From the Foreign Desk: John A. MacDonald

CANADA, Citizen of Canuckstan -Real grass roots protests are rare. This makes the Trucker’s protests a once in a generation, possibly once in a lifetime, event. But they’ve been ignored and smeared by all levels of government in Canada. Why?

I think this is a problem of class. Once you’ve seen enough protests, you start to recognize the regulars. And the Trucker protest has none of them. Not the regular thing you see. Trucker protests won’t get them nice write ups in the local newspaper or jobs with left wing groups. I believe that the class problem goes deeper than that.

I have a University education. While I was going to University, we had a few regular protesters attending as well. They were always off at a protest about something, but they also met a lot of people while doing that. People in positions of power, people in government, people in the police. They all had University education in common and they often kept in touch.

The Truckers have none of that. Most of them didn’t go to University and never met “future leaders” or people who would work in important positions. I think this is why Trudeau and the rest of the government and police forces have reacted so strongly against them. They don’t know any of these truckers and they don’t want to. The truckers are all, in Trudeau’s circle, rubes and rednecks. Nobody that they have to talk to or respect.

But now they are unavoidable. Trudeau and the rest of the bureaucracy don’t know how to talk to them or treat them as anything but lesser beings to their exalted status. Now the truckers have the power to shut down the country, the government has smeared them all and doesn’t know how to back down.

To put this in a bit of perspective, last night truckers shut down the Ambassador bridge from Windsor to Detroit. Along with the Bluewater bridge in Sarnia it is one of two absolutely critical supply chain arteries between Canada and the United States. Shut both of them down and the auto industry in Canada and the Northeastern United States will die within days. I am not sure how much it costs to keep auto factories running, but I have heard estimates in the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars each minute.

The truckers can shut down North America, and the US and Canadian governments are helpless to prevent it. All because they view blue collar workers as “less than they are”.