Canadian Trucker Protesters Are Not Extremists

Ottawa — It was six degrees below zero, and I couldn’t feel my hands. My flight had arrived in Ottawa the night before, and I had forgotten to pack mittens. I was running on three hours of sleep, following a late-night effort to navigate the drawn-out Canadian pandemic-border gauntlet — negative Covid test, proof of vaccination, special “ArriveCAN” phone app, and detailed plans for quarantine if I tested positive on the other side. The border guard eyed the disheveled American standing in front of him. “What’s your business in Canada?” Covering the trucker convoy for a magazine. “What magazine?” National Review. He nodded. “You should check out the hot tub they set up.”

As it turns out, the trucker encampment that has settled around the Canadian parliament building did have a hot tub (as well as multiple DJ booths, tents serving free food and drinks, barbecues, two mascots in full-body costumes, and a bouncy castle). But I instead found myself in the frigid Ottawa air Monday morning at the Jericho March, a biblically inspired lap around Parliament Hill that five dozen or so of the most cold-resistant protesters undertake at 9 a.m. daily. “The momentum is incredible — there seem to be more and more supporters coming in every day,” Benita Peterson, the organizer of the Jericho March, said.

Ottawa — It was six degrees below zero, and I couldn’t feel my hands. My flight had arrived in Ottawa the night before, and I had forgotten to pack mittens. I was running on three hours of sleep, following a late-night effort to navigate the drawn-out Canadian pandemic-border gauntlet — negative Covid test, proof of vaccination, special “ArriveCAN” phone app, and detailed plans for quarantine if I tested positive on the other side. The border guard eyed the disheveled American standing in front of him. “What’s your business in Canada?” Covering the trucker convoy for a magazine. “What magazine?” National Review. He nodded. “You should check out the hot tub they set up.”

As it turns out, the trucker encampment that has settled around the Canadian parliament building did have a hot tub (as well as multiple DJ booths, tents serving free food and drinks, barbecues, two mascots in full-body costumes, and a bouncy castle). But I instead found myself in the frigid Ottawa air Monday morning at the Jericho March, a biblically inspired lap around Parliament Hill that five dozen or so of the most cold-resistant protesters undertake at 9 a.m. daily. “The momentum is incredible — there seem to be more and more supporters coming in every day,” Benita Peterson, the organizer of the Jericho March, said.