A day after Sunday's successful (and uneventful) clearing of an anti-vaccine protest blocking the Ambassador Bridge border crossing between Canada and the United States, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to respond to larger "trucker" anti-vax protests in Ottawa and to clear other border crossings that have been blocked by Canadian far-right activists.
The move was not met with full-throated acclaim, any more than an American president invoking emergency powers to deal with protests in this nation would be, but comes as the alleged protests by Canadian "truckers" objecting to COVID-19 vaccination mandates for drivers entering the country have steadily morphed into more ambiguously premised protests by Canadian far-right groups and militias, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, and much weirder conspiracy theorists.
As example of what Trudeau's government might have been eager to head off, Alberta police arrested 11 and seized a cache of weaponry after the group expressed "a willingness to use force against the police" if police attempted to clear an Alberta-U.S. border blockade. That's the sort of anti-government, militia-premised violence that many in the United States and international far-right have been agitating for, as foreign money pours in to help fund and expand the blockades, and those aspirations likely played a part in Trudeau's decision to allow police to take more aggressive action against those who have put their fellow Canadians under dubiously-premised "siege."
A Vancouver border crossing has also now been reopened after protesters there were cleared; new government powers will allow law enforcement to freeze trucker bank accounts and threaten action against crowd-funding sites raising money for now-banned blockades.
The American right has been salivating over the Canadian protests since their inception, and like the evolving protests themselves, the entrancement seems to be not over cross-border vaccine mandates so much as the imagined notion that Canadian far-right anti-government group might be able to topple the government or otherwise impose their will through force. That was the possibility that led Republican Rep. Chip Roy to giddily believe the protesters had caused the Canadian prime minister to flee the country (which he did not), demanding Trudeau be "deported" back to Canada so he could face the anger of the mob that deposed him.
To many of the Republican supporters of the Canadian "siege," the supposed trucker protests are transparently viewed as an offshoot of the anti-democracy riots and coup attempt of January 6. It's not about whether truckers have to quarantine or be vaccinated when driving international routes during a deadly worldwide pandemic. It's about the possibility of far-right rebellion toppling legitimate democratic institutions, in this country and others, after their ideologies have gone too sour for the general public to support.
That's continuing. As Canadian authorities look to clamp down on border blockades while arresting those that have threatened anti-government violence, Fox News host Sean Hannity and some other American supporters of the protests appear to be licking their lips in anticipation of possible far-right violence in coming days:
All of it is in very stark contrast to conservative demands that racial justice protests in the United States be met with paramilitary violence and demands that drivers be immunized from flat-out killing protesters that dare to block American roadways. This should not be surprising, as a central tenet of fascism presumes violence by the state against malcontents is just and sensible—while, simultaneously, mob violence by movement itself is justified as necessary to "cleanse" the nation of movement enemies. To Chip Roy and supporters of America's fascist coup attempt, the Canadian version is another useful practice run. What elements of the supposed "siege" are most successful? What is the government response? Can the government response be overcome?
Being able to sandbox such ideas without being directly party to any resulting crimes themselves is perhaps the largest single reason the international far-right is flooding the Canadian protests with cash and support far in excess of the protests' actual size.
The American right is also fervently hoping to bring "trucker"-styled protests here, though so far those attempts have sputtered. A planned trucker convoy from Coachella to Washington, D.C. does not appear to be gaining much traction, nor does it appear to be contemplating actually closing down any U.S. roads—possibly because U.S. laws allow authorities to seize whatever vehicles might attempt it with little effort. The efforts are also being hampered by relentless efforts by competing far-right groups to repurpose vaccine and mask opposition to promote white nationalism, militia groups, and even cryptocurrencies.
The Canadian protests may have been an aspirational moment for anti-government Republicans in this country, but their general impact still seems to be limited mostly to being neighborhood irritants in the places they have sprouted up. And in Canada, both the general public and law enforcement appear to be weary of these particular cranks.
Related: Anti-vax border blockade ends with a fizzle, despite U.S. conservatives' attempts to boost it
Related: 'Freedom Convoy' deploys kids as human shields, and Ontario has finally had enough of this show
Related: The truck convoy protest in Canada is more frightening, exactly because it is so small
Related: Chip Roy demands we deport the Canadian leader, who is in Canada, based on a conspiracy post