The RCMP said the individuals were ready “to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade” and four have since been charged with conspiracy to commit murder.ĭemonstrators had also blocked the busiest border crossing between the US and Canada near Detroit, the Ambassador Bridge, for nearly a week. This week, the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said it arrested 13 people and seized a large cache of weapons at the Coutts blockade.
“It was a very difficult time … especially for my wife and three-year-old child who did not know when I would be back.” Commercial trucks cross the Ambassador Bridge from Canada to Detroit, Michigan, February 14
#Canadian trucker strike driver#
He was forced to call a tow truck which cost him $1,500 US,” the Calgary-based driver said. “One friend’s truck slipped into a ditch due to bad weather conditions. “We were forced to sleep in cars for the whole we are stuck at the border.”ĭhindsa said after three days, he and others were forced to drive their long-hauls to a different border crossing in Alberta known as Carway to enter into Canada, using roads that were not suitable for trucks. “Some of them are not even truckers … they are just locals from nearby areas,” the 28-year-old said about the protesters.Īnother truck driver, Kanwal Singh Dhindsa told Al Jazeera that he ran out of food after also getting stuck at the Coutts blockade and had to buy additional supplies. “Around 50 protesters were blocking 200 to 400 trucks” at the border in Coutts, Alberta, where a blockade was lifted earlier this week after snarling traffic for several days, said Gill, who was bringing produce from the US back to Canada with a co-driver when they were stuck at the crossing for nearly three days, beginning on January 29. Vaccinated truckers like Gill also have raised frustrations and anger about protest blockades set up at key crossings along the US-Canada border in solidarity with the protest in Ottawa, saying the days-long closures harmed drivers’ livelihoods and left many stranded. Police have been criticised for their handling of the main protest in Ottawa The CTA has condemned the protests and blockades, with President Stephen Laskowski saying last month that the industry needed to “adapt and comply” with the vaccine mandate. We have to get physical tests like eye exams every few years,” Gill said. “The trucking industry is heavily regulated. The Canadian Truckers Alliance (CTA), an industry advocacy group, and the federal government have said approximately 90 percent of truckers are fully vaccinated.
#Canadian trucker strike drivers#
While some Canadian truckers have indeed taken part in the protests across Canada, denouncing the vaccine mandate as an attack on their personal liberties, most Canadian truck drivers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Blockades also were erected at points along the border, disrupting traffic and commercial trade for days. On January 29, a large group of Canadian truckers and their supporters, numbering in the thousands, rallied outside Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa to demand the vaccine mandate be rescinded.Ī few hundred vehicles have remained in the capital since then in what residents denounced as an “ occupation” of the downtown core, with participants in the convoy insisting they would not budge until all COVID-19 curbs are lifted.
“I wouldn’t call it a truckers’ protest,” Gill told Al Jazeera in a phone interview about the main rally in downtown Ottawa. While the convoy was billed as a response to mandatory vaccinations for truck drivers crossing the border with the United States, Gill says there are “major issues” in the trucking industry, such as unpaid wages and exploitation of foreign workers, that warrant more attention. Toronto, Canada – As Canada strengthens its push to disperse so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters after weeks in the capital Ottawa, trucker Lovepreet Singh Gill says he never had an interest in participating.
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