Canada’s trucker protests and history’s parallels

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Canadian truckers vow to stay in Ottawa until COVID mandate lifted

Fox News correspondent Molly Line has the latest on the Freedom Convoy live from Canada.

Sometimes there are parallels in history. 

More often than not, history doesn’t repeat itself. But its echoes resonate loud and clear.

So here’s a question:

Could the truckers who iced Parliament Hill in Ottawa over vaccine and mask mandates also freeze Capitol Hill and Washington, D.C.?

To be clear, there is no plan to do so. There has been chatter about truckers protesting the Super Bowl in Los Angeles this weekend. There has also been discussion of a caravan beginning in early March.

The last truck blocking the southbound lane moves after a breakthrough resolved the impasse where anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate demonstrators blocked the highway at the busy U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alberta, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022.  (Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press)

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Multiple Capitol Hill sources tell Fox News they are unaware of any plan for truckers to duplicate anything in Washington. Still, Fox is told there have been conversations about what would happen if 18-wheelers and other rigs paralyzed the Capitol.

Don’t call C.W. McCall and Rubber Duck just yet.

For starters, the U.S. Capitol Police have prohibited large trucks from creeping anywhere near the Capitol complex since just after 9/11. There has been increased surveillance around the Capitol for potential "truck bombs" and other threats after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Police routinely divert or pull over trucks that roll onto prohibited streets.

Of course, you can’t really pull over every truck if a convoy of trucks rolled toward Capitol Hill. That was the problem on Jan. 6. The Capitol Police didn’t have the wherewithal to quell thousands of protesters.

That said, there is historic precedent for an over-the-road, over-the-top, motorized demonstration in Washington.

Farmers routinely began jamming up traffic in Washington, D.C., to protest farm prices in the late 1970s. In the winter of 1978, thousands of farmers rode their tractors to Washington, snarling traffic on I-66 in Virginia. Tractors putted along at 15 mph.
A confrontation between seven farmers and police prompted seven arrests. A group of farmers set off on foot, marching along Pennsylvania Avenue. Choruses of "Let’s go get ‘em out" of jail echoed through the D.C. streets.

A truck convoy of anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate demonstrators continue to block the highway at the busy U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alberta, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022. (Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press)

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The farmers then unloaded goats to graze on the Capitol grounds. Officials declared that the farmers created a "monstrous rush-hour traffic jam." The tactics of the farmers were so aggressive that the stunt turned off lawmakers to their plight.

The Washington Post characterized the farmers as "growing more militant" in their approach. Farmers stormed out of a meeting with House Agriculture Committee Chairman and future House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash. Foley told them he favored legislation to help boost prices for agricultural commodities - couldn’t guarantee a bill would turn higher profits for farmers. 

Undaunted, the caravans of tractors returned to Washington in January 1979.

Thousands of farmers lumbered down I-270 and the Beltway toward the heart of the city, driving tractors, combines and hauling everything from planters to balers. Capitol Police brought in extra officers to deal with the farmers and barred their agricultural implements from the Capitol grounds.

The farmers actually came in handy when a blizzard blasted Washington with 2 feet of snow in late February. The storm overwhelmed operations in the District of Columbia. Many turned to the farmers to dig out roads and vehicles, debilitated by the snow.

The farmers finally settled on a plot of land on the National Mall. They stayed for months. The tractors chewed up the sod and turf. Officials estimated damage to the Mall at $2 million.

Drivers work to move a gravel truck after a breakthrough resolved the impasse where anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate demonstrators blocked the highway at the busy U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alberta, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022.  (Jeff McIntosh /The Canadian Press)

WHEN WILL THE FREEDOM CONVOY PROTEST END?

There are comparisons between the farmers coming to Washington and the truckers parking in Ottawa. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a conundrum with the truckers today. But in 1970, it was his father, legendary Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who had to wrestle with a violent uprising.

French Canadian separatists (known as the Front de liberation du Quebec, or FLQ) agitated for years to make Quebec an independent nation. The FLQ is responsible for dozens of bombings, assaults and bank robberies in the 1960s. In October 1970, the FLQ kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross and held him hostage. 

This began what Canadians call the "October Crisis." A few days later, the FLQ kidnapped Canadian Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. 

An aside…

Believe it or not, there is a great accounting of this event if you ever tune in to a Baltimore Orioles game and there is a rain delay. The Baltimore broadcasters have been known to play "Orioles Classics" during rain delays. That includes Game 2 of the 1970 World Series between the triumphant Orioles and vanquished Cincinnati Reds. NBC broadcast the 1970 World Series. But for whatever reason, the NBC tape of the game isn’t around today. So the broadcast Orioles fans see is from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Around the fourth inning, the CBC breaks into the 1970 broadcast with a special report about the kidnapping of Laporte. And, if the O’s are in a rain delay, you too can learn about Pierre Trudeau, the October Crisis – and simultaneously follow the post-season exploits of Brooks Robinson and Johnny Bench in the Fall Classic.

Anyway…

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Trudeau was quick to move against the FLQ. The Canadian government beefed up security and dispatched police in riot gear around Montreal and other major cities.

CBC reporter Tim Ralfe caught up with Trudeau as he arrived on Parliament Hill one morning. Ralfe suggested that Trudeau went too far by having "people with guns around." Trudeau, who was actually a staunch defender of civil rights, pulled no punches.

"There’s a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don’t like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is ‘go on and bleed.’ But it’s more important to keep law and order in this society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don’t like the looks of a soldier’s helmet," said Trudeau.

"How far would you go?" parried Ralfe.

"Well, just watch me," warned Trudeau.

The prime minister implemented the War Measures Act three days later. This essentially repealed many civil liberties in an effort to quash the FLQ uprising and restore order. Authorities raided hundreds of homes. Police arrested 400 people –  many without charges. Military troops rolled through the streets. It was the only time that the Canadians ever applied the War Measures Act in peacetime. 

Protesters walk with bags past trucks parked on downtown streets on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, in Ottawa, Ontario. Thousands of protesters railing against vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions descended on the capital, deliberately blocking traffic around Parliament Hill.  (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

CANADA TRUCKERS FEEL VILIFIED BY TRUDEAU

Trudeau’s "just watch me" quip fueled a national sensation. Many Canadians embraced Trudeau’s hard line in an effort to restore calm from the chaos. The Canadian government cut a deal with the FLQ in exchange for Cross after more than two months. But Laporte was found dead in the trunk of a car a few days later. 

Some longtime observers of Canadian politics have suggested that the younger Trudeau channel his father to deal with the truckers. But so far, Justin Trudeau has taken a hands-off approach and encouraged "free speech."

It’s unclear if the U.S. will see any sort of demonstrations about masks and vaccines like in Canada. But Washington already encountered this kind of protest back in the 1970s.

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The farmers created chaos for weeks in Washington, D.C. Ottawa is now dealing with the truckers – with no end in sight.

Pierre Trudeau garnered his share of criticism in later years for abusing civil liberties in an effort to get after the FLQ terrorists. The trucker protest is about civil rights. And so far, the son is unwilling to impinge on civil liberties.

The farmers reaped very little in return despite their "plow on Washington" more than four decades ago. What remains to be seen is if the truckers gain any political mileage from their protest in Ottawa.