on average.
Trudeau has warned the border blockades are unacceptable and vowed to “do everything to bring them to an end”.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki meanwhile said US officials were “in very close contact” with Canadian border agencies, voicing concern about the impact on the US economy and “a risk to supply chains, to the auto industry.”
‘Canadian pride’
Canadian and American chambers of commerce and industry associations have likewise demanded the Ambassador Bridge be cleared.
“As our economies emerge from the impacts of the pandemic we cannot allow any group to undermine the cross-border trade,” the groups said in a joint statement.
Canada’s public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, warned of “serious dangers for the economy” and called on protesters to “go home!”
Presumably eager to stop the movement spreading further at home, several provinces including Alberta, Quebec and Saskatchewan this week announced a gradual lifting or loosening of Covid-19 restrictions.
A court has already ordered the truckers to stop the incessant honking that has upset residents in Ottawa and made sleep difficult.
And yesterday, Ottawa police warned protesters they could face criminal charges and their trucks could be seized if they continue their “unlawful” clogging of downtown streets.
But the atmosphere on the streets of the capital remained one of defiance and celebration.
Dennis Elgie, a curling ice technician who came from Toronto to join the protest, called the movement “fantastic”.
“I’ve never seen Canadian pride like this,” he told AFP. “This is history.”
I think people have taken the freedom that we had.
Some 400 vehicles are still camped on Parliament Hill below Trudeau’s offices, against a backdrop of barbecues, campfires and music.
“We’re not going anywhere,” said trucker John Deelstra, smiling from behind the wheel of his big rig, which has been there since day one.
Planted not far away, Ontario trucker Lloyd Brubacher offered up the same resolve.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he told AFP.
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The mindless distruction of Wood Quay by Dublin City Council deprived future generations of what was possibly the most important archaeological site in western Europe and a major lucrative tourist attraction. Instead we have possibly the ugliest building in Europe.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: Agreed. http://www.historyireland.com/volume-22/heritage-outrage-wood-quay/
@Honeybadger197: I was on that march, thanks for the link.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: Good man, no problem.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: Absolutely 110% correct. This was mindless vandalism by Dublin City Council and if The Minister of Arts and Heritage has her way they will destroy the Moore Street 1916 Battlefield site too. Our future generations heritage is in the hands of mindless individuals who’s motivations are seriously suspect.
@Brian MacCarthaigh: didn’t the Danish government lobby the oiks here in trying to realize the significant nature of woodquay
What happened at Wood Quay is one of the greatest scandals in modern Irish history, the largest Viking Settlement in Europe discovered in our capital city, the revenue that could have been made from tourism, and they built that horrendous obscenity on top of it. The DCC offices should be torn down and the site preserved.
During the time of Brown Envelopes
@Mick Cullen: you say that as if somehow it were in the past Mick. It isn’t. It’s the same as ever and with NAMA getting worse no doubt. Unaccountable, enormously wealthy NAMA. The ultimate ‘hong bao’ (red packet) as they say in China. But plenty more besides it.
Caffrey (my own mother’s surname) stems from the son of Godfred (Viking). McAuliffe, from son of Olaf. McAuley, also from Olaf. In the Irish language, we have margadh, scilling, bád, garraí, seol, etc. They left a very rich heritage in our history. Doyle, Gallagher, etc. have also been linked to the Vikings, but we’re not 100% certain
We know one thing. Sam Stephenson proved them bones dem bones dem dry bones make great hardcore for office block foundations.
Amazing really. To look at those bones and reflect that when they were animated it was in a world so far removed from ours, topographically and geographically the same but in every other aspect far removed as ours as the next habitable planet from us is. To look at their goods and see they’re not so different from ours yet though. Those are the goods of civilized people, at least civilized towards each other and perfectly barbaric to everyone else. And are we so different today, with our foreign wars and colonisations (as in we in the West)? But we absorbed them, despite two hundred years of largely turning the other cheek it seems to me, booted them out at Clontarf and kept what they left behind. So they’re us too. We should have respect for them even if they, setting fires at the bottom of round towers and smashing up the altar vessels while robbing the gold and silver, killing the monks and burning their books of knowledge that were the only things preserved the accumulated wisdom of the Classical Age, did not much respect us. Suppose few hundred years from now archaeologists will be excavating the ruins of Anglo-Irish houses and churchyards and we’ll be saying the same and holding no heart hearts towards their descendants in England no more than we do to the Vikings now. Time heals all as it erodes all.
@John O’Driscoll: well written
It was the Vikings that brought red hair to this country, now every c#nt on the planet thinks everyone with red hair is Irish. Thanks a bunch Vikings
@Blue Moon rising: And the cancer gene as some believe? But is red hair not Celts???
@Blue Moon rising: Did you mean to say blue eyed and blond?
@Alois Irlmaier: I had that perception too until a visit to Denmark; I was expecting blonde & fair but was surprised to discover that red hair & freckles predominates
Those two buildings should be to torn down what lies beneath is worth more to Dublin now and in the future than for office space for civil servants
Very interesting, thank you. A word of caution though. Radiocarbon dating has a pretty wide potential error margin. During the Early Medieval period written historical evidence is usually far more reliable for chronological stuff in Ireland in particular. Wish it weren’t so, to cast doubt on such a good story, but lets enjoy the possibility anyway…..
Well their hardly going to meander into the national history museum and say pull a chair up we have something to tell you lovely people of Ireland. The Vikings were savage they played a part in this world but there gone.
The part about the man getting on with it in spite of having a bad back is definitely appropriate to me. Since 2015 I’m waiting for help with a bad back and still waiting under the HSE. I guess I’ll take it to to my grave like this guy. The only difference is my grave won’t be robbed because the Viking dies with more possessions than I have.
The Viking’s were not really see off there were other settlements around the place apart from Dublin
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