Worried About Driving Over Somebody

'One lane was full of people, the median was full of people.'

Part 1: Jonker Brotherhood

Freedom Convoy donations being loaded into the back of a 16-foot cargo trailer in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Screen capture from a Tim Jonker video.

Around the time the Convoy departed Niagara-on-the-Lake and merged onto the Queen Elizabeth Way, it got split in two due to a traffic accident. A while later, on the phone with Hamilton police, Harold was asked how many vehicles he was leading. "When I said I had no idea, he goes, 'I beg your pardon?'"

Harold's best guess was that, by then, there were hundreds of big rigs in his arm of the Convoy. But up there in the lead truck, it was impossible to tell. Even if he'd had a precise count, there was no way to know how many intended to make the full trip, and how many had joined in for a few hours.

The officer told Harold the police might need to shut down Centennial Parkway,

He goes, 'You should see all your supporters here. There's probably 500 people on the bridge.'

So I said to him, 'OK, listen. I'll leave the Convoy out here on the highway and I'll come in with my truck along with a pickup and a trailer.' We had to go in and get the food that had been organized by some ladies in Hamilton.

When I got there, I was worried I was going to drive over somebody. One lane was full of people, the median was full of people. You creep through this crowd and people were trying to high-five me - I'd made the mistake of opening my window.

Harold saw his first flag secured to a hockey stick that morning. "I looked at my wife. How Canadian is that, right?" As they got near, highway overpasses would "erupt with flags, people waving, thumbs up. The excitement in their faces."

All the way to Kingston (where the Jonkers had reserved hotel rooms for the night), Harold says he was “on the bluetooth answering calls, my wife was on the phone texting and answering emails."

Jonker trucks in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The sign says ‘End all mandates. Let me work.’ Screen capture from a video recorded by Tim Jonker.

Jonker truck in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Screen capture from a video recorded by Tim Jonker.

The women who'd gathered the food in Hamilton ended up driving to Kingston with them, "Because we couldn't take all the food with us. So they came with their cars." At that point, it got transferred to a trucker from British Columbia who'd delivered a load in the US and then met the Convoy with an empty, 53-foot trailer.

"Yeah, that truck and trailer ended up on Wellington Street," he says.

next installment: A Lawful Protest