February 12, 2022

By Bill Berkowitz and Gale Bataille

Say what you will about alternative facts and fake news, but when right-wing media platforms flog an issue, tsunami-like waves of outrage are almost guaranteed. These days, right-wing media and social media platforms are hailing a relatively small group of Canadian truckers as “Don’t Tread on Me” working class anti-vax and anti-mandate heroes. As of this writing,  the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” has shut down the center city of Ottawa, the capital of Canada. The truckers have also blocked several key transportation corridors between the US and Canada, disrupting the supply chain and causing Ford and GM to slow down production, and possibly lay off workers at those plants. But beyond the hype, the facts on the ground contradict most right-wing media claims about the size and scope of the truckers’ protests.

Large chunks of money for the effort are coming from right-wing donors in the U.S. And, organizers and supporters of the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” appear to want their supporters to believe that while the January 6 riot at the US Capitol failed to overturn a legitimate election, toppling the Canadian government of Justin Trudeau is a possibility.

CNN’s Daniel Dale took a close look at some of the claims coming out of right-wing reporting on the “Freedom Convoy,” (https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/09/politics/fact-check-canadian-convoy-protest-ottawa/index.html), and found that “The protests involve a minority of Canada's truck drivers, some far-right activists and a variety of other citizens.” It’s also important to note that 85 percent of Canada’s truckers are vaccinated and their unions are not endorsing the protests.

The convoy started after Canada began requiring truckers crossing the US border to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or have two-week quarantines upon returning home. 

First off, regarding the size of the convoy: There have never been 50,000 trucks involved in the protests as some organizers have claimed; a claim that was repeated by podcaster Joe Rogan. 

Daniel Dale: The number of trucks involved in the protest was never anywhere close to 50,000; such a number of trucks would have taken up hundreds of miles more road space than this protest occupied. Canadian journalists put the number of trucks in the hundreds in late January. Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly told reporters on January 31 that it was impossible to provide exact crowd-size figures but that he had "heard" numbers as high as 18,000 total demonstrators –not just truckers – present in the city at the peak of the protest on January 29. No credible source has reported that the number of participating trucks in particular ever approached tens of thousands, let alone "50,000."

Social media has amplified the demonstration’s impact. According to Dale’s reporting, many influencers “put inaccurate captions on photos and videos of events that had occurred prior to 2022 – such as “Brazilian truck demonstrations in support of Jair Bolsonaro… A photo of a massive protest crowd, shared in Twitter posts in both English and Spanish as if it were from Ottawa this year, actually depicted a 1991 demonstration in Moscow against the Communist government of the Soviet Union… even a parade in support of the Special Olympics -- to falsely claim these images were connected to the Canadian convoy protest.”

Far-right organizers claimed that Ottawa police were resigning in droves as an expression of support for the grievance convoy. On Facebook, where he has more than 290,000 followers, Pat King, a longtime conspiracy theorist, who was listed as one of the regional organizers of the convoy, claimed that "50% of the Ottawa police force has all turned in their resignation today." Facebook recently deleted Pat King’s page.

Facts First: These claims were entirely false. Ottawa police spokesperson Constable Amy Gagnon said in Monday emails to CNN that ‘there have been no resignations in relation to the Demonstration’" and ‘all available officers are working.’ And the Canadian Armed Forces have not made any vow of ‘allegiance’ in relation to the protests nor issued any dramatic statements of any kind about this issue. ‘In short, no, we have not made any such comment,’ a military spokesperson said in a Monday email to CNN.

Right-wing tweeters claimed that some Ottawa hotels were given instructions by the government to deny rooms to protesters. This claim was shown to be blatantly false.

U.S. Right-Wing Supporting and Funding Convoy

The Daily Kos’ Hunter reported (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/2/9/2079487/-Those-Canadian-protests-are-a-lot-smaller-than-their-U-S-boosters-have-been-claiming) on that a large amount of money was raised by organizers from a now-shuttered GoFundMe campaign. GoFundMe officials recently announced that funds would be returned to the people who donated them. Fund raising was then moved to GiveSendGo, a conservative (mostly Christian) fundraising site that had received more than 85,000 donations totaling more than $7.7 million US dollars as of February 4th. In a legal chess move to block financial support to the convoy, the Province of Ottawa obtained an order on February 10th from the Superior Court of Justice that prohibits anyone from distributing donations made through the GiveSendGo website’s “Freedom Convoy 2022” and “Adopt-a-Trucker” campaign pages.

Grid’s Anya van Wagtendonk, Benjamin Powers and Steve Reilly reported that “a close look at several “Freedom Convoy” groups and online crowdfunding efforts show the involvement of anonymous actors, deep-pocketed non-Canadian donors and prominent U.S. right-wing political figures. Some of the largest Facebook groups responsible for galvanizing support, both ideological and financial, appeared to have been administered through a stolen account, Grid has found.” (https://www.grid.news/story/misinformation/2022/02/08/the-hacked-account-and-suspicious-donations-behind-the-canadian-trucker-protests/). Facebook has deleted some, but not all, of these groups.

What started as a protest by Canadian truckers opposed to mask and vaccination mandates, is now a cause celebre for US and international right wing groups. According to Grid, “In addition to [support from Donald] Trump, Republicans including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Senate hopeful J.D. Vance of Ohio have encouraged the protests. Meanwhile, far-right influencers, like Ben Shapiro, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee have pushed their audiences to donate to crowdfunding platforms.”

The Canadian trucker protest is now going international (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-paris-and-brussels-set-to-be-hit-by-canadian-style-freedom-convoy/). In France, the Convoi de la Liberte (Freedom Convoy) plans to travel from southern France to disrupt Paris and ultimately Brussels, the center of the European Union. These nascent protests, described as peaceful and supported by Yellow Vest demonstrators, have gained the support of far-right leaders including Marine le Pen, head of the National Front rebranded in 2018 as the National Rally Party. Other European capitals as well as Australia and New Zealand are also being threatened with protests.

As Yahoo News first reported (https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-department-of-homeland-security-warns-that-trucker-protests-in-us-could-begin-on-super-bowl-sunday-211202623.html), the Department of Homeland Security issued a national alert on February 8th to law enforcement that trucker convoys are being discussed online and may attempt to disrupt US transportation and supply lines beginning at Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles, and then heading to Washington DC to disrupt the State of the Union address—with protest convoys gathering truckers from other cities as they move across the country. This is certain to further energize Trump supporters and far right groups in the US. Shutting down DC may well serve as their next great fundraising and organizing focus. 

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