It Turned into This Big, Huge Thing

'We were just going to do coffee and muffins.' Soon 7 banquet tables laden with food awaited the truckers.

Photo supplied by Gloria

Tammy, who helped create the Freedom Convoy banner on the side of the grain bin an hour east of Ottawa, spent nearly 10 years driving truck. About half that time, she drove team with Donnie, who later became her husband. They hauled “liquid hazardous chemicals, resin, and calcium carbide wrapped in a nitrogen blanket," she explains. Later, it was auto parts and groceries.

As government-imposed pandemic measures dragged on, Tammy worked on their farm while Donnie continued trucking. Often gone from home for two weeks at a time, he crosses the Canada/US border regularly.

Neither of them wanted to take the COVID vaccines, she says:

Donnie was very hesitant. He felt very pressured. But it was our livelihood. If we wanted to be able to leave our grandchildren anything, or help them out in the course of their life. If we lost our farm or our business, we'd have nothing. We discussed it. We decided he was going to get vaccinated.

She too, rolled up her sleeve. "Not that I wanted to, because I really didn't.” How far would the authoritites go if she didn’t take the shot, she wondered. Would her husband be barred from returning home? “Would that be the next step? They had us so scared. I mean, there was a lot of pressure."

With the benefit of hindsight Tammy, who's in her fifties, wishes they'd done otherwise:  

If we had that crystal ball, we definitely would not have taken the vaccine. Because now I'm sick. I'm sick a lot. I've never been sick like this. And my husband, as well. 

I mean, I'm lethargic. For me to actually go out and work, it's very difficult because some days I just feel like crap. Whenever there's a cold, I always get it. And I get it tenfold. It's horrible. And my husband, I think in the 20 years I've been with him, I'd seen him sick maybe three times with a flu or a cold. But now he tends to get sick whenever there's a cold around. We both do. So yeah, we regret our decision.

In early 2022, Tammy knew trucker working conditions had deteriorated, that reduced access to public washrooms and other amenities during the pandemic had made life miserable. "At that time I did a lot of baking," she says. "That's my passion, baking and feeding people. And when I heard they were planning this Convoy, I said 'Hon, I'd really like to be just a very small part in helping these drivers.' Because I know what it's like to be on the road."

It was Donnie who said, "Why don't you call Gloria?" the owner of the farm with the grain bin near the Trans-Canada highway. "So I gave her a call. And she said, 'Yeah, we could do coffee and muffins.'" She also said she’d ask about using the garage that belongs to her son's trucking company.

Screen capture from a video recorded by Mark, who drove in from Nova Scotia with the Convoy. Seven banquet tables laden with food awaited the truckers when they arrived at Gloria’s farm on Friday, January 28th, 2022. The video was recorded just after 6:30 pm.

On Facebook, Tammy "put out a word. We could use some help, some volunteers." She says she "never dreamed" it would get so big. "I mean, when we started out we were just going to do coffee and muffins, but it turned into a smorgasbord, this big huge thing. And it just kept on getting bigger and bigger."

Screen capture from a video recorded by Mark, who drove in from Nova Scotia with the Convoy. Seven banquet tables laden with food awaited the truckers when they arrived at Gloria’s farm on Friday, January 28th, 2022. The video was recorded just after 6:30 pm.

final installment tomorrow