Faith in Humanity is Restored

'You could see the flash of the Canada flags' as you drove through the dark & the sleet. (Part 3 of 6)

Part 1: Snowbird 3

Lisa and the kids accompanied Bart in the motorhome to the rendezvous in Drumbo, Ontario. Photos supplied by Bart.

Well before he retired, air force Captain Bart Postma had purchased a house in southwestern Ontario, close to where he’d grown up on a chicken farm. Leaving Moose Jaw behind, he and his family relocated there.

“We were feeling very alone,” he remembers. They got some laying hens, began homeschooling their eldest child, and talked about going off grid. “It’s pointless, nobody cares. That was the state of mind we were in. We had pretty much checked out.”

A few months later, shortly after Christmas 2021, Bart turned to his wife, Lisa, one day, “Honey, do you see all the traffic we’re getting? What’s going on? We started looking into it and it’s like, holy cow, this actually looks like some people are rising up.”

On Facebook, their Freedom Convoy page took off. “Suddenly we had 1,000 followers, a thousand more, a thousand more,” says Bart. People were asking about Convoy meeting spots. “Faith in humanity is restored! People are actually doing something. This is incredible.”

“We don’t know the organizers” of the trucker protest, Lisa explains. “We’ve never met them, we’ve never talked to them.” She and Bart began redirecting people to the genuine Freedom Convoy 2022 page on Facebook. Having already witnessed social media censorship in action, they knew the truckers’ online real estate was vulnerable.

“So we did everything we could, sitting here at the kitchen table,” he says. “Let’s take screenshots of all the maps, so when they shut it down, we can relay that info. And that’s what we did. Sure enough, a couple days later, the main Convoy web page went down. Honestly, it could have just been because it was overloaded with traffic.”

Bart was keen to be part of the Convoy, but wasn’t sure about bringing the kids. “So it was me and my uncle that went in the camper to join up with the actual Convoy when it came through.”

Their motorhome was laden with donations from people in their church and home schooling group. “There’s a lot of families around here that thought the way we did, even if they didn’t come,” Lisa explains. “They were dropping off food, so we could take it and share it. Fruit, and granola bars, all sorts of stuff.”

She and the children accompanied Bart on the 90-minute drive to the rendezvous point, then returned home in a separate vehicle. “When we arrived at Drumbo,” says Bart, he knew the protest was “going to be way bigger than I thought. People were cheering us on as we left. It was incredibly uplifting. It still gets us. It’s like finally.”

The journey to Ottawa was unforgettable. “Oh, here comes Toronto. We thought there’s no way Toronto is going to be supportive of this,” he says. “But nearly every overpass was just packed with cheering people.”

It became dark and wet before they reached their overnight stop in Kingston. “I don’t know why I get so emotional,” he says. “Snowing and sleeting, but you could still see the flash of the Canada flags as you drove by.”

The support continued the next morning. “Every single overpass, all the way in. Just at the turnoff to go north into Ottawa, we made another stop. Tons of vehicles. I pull up for gas and a guy walks right in front of the camper. It’s Erin O’Toole,” who was then the leader of the Conservative opposition party in Canada’s House of Commons.

Bart and Erin O’Toole en route to Ottawa. Photo supplied by Bart.

I’m gonna go talk to him. He used to be a navigator in the military, and it’s a small world. A lot of our conversation was, do you know Dale? Yeah, I flew with him in the Persian Gulf.

I said, ‘When are you going to put your support behind this? Look around you, these could all be your voters.’

He said, ‘Oh, I do support it.’

I said, ‘No, you don’t.’ Typical politician. Typical political answers.

Last gas stop before arriving in Ottawa with the Freedom Convoy, 28 January 2022. Photo, shot from inside the motorhome, supplied by Bart.

When Bart told other Convoy members, ‘That’s Erin O’Toole,’ he says he received some blank looks. “You could tell most of the Convoy wasn’t political. They didn’t know, didn’t care. Their rights were being trampled on, they were sick of it, and that’s why they were going to Ottawa.”

Arriving in the nation’s capital Friday, a day before other branches of the Convoy were due, he says

it was just absolute mayhem, but wonderful mayhem. We were all still convoying up and down the streets. We were high-fiving each other, waving at each other. People were so hilarious. They were blasting music out their windows, ‘We’re not gonna take it.’

Then the cops started blocking off streets. It became gridlock after the police trapped people where they were. It was just basically a big party, that first night. Everybody’s partying in front of the F-Trudeau truck in front of Parliament. Music blasting, and everybody’s chanting and having a good time.

next installment: Truckers Have Led the Way