Publisher's Desk
Canadian truckers on Saturday answered a big 10-4 to gathering in Ottawa, Ontario to protest against cross-border vaccine mandates.
As of Jan. 22, the Biden administration has required all truck drivers who cross US borders to be fully vaccinated. The mandate applies to all essential, nonresident travelers crossing US land borders, including government and emergency response officials, according to Insider.
As of Jan. 15, the Canadian government has planned to mandate all Canadian truckers seeking to cross the border from the United States to be vaccinated in order to avoid a 14-day quarantine.
Opponents of the requirements from both governments have stated these mandates will only exacerbate a supply chain already stretched to the limit.
According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance and the American Trucking Associations, about 26,000 truckers are now sidelined by the vaccination requirements.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in 2020 about 30,000 trucks crossed the border each day, hauling nearly $850 million in freight.
“We’re not backing down and we are going to Ottawa,” Tamara Lich, a protest organizer from Medicine Hat, Alta., said in a Facebook Live video posted Sunday in response to negative attacks on the planned protest.
The multi-day protest brought parts of Ottawa to a standstill as trucks blocked major roads and demonstrators flooded the streets, according to Yahoo News. And, Canadian police have launched “several criminal investigations” into incidents during the protest.
While I don’t support instances of criminal activities amongst protesters of any kind, I betcha the vast majority of those identifying as part of the “Freedom Convoy” are law abiding. They are just fed up with nonsensical restrictions on civil liberties.
I will point out the vast hypocrisy compared with illegal immigrants flooding the southern portion of the United States.
While law abiding truckers who provide a crucial service are being sidelined, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants without vaccinations have been streaming, and continue to stream, into the United States.
On Dec. 6, border agents at the Yuma Sector (where I was born) recorded more than 1,500 illegal crossings, according to TIMCAST, with the majority of apprehended migrants from Cuba, Brazil and Venezuela.
On Dec. 7, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey was giving a press conference live at the border fence in Yuma when cameras caught about 12 illegal immigrants brazenly walking across a nearby bridge from Mexico.
“Yuma is facing an escalating humanitarian and border crisis — and it’s a direct result of the Biden administration’s poor communication, lack of organization and complete disregard for border protection,” Ducey said via Twitter.
So while legal crossers get punished, illegal crossers do not.
Welcome to clown world...
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