A Miraculous Time

First Came the truckers, then came the support brigade. Assistance arrived from all directions, in every form imaginable.

Part 1: There Was Room at the Inn

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On several dimensions, the Freedom Convoy was an off-the-charts protest. Unlike anything ever seen before. Police say thirteen truck convoys converged on Ottawa. Despite plenty of advance warning, and full cooperation from the trucker road captains, the authorities were overwhelmed. Their traffic plan collapsed.

It's both possible and plausible that thousands of trucks that joined these Convoys from diverse corners of the country never got near Parliament Hill that weekend. Jammed up for hours, with uncertain access to washrooms, in the bitter end-of-January cold, thousands of big rigs may have simply turned around and headed back home.

Aerial video footage presumably exists that would answer key questions: How many trucks managed to reach the city limits? How huge was this protest? Whoever owns that footage isn't talking.

What is clear is that public support for the truckers was a river deep and wide. These people were nurtured and sustained - not just for days, but for weeks. While they rolled along the highways and byways toward the capital. While they camped out in Ottawa. While their rigs were locked up in the impound lot.

First came the truckers, then came those who helped. The support brigade; boots on the ground. Material assistance arriving from all directions, in every form imaginable. Fuel. Food. Clothing. Cash. Etransfers. Gift cards. Hotel rooms. Tents. Generators. BBQs. Saunas. Thank you cards from children and seniors. Letters of gratitude from parents, police officers, pilots, and nurses.

Name another Canadian protest in which anything comparable has ever happened - in which many thousands of private citizens provided a tsunami of resources and enough dogged, competent, cheerful volunteer labour to sustain a multi-week protest under harsh conditions.

Name another protest in which so many people contributed stupendous amounts of their own money and property to ensure the protest would continue. 'I'm shipping you a tanker of fuel. Here's a reefer full of meat. Heard you needed a Starlink dish. Take this generator. We're buying you a hotel room.'

The trucker Freedom Convoy of 2022 was seismic. Unparalleled. Historic.

For those who are religious or spiritual, it was a brief glimpse into another, better realm. "I would describe that time as miraculous," says Melissa, from Bikers’ Church. "There's no other explanation. If we tried to plan it, we couldn't do it. Even if we had a year. The logistics. The people. The resources. The food. The GoFundMe gets cancelled and we raise even more with GiveSendGo. The homes, the showers, the laundry, the firewood, the gas."

All of this could not have occurred, she says, "without a touch of the supernatural. People would come in here and say, 'I did not believe in God, but now I do.'"