WESTERN PRODUCER — Vaccine mandates affecting the trucking industry have understandably prompted a determined and outraged response from a number of Western Canada’s truckers and rural residents.
A proportion of Canada’s commercial truckers who drive big rigs are opposed to federal rules that limit their mobility, as well as their ability to earn a living.
Similarly, many farmers and rural residents in the West have little tolerance for federal vaccine rules that restrict commerce and infringe on personal freedoms.
Personal beliefs aside, it is beyond dispute that placing obstacles in front of Canada’s trucking industry will exacerbate Canada’s inflation rate — already the highest in 30 years — and contribute to ongoing supply chain problems that have already impacted almost every sector of the Canadian economy.
This was a central theme in an email sent by members of the Conservative shadow cabinet to federal transportation minister Omar Alghabra on Jan. 21, roughly a week before a convoy of frustrated trucker protesters arrived in the nation’s capital.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, truckers have rightfully been heralded as the unsung heroes, keeping our supply chains moving,” read the Jan. 21 letter, co-signed by Prince Albert MP Randy Hoback, the Conservative critic for international trade and supply chain resilience.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, the Liberal government rightfully deemed the trucking industry an essential service. Still, amidst the same pandemic, your government has now targeted the industry and is forcing thousands of truckers off the road.”
It is estimated that between 8,000 and 16,000 trucks could be forced off the road as a result of vaccine mandates affecting international truck traffic. The U.S. has similar mandates in place so U.S. truck traffic moving north into Canada will be impacted along with Canadian long haul traffic that travels to the United States and backhauls American goods into Canada.
According to Sylvain Charlebois, a renowned Canadian expert on Canadian food supply chain issues, the cost of US truck freight from Florida to Canada has increased between 25 and 100 percent over the past month, depending on the destination.
As of Feb. 2, the Liberal government had also declined to back down from additional mandates that would restrict the interprovincial truck traffic.
Further reducing the flow of goods between Canadian provinces will have damaging economic consequences.
Charlebois promoted this argument in a Jan. 27 opinion piece published by the Western Producer.
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No one should be surprised that pouring fuel on an already fractured Canadian population has the potential to inflame public opinion.
What Canada needs now is a government that unifies, not one that provokes.
Unraveling the factors that underlie the chaos in Ottawa and at Coutts, Alta., is a no doubt a messy business.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep divisions in our population — divisions based on partisan politics, urban versus rural values, religious convictions, fear, and concerns over the ability of an underfunded public health-care system to handle spikes in hospitalizations and intensive-care-unit admissions.
The impact on Canada’s hard-working health-care professionals also needs to be considered.
And while most Canadians still believe that vaccinations are the best way to control the spread and impact of COVID-19, the issue of trucking restrictions raises important questions that should be considered by all policymakers.
For starters, could Ottawa have done anything to avoid disruptive demonstrations in Ottawa and Alberta?
Do unvaccinated long-haul truckers who spend hours upon hours alone in their trucks really pose a significant risk to our society?
And perhaps most importantly, if the fallout from trucker protests — both present and future — includes civil disobedience, confrontation and violence, then who should bear responsibility for those outcomes?
One hundred percent compliance with any policy is not a realistic expectation, particularly when the policy deals with an issue as complex and politically charged as mandatory vaccinations.
Laws prohibiting illicit drug use certainly don’t achieve 100 percent compliance. Nor do laws and regulations prohibiting tax evasion through offshore tax havens, for example.
In this context, how far should government be prepared to go in pursuit of 100 percent compliance when it comes to mandatory vaccination?
This is a pivotal question.
After two years of failing to contain a rapidly mutating virus and upending almost every aspect of Canadian life in the process, perhaps it’s time for Liberal leaders in Ottawa to ask themselves: At what point do the risks associated with mandatory vaccination policies outweigh the perceived rewards?
It is undeniable that Liberal government policies have pushed an otherwise productive and law-abiding segment of the Canadian population to the point of outright resistance.
Failure by political leaders to engage in meaningful dialogue with its citizens — particularly those who feel economically, politically or culturally marginalized — often has consequences that are both ugly and predictable.
This should be amply clear to Ottawa, as it continues to offer financial reparations for the misguided political decisions in Canada’s past.
As far as trucker protests are concerned, one can only conclude that the current federal government is completely out of touch with a segment of the western Canadian population that it was elected to govern.
Either that or that it is willfully ignoring values held by a portion of the Canadian electorate that it views as politically insignificant.
Either way, all Canadians — Liberal and otherwise — will be left to deal with a mess that should rightfully have been avoided.
