We Just Spread the Love

Leftover donations went to soup kitchens and women's shelters.

Part 1: Trucker Town Rises out of a Frozen Farm Field

Barn kittens at Exit 88. Summer, 2023.

In all of Canadian history there's never been anything like the Freedom Convoy. No other protest has ever required - or received - this level of sustained, material, grassroots support. Whatever else one thinks of the trucker protest, it triggered an unprecedented outpouring of two-handed giving.  

"I found that out," says Michel. "I was surprised. When it's serious people are really, really generous. We had two trailers, 30-feet long, full of stuff. You name it, we had it. Men's clothes, women's clothes. Chips, chocolate, bottled water. All donations. One time, we had so much food we took a big cube van full to Ottawa."

Within 48 hours of the protest being shut down, Exit 88 was efficiently dismantled. The same volunteers who'd prepared three hot meals a day for the truckers now helped distribute the mountain of leftover supplies to local charities. Soup kitchens, women's shelters, mental health facilities. There was so much, Michel feels certain "the soup kitchens, they were stocked up for six months or a year."

"We dropped off bags of stuff," says Jeannette. "You bring these boxes, you bring those. I go, 'Get the name and phone number of who you're giving it to.' So we just spread the love."

Her life has changed for the better, she laughs. After 22 years of marriage, her husband now makes coffee in the morning. "He didn't make coffee, ever. He had the instant coffee. Now he makes coffee in the percolator."

When I visited, there was a litter of barn kittens in need of homes. Michel told a joke about how you can tell whether or not someone's a bona fide farmer. The real ones don't know the name of their cat. In fact, they don't even know how many cats they have :-)

Since the Convoy, he's been interviewed frequently by CBC in both official languages. It seems he's become their go-to farmer. Near the end of every interview he gets asked about climate change.

He laughs, "I always tell them the same thing. I tell them it's easier to deal with climate change than it is to deal with government."