This weekend, in something called the Freedom Convoy 2022, hundreds of semi-trucks will be arriving in Ottawa from cities across Canada in order to protest vaccine mandates. However, plain and simple, their reaction to the Canadian government’s January 15th imposition of a vaccination requirement for truckers entering Canada appears to be just another protest tied into anti-vaxxers’ movements. Indeed, the largest national organization representing Canadian truckers, the Canadian Trucking Alliance, has denounced the protest. The Alliance has already stated that 85 percent of its members have been fully vaccinated, roughly the same as for the Canadian population at large. It has strongly denounced any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges and has urged all truckers to get inoculated. However, the Alliance does not represent the majority of independent truckers who one would suggest are primarily involved in this protest, especially those in the West.
On the other side of the border, the American administration has also imposed a mandatory vaccine requirement for truckers entering the U.S. Indeed, it is interesting that Donald Trump Jr. this past Tuesday urged Americans on social media to follow the example of the Canadian trucker convoy’s fight against ‘tyranny’ and should carry out similar protests in the U.S. Apparently, it is estimated that only half of American truckers have been vaccinated, not a dissimilar portion when compared to the general population in the U.S. What concerns authorities is that the trucker convoy has become a lightning rod for far-right fringe, particularly those against public health measures and government restrictions in the fight against COVID.
Despite claims that the vaccine mandates will negatively further exacerbate supply chain problems, in monitoring the volume of trucks crossing the border each day since January 15th, authorities have seen no measurable reduction in the number of trucks to date. Last week, the Canadian Transport Minister noted that almost 100,000 trucks crossed the border — about the same as usual for this time of year. Unfortunately, those opposed to vaccine mandates have attempted to frighten Canadians by claiming that there will be food and other materials shortages as a result of the government’s policies. For the vast majority of Canadians, who support COVID vaccination and such mandates, the real issue is in the fight to control the pandemic’s current wave and reduce its terrible impact on a stressed-out health care system.
Moreover, studies have shown that vaccine mandates work in increasing vaccination rates. For example, recent research from Simon Fraser University economists indicated that the mere announcement of vaccine mandates last fall led to an average 66 percent surge in new, first-dose vaccinations in Canadian provinces. From a constitutional perspective, whether a government can mandate vaccines depends on what exactly a new law says. Canadians have rights to make decisions about vaccination but these rights are not absolute. And having rights does not mean there will be no consequences for your decisions, including forms of penalization. In the case of truckers, the government has done more than enough to promote voluntary vaccination. Since the federal government imposed an immunization requirement last fall on workers in the air, rail and marine transportation sectors, it deliberately gave truckers more time to get vaccinated. In consultation with the trucking and retail industries, the government waited for a “critical mass” of truckers to get their shots before making it mandatory. In taking this approach and given the proven effectiveness of vaccine mandates, there is little doubt that the courts would find that such policies legally pass the taste test.
There is no doubt that Canadians and Americans owe much to these essential workers, but truckers need to vaccinate for their own health reasons and those of their families and friends, just like the rest of us. While independent truckers in particular tend to reflect a ‘wild west’ mentality, they still have a responsibility to themselves and their communities to continue contributing to beating COVID-19 so that life can get back to normal and the economy can open. They need to cut down on extreme pronouncements about attacking ‘tyrannical governments’ who supposedly are oppressing their people with public health measures. Instead, they might gain more public support by avoiding such far-right fringe edicts.
FROLITICKS 
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