United Under the Banner of Freedom

Hippies & blue collar workers. Francophones & libertarians. Aboriginals & evangelicals.

Andrew Lawton’s book, The Freedom Convoy, makes it clear the truckers and their supporters were a diverse bunch. In the Introduction he says: “There were evangelicals and libertarians, Indigenous Canadians and Québécois, hippies and blue-collar workers.”

In Chapter 5, he reports: “The crowd’s diversity was noteworthy. Quebec flags flew alongside Alberta flags; Indigenous flags flew alongside Canadian flags.”

In Chapter 12, he quotes a lawyer talking about “guys with Quebec flags hugging guys with Alberta flags.”

In the book’s Conclusion, Andrew writes:

The movement united disparate groups that seldom see eye to eye in politics: French Canadians and alienated westerners, Indigenous people and suburban Ontarians, libertarians and social conservatives. This took place under the banner of freedom, ignoring the conventional left-right political divide.

On my first morning in Ottawa, a protester told me that although he’d been a Quebec separatist all his life he was now just a Canadian fed up with government overreach - a Canadian who felt a new and powerful sense of brotherhood with fellow protesters from other parts of the country.

Andrew streses that the Freedom Convoy participants weren’t merely unified, they were positively festive - that the giant protest was carnival-like. Days after the Emergencies Act was declared, he says

Protesters still had the cheery disposition they’d maintained throughout their three weeks in Ottawa - the bouncy castles were still bouncing and the hot tub [was] still steaming.