This So-Called "Trucker Freedom Convoy" Is Pure Nonsense
We need to make (North) Americans think again
You’ve probably seen it on Twitter and the news.
Supposedly 50,000 Canadian truckers and 1.4 million people are “descending” on Ottawa this weekend to protest vaccine mandates.
This is their right.
But for some reason, people on both sides are going wild and rabid over this story.
I’m here to tell you that the numbers are absolute nonsense.
And a whole lot of other things don’t add up, either.
Let’s cover eight big reasons why:
Zero proof
A few weeks ago, a British paper claimed:
“Hundreds of fake Boris Johnsons descend on Parliament.”
Despite the rag’s desperate attempts to turn it into a real story, no matter what angle they took the photos from, it was clearly no more than a few dozen.
The same goes for this trucker convoy.
There are not 50,000 truckers and 1.4 million people “descending” on Ottawa.
You can literally count the number of trucks.
(Math nerds will be happy to know it would take more than 41 hours at an extremely generous 5 seconds per truck.)
Coverage
People keep telling “The mainstream media isn’t reporting it!”
First, this is a tinfoil hat phrase.
Second, this isn’t how the media works. No click-based media outlet could ignore the biggest protest in Canadian history, containing 4% of the national population. None.
Third, Global covered it four days ago, CBC’s The National covered it two days ago, CTV’s covered it multiple times, and even the LA Times has picked it up.
So the point is moot and belies both a lack of research and a surfeit amount of paranoia.
Physical reality and thermodynamics
If 1.45 million people were truly descending on Ottawa, why are there no reports of hotel prices going through the roof?
Ottawa has a population of fewer than 1 million people. It is insane to think that 1.4 million visitors plan to camp in a northern Ontario town in January.
The forecast for Saturday is a high of -15C and a low of -24C.
Also, the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) is preparing for up to 10,000 protestors. Do you really think they don’t know what’s actually going on?
Speed and velocity
I have driven across Canada five times — once for pleasure, four for work.
The fastest I’ve gone from Vancouver to Ontario is three days.
Truckers do it regularly in four or five.
This convoy is well over a week old and some of the trucks are still in Alberta.
No major city in Canada is more than 4,400km from Ottawa.
Are they driving from Alaska, or driving at the speed of a moped?
Even for those who are already in Ontario, the math just doesn’t make sense.
Math
Semi-trucks are 72 feet long.
Generously assuming just 8 feet between trucks for the entire length of the convoy, 50,000 trucks would stretch 760 miles long.
It’s just pure detachment from reality to think there’s a line of trucks from roughly Thunder Bay to Ottawa.
People argue that the convoy is actually a bunch of convoys (which is obvious) but this just shows they don’t understand how undeveloped Canada is — there are only four major roads into Ottawa.
Psychology
There are 120,000 truckers in Canada.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates 85% are vaccinated.
So 18k unvaccinated.
Assuming all 18k are part of the protest, does anyone really believe that 31% of all vaccinated truckers in Canada are taking two weeks off work to drive to Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates?
The same goes for these fake 1.4 million supporters.
83.38% of Canadians are vaccinated.
That leaves 6.3 million people.
Minus kids.
Are you telling me one in three unvaccinated Canadians across the entire nation — from the Yukon to Newfoundland — are all heading to the capital this week?
No.
Wrong targets
Many of these protestors are protesting in the wrong place.
My friend Jimmy put it hilariously well:
If you are mad about your kids wearing masks at school… that’s provincial; you should go to Queens Park (University Street above College in Toronto.)
If you are mad about needing a vaccine to go to the US… that’s American, you should go to the White House (1600 Pennsylvania ave DC.)
If you are mad about not being able to get back into Canada without a vaccine (or quarantine) that’s Canada. Ottawa. Look for the weasely guy with the good hair.
Redefining words
People of faith and students of history and philosophy know the truth about freedom: That the hyper-individualist West no longer defines freedom the way the ancient Greeks and Romans (and the biblical authors) defined it.
Post-modernists conflate freedom with autonomy — the right to do whatever you want, others be damned.
Ancient freedom is the ability to do what’s right, regardless of circumstance. In other words, this protest is an abuse of the word “freedom.”
So what is this really all about?
In reality, it is a few hundred truckers and thousands of supporters who are physically expressing the fury and fear that many Canadians are feeling — the specter of forced vaccines and more Orwellian lockdowns.
They are absolutely entitled to those fears, and they are undeniably entitled to non-violently protest.
But this isn’t a fight for freedom.
It’s a fear-and-anger-driven skirmish for autonomy.
The upside is that Justin Trudeau could end up losing his job, which is a good thing since he lied about saving democracy.
Not that the Cons will make anything better…
In conclusion
This is why Canada needs to try democracy instead of being 100% ruled by a party that won less than 40% of the vote and then ignored the public in favor of their corporate sponsors anyway.
If you put it to a referendum today, I bet the majority of Canadians — even pro-vaxxers like myself — would be against more Orwellian lockdowns and a forced vaccine for this specific disease.
But corporate-sponsored politicians don’t care what the public thinks, so the public raises their voice in whatever way they still can.
To be clear, I am majorly in favor of the right to non-violent protest, and I’m also against vaccine mandates for this particular disease; I’m just pointing out that these massive numbers are pure fiction.
A movement that has to lie about its numbers seriously undermines its credibility.
And it reveals how dumb the Internet has made humanity.
Please use your heads, friends. Think long and hard before you believe anything you read on Facebook. Facebook is filled with mind-melting propaganda, driven by an algorithm that has been proven to profit from making misinformation go viral.
Don’t let social media rot your brains.
Now get off the Internet and hug a real human.
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