As Canada’s grassroots revolt continues, opposing sides in America accuse hypocrisy, and both may be correct.

It has been a remarkable development for a month now that Americans have become deeply invested in the political machinations of the Maple Leaf Republic. About the only time issues North of the Border are a concern is when U.S. hockey players are renegotiating contracts with NHL teams and have to factor in the exchange rates and high taxes while haggling over salaries. But the truckers protesting in Canada have drawn huge interest in this country, and it has caused severe challenges in messaging.

The press have, in the predictable fashion of contemporary journalists, tripped over their own tongues in misreporting on the protest. Spewing Justin Trudeau talking points has been the norm, and citing dubious polls as reflecting national apathy has been contradicted not only by the throngs on video but also the fact that sympathy protests have now sprouted in numerous other Canadian cities. 

While calling in the thugs to trample flag-waving Canucks, Emperor Pal-Poutine issues weak and meandering dictates, and the U.S. media echoes them obediently. This same journalism complex that once stood before engulfed auto parts stores and insisted on camera there was nothing violent transpiring, in Frank Drebbin earnestness, now tells us that Canadians barbequing on flatbeds and honking horns are truly violent – due to things that just might yet take place. 

But it is our own politically active citizens who have also become embroiled in conflict and contradiction. One need only to look at overreactions to the 2020 protests to see a bifurcation in messaging, and the revealing detail is that both sides are struggling to remain on point with their positions. To say a convenience of outrage has been in play is becoming rather obvious.

Note how so many who were in full-throated support of the Black Lives Matter brigade, and all of their methods of resistance, today find it distasteful that these haulers are parking trucks at the Capital. It is amazing to see those from the Occupy movement suddenly offended that Canadians are occupying the streets of Ottawa with Peterbilts. Maybe they are in a snit because they are doing so without resorting to locking out citizens and seeing shootings taking place, like the heralded CHAZ/CHOP militarized encampments.

It is also amusing to see the normal vocal opponents to the police who are suddenly in favor of the RCMPs and Toronto authorities marching in to bust up these gatherings. It takes something far in excess of chutzpah to spend a couple of years decrying police violence but then delivering fist bumps of support when The Heat gallop in and start trampling indigenous septuagenarians holding a protest sign in one hand and their walker in the other, with their steeds. 

But the confusion is not limited to the over-reactionaries on the left. Conservatives and libertarians have, by nature, a resistance to government growth and overreach. (I am referring to the voting gentry here, not the Republicans employed in D.C., who have shown a particular comfort when it comes to spending and federal encroachment.) To see an uprising opposing statist leaders engaged in a power grab is a political aphrodisiac to those on the right. Make it a case of repelling the mandates of a Quebecois-educated nepotism recipient, and the temptation to grab pitchforks is too much to resist.

But this has led to a shift in standards along the way, and it is causing some discomfort. For myself, I back workers and capitalists looking to battle back against politicians mucking up the works, but the tactic has me also holding back. In 2020, one of the things I took issue with – after the arsons and shootings, mind you – was the protest methods of blocking roads and highways with their activist cholesterol. This was impacting both private homes and businesses, but also causing a threat for emergency responders. Even the most sympathetic of thinkers to this cause have to consider this an issue in Ottawa.

Another conflict arrives with the intent of the truckers to disrupt and interfere with the delivery of goods in order to disrupt the politicians. This becomes a multi-layered paradox, both because of the reason for the protest but also the lingering complaint from the past year. The truckers are complaining that the COVID mandates have been impacting their ability to work effectively, so their response to this is…to interrupt commerce. 

But also, after inflation, the biggest economic challenge has been the supply chain crisis. Truckers not delivering goods exacerbates this very issue, and the blockade formed on the main thoroughfare between our countries compounds that problem exponentially. Yes, I understand that sometimes you need to enact a crisis in order to grab the attention of the ADD-afflicted politicians – something Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has previously touted while remaining on the sidelines in this fracas. I am just not certain that further halting shipping flow is the best way to garner sympathy with the populace, by spreading misery.

Then there is a complication involving the Back the Blue sorts who now have to reconcile barking at police who are charging in to defray a throng of those opposing their commands. There is some nuance to this aspect, however. Here it is not so much opposition to the police as it is the heavy-handed politicians sending the police in, and this is mitigated further by the reports of police taking a less-than-stern approach to the conflict.

Maybe this is the natural result of us butting into the affairs of another nation, and using them for our own ends. Once the normally restrained Northerners get riled to the point of becoming politically ornery it is foolhardy on our behalf to use this energy as a proxy for our own narratives. It is backward enough that Canadians are becoming impolite; it is a natural result that we all managed to get our positions backward in the process. Maybe something was lost in the translation from Canadian.