Before covid vaccinations became available, truckers, like soldiers in wartime, took the calculated risk of infection by transporting vital goods and food across the country and stateside. Many truckers were casualties throughout 2020, and as such are our heroes.
As Justin Trudeau is undoubtedly aware, 90% of the truckers promptly got vaccinated as soon as possible. He is also aware that the remaining 10% who for one reason or another, chose to continue working with the calculated risk of an already abating chance of infection and giving it to others.
All the foregoing leads to the next question: Given that the freight transportation system already in place was working rather well, why in blazes did the prime minister find it necessary to force truckers loaded with Canadian bound goods from the U.S. into two weeks of isolation and thereby reducing available trucks and cutting their meager incomes in half.
In other words, both U.S and Canadian governments chose to cut a trucker’s already meager income in half if he should dare carry a load across the border.
Forced isolation was the spark that ignited the truckers’ revolt and the Freedom Convoys crossing North America and elsewhere. It is the product of a growing culture of elitism with society’s failing leadership of all political stripes.
For example, Ottawa’s cab drivers must cope with substantial broker’s fees and usurious insurance premiums notwithstanding the refusal of their brokers to allow their drivers to work. The City of Ottawa — the same city locked down by the Freedom Bear Hug convoy, responded to their concerns with their usual big yawn and empathy as they listen to truckers honk their horns.
To end the Ottawa standoff, all the prime minister had to do was follow the example of the 14 year old King Richard ll who in June 1381 met with the peasants who were far more dangerous than today’s truckers, face to face and listen to them voice their concerns and proposals as that young King had done 600 years ago. He even put in writing his acceptance of all the peasants’ proposals which are now in the British archives.
The establishment’s culture of elitism is the source of the current truckers’ uprising and that has got to change.
John Bliss©2022