Peter's Final Day in Ottawa
Trucks had trickled away for a variety of reasons.
Part 1: Almost Born in the Cab of a Truck
As the fourth weekend of the Ottawa protest approached, Peter says his stretch of Wellington Street became depressing. Jacob, in the wine-coloured Peterbilt, had to leave.
"He was supposed to be picking up a load in Montreal at eight o'clock the next morning. Or he would have lost the account. I organized all the guys in the area to form an honour guard, to give him a salute" as he left. "I talked to him the next day. He told me he had tears in his eyes all the way to Montreal. He was a good guy. From Manitoba."
After the province began talking about seizing trucks and business licenses, another trucker pulled out. "His wife got on the phone and says, 'You gotta leave, and you gotta leave now.' So he said goodbye,” remembers Peter. “We got another honour guard. And then Dave had to leave the next day, because the owner was saying 'you gotta bring the truck out.'"
Astoundingly, a third party had offered to write a cheque, to purchase Dave’s truck so that it could remain part of the protest. But, Peter says,
the owner wouldn't do it. He just wanted him out of there. I think he was probably on the other side of the fence. A lot of truckers were against. I got a buddy I knew for many, many years. We used to talk on the CB all the time. When I got home I called him up. And he was calling us yahoos. Never spoke to him since. They've been brainwashed by that Canadian Trucking Alliance. But those aren't the drivers - they're the big companies.
Peter's daughter had been planning to return to Ottawa. "I told her not to bother. I said, 'the shit's hitting the fan, things are getting hot and heavy here.'" One of the truckers with whom he was friendly was Luis, who'd immigrated to Canada from Guatemala thirty years earlier. His massive auto-hauler was parked on Wellington Street, beside the open lane.
"Whenever he'd go for a walk, he'd have me sit in the truck," says Peter, "keep an eye on the truck. I thought that was great, because I'd be in my car freezing, trying to conserve fuel in the daytime."
Luis' battery was struggling in those frigid temperatures, so his truck needed to be kept running, with the key in the ignition. Since Luis only had one key with him, that meant it couldn't be locked. Peter laughs, remembering how difficult it could be to have a phone conversation as a steady stream of well-wishers knocked on the door,
One night, he'd left the lights all on, and I was having trouble talking on the phone, so I shut the engine off for a few minutes. He got back before I got it turned on again, about an hour later.
So Luis climbs in. He goes to start it. Rrr, rrr, rrr. I thought, 'Oh, no. It's not gonna start. How do we boost him?' But it fired up.
On the final Friday morning, as more crowd control fencing was being installed and the number of police checkpoints were increasing, no volunteers appeared in the nearby food tent. In Peter's words,
It was a nasty morning. It was overcast, windy, and cold. When I woke up at seven o'clock, this older Chinese lady came to my car with one of those big boxes from Tim Hortons. I never eat donuts. When they have the roll-up-to-win contest and I win a donut, I give it away. There's no food value. I just don't eat it.
But anyways, she had the bulk coffee, with those little cups. So I said, 'Yeah, I could really use some.' Then she opened up the box. I got a chocolate glazed. I said, 'I don't normally eat these,' but I said, 'This may be my only food for the day.' And it was.
Later, when Luis wanted to go for a walk past Parliament to see what was going on, Peter jumped in his truck as usual. But then Luis didn't come back.
final installment: Government Needs to be Taught a Lesson