I joined the Canadian Freedom Convoy once the trucks were already firmly set in Ottawa. My time in the Canadian capital was spent gathering information, specifically to document the successful, as well as the failed, tactics and strategies of the demonstration. My reticence over details is necessary because, whether through fate or my own persistence, I am now helping the central organization with some of their strategy, and anything that I disclose publicly could be used against them. But I can give a brief overview of what is happening here.

It’s important to note that the meaning of all this is still unclear. There is indeed a very palpable sense that “this is history,” as many here are prone to say, but no one has yet presented a historical vision, and no shape has yet organically formed.

Concerning such “grand narratives,” there are many false directions. Walking through the blockade, it can seem as though multiple demonstrations are going on at the same time, some of which feel distinct. The protest can often seem like a textbook workers revolution, since much of the language used by the protestors stake the “working class” against the bourgeoisie and the other traditional enemies of the proletariat.

At other times there are intimations of 1960s counter-culture, where blunts are circulated, heart-shaped signs are passed out, and placards read, “Live. Love. Freedom.” The most obvious theme of the protests is state imposed restrictions under the pretense of bio-medical safety. According to this logic, once the mandates end, everyone will go home. In this last case, this would mean that the protests are counter-revolutionary in nature, since all the people want is to turn things back to normal.

But any grievance has merely helped precipitate anger into material action, and anyone who claims they know what the demonstrators want, in discrete terms, is wrong for the same reason: they have identified positive outcomes that are expected to satisfy the demonstrators indefinitely. The opposite is probably much closer to the truth. What do the demonstrators really want? Whatever it is, it is not this: governments that put their citizens in house arrest, annihilate jobs, impose vaccines from a disreputable pharmaceutical company, sacrifice the youth to protect the old, and suppress its scientists, all while the inept lever-pullers go on vacation, attend parties, and continue to deposit checks from the tax-payer.

What we’re are seeing in Ottawa, and also in hiccups around the world, is the unraveling of the postwar oligarchy, which dressed up as a liberal-democracy. Indeed, we are observing how the accumulated costs incurred by the professional class, from fleecing and lying to its citizens, results in those same citizens arriving at the government’s doorstep, blowing their horns, and demanding justice.

The Regime is failing against the Freedom Convoy

As the elites panic, they escalate their efforts and resort to desperate tricks, including calling the demonstrators nazis, booking every hotel room in Ottawa, interfering with donations, disrupting internet service, having officers posture for five minutes in front of the press media, threatening arrests, and even threatening military involvement because of the specter of “foreign interference.” It seems like Canada is going to war. 

But the injunctions, and the municipal and provincial states of emergency have only been powerful in name, not in practice. So far, their illusions have been all hat and no rabbit. Every obstacle in the truckers’ path is circumvented, and every day that the convoy remains, the government’s incompetence is revealed, and it is humiliated on the world stage.

From the very beginning, some truckers were surprised they were able to drive right in front of the parliament. Internal documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), our equivalent to the CIA, released through an access to information request, show that the state and its security apparatus underestimated the size of the convoy, though any half-wit could have seen the tremendous chain of trucks that were headed their way. But the government instead wore its most stern poker face, called it a “small fringe minority” without anticipating what would happen when their bluff was called, and thousands of trucks, many of which are 50 000 tons, engaged their parking brakes.

The City of Ottawa then called tow-trucks companies across the province to help them remove the blockade. Even companies commissioned by the city refused. Not only would they destroy their professional reputations by towing these vehicles, they in fact stood in solidarity with the convoy, telling city administrators that they all had Covid.

Then the city called on the police to forcibly remove truckers and make arrests. The police released a list of “crimes” committed and punished: innocuous fines for public urination and noise disturbances made up the bulk of the charges.

One friend of mine, who is an active officer for the Ottawa Police, has told me that the police feel scapegoated by the regime. Some of this resentment has been brewing for a while. The police, who are now complaining about lack of resources, acutely remember the moment, two years ago, when Justin Trudeau expressly supported BLM, taking a knee on Parliament Hill, while “Defund the Police” and “ACAB [All Cops Are Bastards]” were chanted.

But even more recently, on February 1st, only two days after the convoy arrived in Ottawa, several local police were put on unpaid leave because of their vaccination status. At the same time, as officers all over Parliament Hill fist-bumped, gave thumps-up, took pictures, and openly fraternized with the protestors, the state intimated that the demonstration was an “illegal occupation,” and one Ottawa councilor called the demonstrators “terrorists.”

The finger pointing and blame setting started off in harmony blaming truckers and their supposed influencers, including Joe Rogan and Trump. Now politicians are defecting, throwing each other under the bus, and even castigating their own police force and foot soldiers. The military refused to get involved, arguing that they are not a police force. Then Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, was caught snowmobiling at his cottage, and Trudeau was seen skiing instead of managing the crisis.

Although the governing Liberal party is in the crosshairs, the Conservative Party of Canada, a crypto-liberal institution without hope, is also a target. The leader of the Official Opposition resigned. They are a party without convictions, and they have encouraged the convoy, and then asked them to leave.

The bureaucratic nomenklatura is also contradicting itself constantly. The official administrators say that restrictions must remain because of the insuperable authority of science, and the following day the restrictions are lessening because of, once again—“the science.”

For fake news to be effective the truth must remain hidden. But every smear attempt has flopped, because so many people are on the ground or watching footage that isn’t obviously curated. When corporate media contrives a “white-supremacy” angle, hundreds of nonwhites within the crowd laugh while live-streaming.

Humble predictions

Ottawa was chosen for symbolic reasons, not least because it is the cradle of Canadian incompetence. Had these truckers decided to block genuine essential infrastructure, as others have now, they might not have won so much public support. This support is very important, because it makes the use of violence by the state costly. The Trudeau government, at the time of this writing, seems to only have three remaining options towards the blockade on Parliament Hill. In the first scenario, maybe the regime survives, but it will be dealt a humiliating blow, one that it may not recover from.

(1) All levels of government end all mandates. Such a concession or even a negotiation with the Freedom Convoy’s demands, after calling the blockade “insurrectionist,” and the will of “occupiers,” “extremists,” and “white supremacists,” is politically suicidal.

(2) The regime resorts to might. If forcibly removing truckers at gunpoint becomes reality, many of whom have wives and children in their vehicle, the poorly applied veneer of democracy will finally be scrubbed off entirely. In this situation, the truckers may retreat, but the rift will grow even larger between Canadians, and some other conflict will spring up in the future.

(3) Their last option is to continue on their current trajectory, which is to ramp up rhetoric, in an attempt to increase fear among the truckers while not being able to do anything material. It will effectively be a stalemate in which only the regime loses.

To be continued

I will (hopefully) continue this piece, once the blockade ends, and I can make some retrospective comments. Until then, we hope the Freedom Convoy continues to centralize the grass-roots movement, to hold the line defiantly, to maintain morale, to have some faith, and to watch the main political parties succumb to irremediable sepsis from self-inflicted wounds.