I Came Here with a Prayer (Part 4 of 4)

'I found so much love, so much unity.'

Part 1: I Thought I Was Living in the Best Country

When he was preparing to drive to Ottawa, Ed attached three flags to back of his bobtail: a Canada flag, an Ontario flag, a US flag. A fourth, he explains, "I got as a present from a Jewish guy from Toronto. He said, ‘Can I do anything for you?’ I told him, ‘I cannot find a Canadian flag for the front of my truck.’ He came back a couple hours later with a huge Canadian flag, and I put it on my hood. I still have that flag, yeah."

Ed and a supporter. Photo taken by me in Ottawa, February 2022.

A week-and-a-half into the protest, when independent videographer Beth Baisch pointed her camera at Ed sitting in his truck, he disputed the portrait of the protest being painted by the mainstream media. The truckers, he said, had

found so much love in Ottawa, and happiness. I don't know, I cannot express. There are many occasions during the day I have tears coming. You know, like I'm crying...I found so much love, I have found so much unity.

I came here with a prayer and I'm gonna go with a prayer. I'm a very strong believing man. I don't participate in any protest at all, and I'm not gonna go ever afterwards, because it's not the God's way. But the truckers who came from west, from east, I could not leave them alone. It was my duty to be here...Do not lose this beautiful, strong, free country.

His most vivid memories of those weeks include a transformed relationship with a co-worker. "We had this Polish truck driver at my company. He was a tough guy, very little words. When I came to the company, I wasn’t a new driver, but it was new employment for me. He was very tough with me, you know, very rude, stuff like that. He has a son my age."

After Ed heard that another driver from his workplace was also in Ottawa, he discovered it was this same chap. "We became such friends, connected every day. I’m a grown man, not a kid. But he was like a father to me. I saw him from that different angle, a different side. Caring man, kind man. I don’t call him too much. But every time, I am so happy to hear his voice. That man stays in my heart. His name is Mirek."

Having vacationed abroad, Ed is well aware Canada has a longstanding, positive reputation. “Everywhere you go in Europe, if you’re from Canada, they like you. Greek, French, they have a whole bunch of family in Canada, and they love Canada.” But now, he says, he’s frequently asked, “What’s going on in Canada? What’s wrong with your Prime Minister?"

In May 2024, a CBC analysis of US Census data found that emigration from Canada to the US had hit a 10-year high in 2022. Of the 126k Canadians who (officially) moved south of the border that year, 42% had been born in Canada, 34% had been born in the US, and a further 24% had been born elsewhere.

In Ed’s view, this trend is "not about immigrants." When he was selling some furniture, he says, "a nice Canadian couple came to our house to buy something. They said, ‘We are so jealous that you are moving to Florida. Being born here, living all our lives in Toronto, we don’t feel the same anymore.’”

A friend of Ed's, another truck driver, managed to secure a work visa, and moved south about the same time he did. He continues to be surprised by how many Canadians are now in Florida. “We meet them on a daily basis. People asking, 'How can we do it?' Ten times more people are looking for a way to move down here, but they don’t have the opportunity. They are just trying to buy businesses, like a gas station. A friend of mine had a restaurant in Toronto, sold it last year. He’s with his father now, somewhere in Miami. They are trying to see if they can buy one here.”

So many people, he says, “are trying to find a way to get out of Canada.”