On January 28, 2022, hundreds of truckers poured into the capital city of Ottawa. Their plan was to gridlock the city’s downtown and force the city to lift all Covid mandates all across Canada. Their strategy has been to congest the downtown while honking their horns to annoy Parliament into listening to them. Will they succeed or will they be met with force? Find out now on this edition of the Seventh Estate.

Before we start, I would just like to give you some information about the organizers. The primary or main organizer, Tamara Lich, was in the Maverick Party, a political party that if elected would basically put the needs of the western provinces first. She is a former fitness instructor and sings in her Medicine Hat band called Blind Monday. She participated in the Yellow Vest protests, the smaller United We Roll convoy of 2019 and the anti-Muslim Clarion Project. The second leader, Tom Quiggin, was a former military intelligence officer and briefly worked in the RCMP. He was thought to be one of the best experts of counter-terrorism in the country. He then went on to write a self-published fictional account of Justin Trudeau’s assasination. The third, Daniel Bulford, worked with the RCMP but then quit because he had to get vaccinated. He is now the convoy’s head of security. Finally, there is Tom Marazzo. He was a military officer who became an independent software developer. He is also a former professor at Georgian College. None of these people had any experience in the trucking industry.

The organizers are very organized and have many lawyers and many different representatives speaking on their behalf. They even have accountants to help regulate their GoFundMe page. Their page had accumulated its goal of nine million dollars, much of it from donors in the United States. Even though GoFundMe has frozen their page, experts are telling political leaders to watch out for large donations from the United States as they are being sent with the intent of aiding the disruption in our capital. An example of this is the American version of GoFundMe, called GiveSendGo, which was hacked and shut down. GiveSendGo created an account for the Freedom Convoy that has amassed, as of February 15, nine million dollars.

Due to these actions, people have been scared to go into work in the downtown area and even the Rideau Center has closed. These actions have been relatively small compared to the arson attempt of an apartment building that was caused by what some alleged to have been committed by protesters.

As a reminder, at the beginning, the Prime Minister, The Right Honorable Justin Trudeau, was in a secure location, isolating after his son tested positive for Covid-19. He has since returned as he and the federal government has issued a State of Emergency for the country as blockades have continued all over Canada.

As a reminder, this situation is rapidly evolving and will likely change as of the writing date, February 16. Thanks for sticking with us and reading the Seventh Estate.