The “Honk If You Love Duck Dynasty” Convoy
By Glen Lamont
What started out as a bit of a fringe element heading to our nation’s capital Ottawa to protest Cross border truck driver’s vaccine mandates, has now morphed into a Trump type spectacle, trying hard to emulate the January 6th Insurrection in Washington DC. Trying hard, but this being Canada no one actually cares that much. We are an extremely apathetic nation. We are big complainers, always moaning about something, but unwilling to actually do anything about it.
So first off let’s get a few things straight; this is not really about the trucker vaccine mandates. Yes, there are some trucks involved, but this is Canada so almost everyone has a truck of some description. The majority (between 80 and 90 percent, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance), of cross border truckers are vaccinated. Last but not least…..this is absolutely not about anyone’s rights or freedoms being taken away. This is about a bunch of whiny people, with way too much privilege, who for the first time in their lives, have had to comply with a very simple regulation for the good of others. For the “collective” good. I guess maybe that’s where the problem lies for some of them. Being asked to make a small concession for the community is just a step too far, that could easily lead to some sort of communist state.
This mob of angry (and mostly white) far right conspiracy theorists and Trump supporters (even though this is Canada), have seen an opportunity in the vaccine mandates, to hold an entire city hostage and the worst part is……our federal and provincial governments are letting them do it! According to folks who live near the protests, and having heard the noise on Twitter and Instagram posts, the noise is unbearable, there have been assaults on not only residents but also health care workers and local restaurants have had to close. I guess this is their version of the January 6th insurrection in Washington DC last year. Also being the geniuses that they are, parliament is not currently in session, and when they do return, it will be done via Zoom meetings. So parking yourself outside of the Parliament buildings is pretty pointless. That is if they even managed to correctly identify the Parliament buildings.
Well I could spend all day making fun of their low IQs, poor command of the english language and poor hygiene but the fact of the matter is, there is very hateful, racist and violent element that seems to have taken over and will use any opportunity to further their xenophobic, white supremist agenda. Our current sociological, economic and political climate here in Canada, makes it easy for bad actors to take over, what should have been a peaceful, albeit, annoying protest. Everyone has the right to lawful assembly and peaceful protest, however the way they’ve handled this compared to the amount of firepower thrown at Indignous land defenders, is abysmal. The LNG pipeline has full government support to run their project straight through Wet’ suwet’ ten territory with absolutely no regard for the people who’s land they plan to appropriate. “We Stand with Wet’suwet’en” became a battle cry for all back in 2019 and the fight continues with the company claiming that they have permission and backing of the elected Chiefs. The Hereditary Chiefs disagree. Elected Chiefs only have jurisdiction over what happens within the band on Reserve land, whereas the Hereditary Chiefs hold sway over all the unceded territory that the Wet’suwet’en people live on and use to sustain themselves. Elected Chiefs are simply civil servants.
Either way the response to them has been that the RCMP have acted as a private army working on behalf of TC Energy. They have gone after the land defenders with dogs, tear gas and have physically attacked elders.
In Ottawa, where a bunch of slack jawed Cleetus’s are threatening people, flying swastikas and using a 24 hour a day wall of sound to disrupt everything and everyone, not an ounce of pushback by City Police. And the response from our fearless leader, Mr. Trudeau; ““I want to be very clear; we are not intimidated by those who hurl insults and abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless. We won’t give in to those who fly racist flags. We won’t cave to those who engage in vandalism or dishonor the memory of our veterans. There is no place in our country for threats, violence, or hatred … it needs to stop.” Then he promptly left town.
So stop it then. Have the police or the RCMP move in and teargas them and throw old ladies to the ground and generally act like they have been with the Land Defenders in BC. Or throw a truckload of chicken manure on them like they did to homeless people living in a park in Abbotsford, a small BC town, a couple of years back. But the sad truth is, they are afraid of the optics. They are too nervous of the backlash, and as I said before, the majority of the convoy protestors are White.
What I am curious about is this; how long has this group of anti-vaxxers, Q-anon wannabes and neo Nazi fanboys been trying to bring about change through legitimate channels? Have they exhausted their appeals to their MLA’s and MP’s ? Have their petitions fallen on deaf ears? NO and NO. Why? Because they’ve done none of that. They have simply spent the last decade or so, bumping into one another in the conspiracy theory rabbit holes so abundant on the internet, bitched about it down at their local Legion Hall (substitute Elks, Eagles, Oddfellows, Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes….wait, that was the Flintstones) anyway, after watching countless youtube videos from trusted sources like, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Lauren Southern, they “decided to fight back!!!”. It angered some to the point that they brought bouncy castles and portable saunas to downtown Ottawa. What’s next people……Line Dancing classes?
I digress. It’s easy to make fun of them….and fun as well. However, unlike our fearless leader, we should not discount this movement as a fringe element. They are not. This growing nationalist, anti immigration crowd has been gaining followers for some time now. I noticed that after Trump came to power in 2016, people started to say things out loud that they had previously only said in the company of close friends or only thought. The Trumpers….(trumpets….trumpists?) anyway, people who voted for Trump kind of gave a lot of people here in Canada license to speak their minds when it came to immigration, Indigenous rights, gender pronouns and basically anything that threatened their way of life as privileged white people who love Tim Horton’s, Hockey and Molson Canadian lager.
Even people who you thought were maybe a little on the conservative side but other than that, harmless, have jumped on the “great replacement” bandwagon. The bottom line is, things have been getting dumber for quite some time now. The mainstream media ceased to be a trusted source a long time ago. Critical thinking, thanks to 24–7 streaming apps, social media and Duck Dynasty (I know they’re not even a thing anymore but…I just can’t let it go) no longer exists. Consequently when people get scared regarding things they don’t understand (because there’s a lack of critical thinking, which I specifically blame on Duck Dynasty) they look for easy answers and when someone like Trump,Joe Rogan, or Alex Jones comes along and connects the dots for them, they happily go along for the ride. Because, let’s face it, the average person isn’t going to do any real research when it comes to Covid. Reading a peer reviewed paper is an art unto itself. Having said that, they won’t even take the time to check a source. Which explains why people are still referencing Andrew Wakefield’s study linking the MMR vaccine and autism, which by now had been debunked, retracted by the Lancet and 10 of the 12 authors of the study retracted their statements. But it’s still referenced by anyone who is an anti vaxxer and Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty(sorry).
To conclude; this is a dangerous movement. The Canadian government and the general public should not write them off. They have support from some big names in the alt-right in America, they have financial support from the U.S. as well. I believe they are here to stay and if we don’t start fighting their racism and conspiracy theories with solutions for all, rather than just making fun of them(which as I said is really really easy and fun) then we run the risk of a Trump clone candidate being voted into office, right here in Canada. Quite possibly even Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty.
