This Was Much Deeper Than the Truckers

'It was just joyous, man. It felt like Mardi Gras or Burning Man or like some kind of dance party.'

In a podcast recorded in March of this year, Gord Magill - a Canadian trucker who currently hauls logs for a living in the US - talks about returning to Canada briefly near the beginning of the Freedom Convoy protest. He recalls spending half of Saturday, January 29th, 2023 on an overpass, cheering the western convoy as those trucks approached Ottawa:

you could just tell from the people that were already there and waving flags on hockey sticks, and all the goodwill, that this was much deeper than the truckers. This was much deeper than even opposition to the mandates.

This was a very human and emotional sort of cry out to say ‘We’ve had enough. We’ve been abused. Our humanity has been debased. Our relationships have been debased, sullied, driven apart. Our very essence as humans has been in some way attacked by the COVID regime.’

And here come these guys with their big trucks to say Enough is enough. And it resonated with so many people. It was absolutely joyous to be there.

Getting into Ottawa that afternoon, he remembers, was a nightmare. Even for those familiar with the city who live close by. Traffic “was basically paralyzed,” he says. But it was worth the aggravation:

by the time myself and my friends got down there it was mid-afternoon, probably three, four o’clock, and there was just thousands and thousands of people everywhere. And it was just joyous, man. It felt like Mardi Gras or Burning Man or like some kind of dance party.

…by the time the sun went down and the night came in…enthusiasists of [rave/techno] music had set up their own sound systems at various locations in the streets of downtown Ottawa. So it felt like a rave party.

People were dancing and boogying and getting down…finally, somebody was doing something about this crazy regime we live under. And it just became this celebration…