A Lawful Protest

Police: 'You're gonna get off at this exit, we're gonna show you where to park.'

Part 1: Jonker Brotherhood

Harold Jonker and his wife in the lead truck from the Niagara region. Screen capture from a Tim Jonker video.

Harold Jonker disputes the claim that nine out of 10 truckers were vaccinated prior to the implementation of the cross-border mandate: "50% of my drivers all of a sudden couldn't work,” he says. “I know of an Ontario company that's over 100 trucks, 25% of their drivers weren't able to. Another, smaller company - half our size - half their guys couldn't work. So it was kind of frustrating to hear the Canadian Trucking Alliance" declaring otherwise.

Reorienting their business was easier said than done, he explains:   

We're set up to run in the US. The equipment's different, there's different weight restrictions, different numbers of axles. We could have started running in Canada more, but we'd have had to refurbish, get new trailers. And you can't do that quickly, especially the way the market is right now. Trying to buy equipment, you're a year away from delivery.

So we can't just switch and start running in Canada only. When we signed up to the Convoy it wasn't just because I couldn't cross the border anymore, this was affecting everybody.

Screen capture from a Tim Jonker video recorded Thursday, 27 Jan. 2022. En route to Ottawa. I’ve blurred the license plate on the black pickup.

Harold's arm of the Convoy hit Ottawa around 3 pm on Friday, the day before the western one was scheduled to arrive:

I was the first road captain there. When my wife and I came off the highway, we had two Ottawa police liaisons assigned to us. 'You're gonna get off at this exit, we're gonna show you where to park.'  

I remember thinking, 'I hope they're there. I hope they're not pulling a fast one.' But we came off the ramp and went under the bridge and there they were. They put us where we were supposed to be parked. So to us, this was always a lawful, booked protest.

Screen capture from a Tim Jonker video, 27 Jan. 2022. En route to Ottawa.

Harold describes the event as "bigger than anybody could have imagined. All the families that came, they kept reminding us we were there for the right reason, for our children." Which reinforced the collective commitment to keeping things peaceful.

The protesters, he insists, were self-regulating. He remembers an incident in which organizers had complained about the behaviour of a particular individual and asked police to remove him. Not everyone understood what was happening:

The lady on the stage was trying to tell the crowd 'Don't worry, stay calm, this is OK.' There was a guy yelling at the police in French and trying to get at them. I had my arms around him in a kind of half hug, holding him back, saying 'It's OK, brother. Where you from?' And finally another Frenchman came up and helped me, you know, he talked to him.

The police dragged out the incident. It was like they were trying to provoke the crowd. Oh, yeah. And then, 20 minutes after they left with the person they'd arrested, the French guy found me and gave me a huge bear hug.

'Thank you! Merci!' I can picture him. I'd recognize his voice. I haven't seen him since.

It's important to understand, says Harold, that this was a community-supported protest. "Yes, the truck drivers are the ones that started it," he says, "But it wasn't just truckers. Construction guys set up the camps. There were landscapers in their pickups, people in their cars. We were supported."

next installment: More Stress & More Work