Approaching Ottawa
Farmers & nuns. Thousands of egg salad sandwiches.
Ian Cumming writes a regular column for the Ontario Farmer newspaper. As Freedom Convoy trucks were making their way to the nation’s capital in late January 2022, he was on top of that story - reporting what rural people were thinking, saying, and doing about this protest.
In Behind the scenes, three days before Ottawa, Cumming reported that as early as Tuesday, January 25th, a certain Ontario farmer “was snow blowing out acres of barnyard and surrounding fields for transports to park on Friday night.”
Indoors, the man’s wife was preparing eggsalad sandwiches for the truckers:
She had put out the call for farmers to donate their eggs - not wanting to short change the local store’s declining stocks - and farmers responded by donating thousands to boil and crack.
Cumming says someone who owns heavy equipment - excavators, bulldozers, tiling machines - reached out to him. “We’re going up to Ottawa on Saturday,” with our flatbed trucks that man said. “I mean, enough is enough…”
A few days later, Cumming files another story, headlined Convoy, the night before. It talks about the 1,000 trucks parked at Herb’s Truck Stop, “half way between Montreal and Ottawa.”
It’s -25C outdoors. Cumming tells us about two brothers who’ve driven all the way from Prince Edward Island. One is about to lose his job because of a vaccine mandate.
Volunteers from Gatineau, Quebec provide 500 free hamburgers to the truckers. Two nuns quietly ask: “Do you have a place to sleep tonight, because we’ve opened the Ottawa churches.”
A third-generation trucking family from Quebec is participating with five semis. They’re vaccinated, all of them, but they think every Canadian is entitled to make their own decision. A female trucker “sitting in the cab of her monster gravel truck, wearing sunglases in the dark of night” is asked why she joined the convoy.
She’s concerned about freedom, she replies. For her kids’ sake. “Liberté. Pour mes enfants.”
My sources are reporting the 2023 Liberal convention is talking about imposing vaccine mandates again. My only hope is there are enough of the people like this farmer, these nuns, the 10’s of thousands of Canadians at overpasses along the way, and the truckers themselves WHO WILL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.. another wonderful story Donna. Thank you..
How often have your posts made me cry, Donna? It is so humbling to read about these 'ordinary' people doing the extraordinary. Thank you again