The 'Freedom Convoy' is protesting vaccine mandates but police are worried about fringe elements.
After a week-long drive across Canada, a convoy of big rigs has arrived in the national capital to protest vaccine mandates and Covid-19 measures. Organisers insist it will be peaceful, but police say they're prepared for trouble.The movement was sparked by a vaccine mandate for truckers crossing the US-Canada border, implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government earlier this month.
Social media and news footage showed trucks and companion vehicles snaking along highways, cheered on by people gathered on roadsides and overpasses, often waving Canadian flags and signs disparaging Mr Trudeau.A GoFundMe campaign has raised, to date, over a whopping C$7m from over 99,000 donors. "We want to be free, we want to have our choice again, and we want hope - and the government has taken that away," Harold Jonker, a truck driver and trucking company owner, told the BBC as he drove through the town of Brockville, about 115km from Ottawa on Friday.
He said that police are preparing for potential parallel and counter-demonstrations and were concerned about people on social media in Canada and abroad "who may or may not come to the city" but "who are nonetheless inciting hate, violence and in some cases criminality". But the convoy has received some support from Conservative politicians who say it's become a "symbol of the fatigue and division" felt in Canada two years into the pandemic.
Prices are on the rise, including for food and petrol. It's been getting harder to find some products on grocery store shelves - and Canada's economy is heavily dependent on the men and women who drive the vast majority of food and goods consumed in in the country across the border.
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