The so-called “Freedom Convoy” continues to disrupt Canada, with Ottawa, the nation’s capital, immobilized by a siege. The anti-vaccine mandate protests have spread to include a blockade of the truck lane of the Ambassador Bridge separating Windsor and Detroit, the very heart of transnational trade between Canada and the United States.
The convoy is now the most successful far right mobilization in Canada in a generation, an earthquake in our politics. This is all the more impressive since, viewed numerically the group protesting is small. Journalists have estimated that only a few hundred trucks are involved. The protests are garnering international attention, with many groups hoping to emulate it. On his Fox News show on Monday, Tucker Carlson asked, “How long before protests like this come here?”
The protests have a complicated relation to the global far right. On the one hand, the organizers and most of the protesters are Canadians, often with longstanding ties to Canadian far right groups. But the convoy has also tapped into a global network that has provided crucial media and financial support. Grid has done excellent reporting tracing prominent Facebook pages promoting the convoy to the United States and Bangladesh, as well as funding coming from international sources. (This is a still developing story, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford declaring a state of emergency today.)
To discuss both the Canadian and international elements of the story I was very pleased to invite Nora Loreto back onto the podcast. A freelance reporter who is doing some of the best analysis of the impact of the pandemic on Canada, Nora’s work can be found on her substack newsletter and on the podcast Sandy and Nora Talk Politics.
Further Listening
Nora and I first discussed the “Freedom Convoy” on January 31. My conversation with Martin Lukacs about the global far right’s fascination with Victor Orbán is also relevant.
(Post edited by Emily M. Keeler)
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Podcast: The Siege of Ottawa