Conservative leader Andrew Scheer welcomed pro-pipeline protesters to Parliament Hill and white nationalist Faith Goldy told Indigenous protesters to go back where they came from as the United We Roll protest descended on Ottawa Tuesday and Wednesday.
“After four days of cross-country driving, the convoy mustered in Arnprior, Ontario, just outside the capital but got off to a late start Tuesday morning,” The Canadian Press reported. “With police escorts, its trucks, buses, and cars hit downtown Ottawa after the morning rush hour, disrupting the city only slightly.”
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But once they got where they were going, “scores of semis, pickups, and other vehicles occupied several blocks of the street in front of Parliament as about 150 people gathered in knee-deep snow on the Hill for speeches by organizers and a handful of conservative lawmakers,” CP adds. “About 30 police officers stood between the convoy members and a counter-protest that gathered nearby, focused on Indigenous causes.”
“We’re fighting for you. We’re standing with you,” Scheer told the protesters. “It is time that Canada has a prime minister that is proud of our energy sector,” he added.
“You’re not asking for handouts, you’re not asking for any privileges, you’re just asking for being sure that this country will be able to build pipelines. That’s important not only for you, that’s important for all Canadians,” said People’s Party of Canada leader Maxim Bernier.
Goldy distinguished herself after Indigenous counter-protesters booed and name-called her when she attempted to speak from the back of a truck. “If you don’t like our country, leave it,” she said.
Saskatchewan Conservative Senator David Tkachuk, appointed to the Red Chamber in 1993 by then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, urged the truckers to “roll over every Liberal left in the country”. He told Huffington Post that “people aren’t driving all the way across the country to have lunch with their neighbours. They’re driving across the country because they’re worried about losing their home and educating their children. And that’s why they came here.”
“Pro or anti #pipeline no one should ever encourage a crowd to run over their political opponents. Senator David Tkachuk did just this today at the #UnitedWeRoll rally. Shameful behavior,” tweeted University of Ottawa energy culture specialist and The Energy Mix subscriber Patrick McCurdy in response.
“Half a dozen Conservative MPs and senators blasted the Liberals’ carbon tax and reiterated their support for the oil and gas sector,” CP notes. “They left out another of the convoy organizers’ complaints: that Canada signed a non-binding United Nations agreement on migration in December.”
Natural Resources Minister and Edmonton MP Amarjeet Sohi was quick to point out the overlapping issues that continue to connect the convoy with a wider brew of racist and white nationalist causes—a problem that earlier forced fossil industry interests to abandon the organizing effort.
“It’s very unfortunate that the convoy that is here today, that their message has drifted away from pipelines to issues that are not relevant to the discussion on pipelines,” he said. “We will continue to focus on the real issues that matter to Albertans, which is building the pipeline capacity that is so much necessary for us to get our resources to global markets.”
Media picked up the broader context for the protest from a placard on at least one of the trucks, which declared NO to “UN/globalism, carbon tax, tanker ban, dirty foreign oil, open borders” and YES to “Charge Trudeau with treason, Energy East, yes to pipe lines, look after veterans, photo ID & Canadian citizenship to vote.”
CBC said convoy organizer Glen Carritt, who owns an oilfield fire and safety company in Innisfail, Alberta, had to rebrand the convoy to try and get out from under the controversy. “Carritt originally referred to his group as the “yellow vest convoy” but renamed it United We Roll after it was linked to extremist elements,” the national broadcaster reported. Even so, “one of the group’s other organizers, Jason Corbeil, was forced to distance the group from a Sault. Ste. Marie, Ontario yellow vest group that had boasted online about being part of the convoy. A blog run by one of that group’s organizers includes calls for specific politicians to be executed, refers to immigrants as ‘sub-human’, and argues women don’t belong in politics.”
Carritt had tried to tamp down that message in an earlier interview with CP. “The core message is we need immediate action for our pipelines to get in the ground, to get to tidewater and to the rest of Canada,” he said.
But on Parliament Hill, one of the first speeches came from Saskatoon Yellow Vest organizer Mark Friesen, who talked about “federal policies as the results of agreements with the United Nations to implement its sustainable development agenda,” CP reported.
“You cut the head of the snake off, we get our country back, all of it, including pipelines built, including dumping the carbon tax, including getting rid of the migrant pact,” Friesen said.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network Executive Director Evan Balgord “expressed frustration with how the convoy’s more extreme elements have been overlooked by politicians and in media coverage,” VICE News reported.
“How many examples do I have to provide of overt racism and death threats?” he asked. “How many examples do I have to provide of the organizers of the goddamn convoy expressing support for hate groups before people will get it?”
“This convoy is a Yellow Vests Canada convoy, and any well-meaning pro-pipeline individuals involved are in fact legitimizing and breathing oxygen into the broader Yellow Vests Canada movement, which spreads hate, conspiracy theories, and death threats targeting Muslims, politicians, and other Canadians,” Balgord added in a CBC interview.
“A movement may try to distance itself and claim a project they think is innocent, but when you scratch the surface you realize it’s a vehicle of hate,” agreed McMaster University professor Ameil Joseph, who specializes in race theory, immigration, and mental health. He called Yellow Vests “a re-visioned white nationalist, white supremacist movement.”
Carritt and other organizers stressed the convoy was intended as a peaceful protest, open to anyone who was committed to non-violence. But “several of the organizers have expressed support online for anti-Muslim hate groups, like Soldiers of Odin, the 3-percenters, and several others,” Vice noted, citing Balgord. “The head of the Canadian Combat Coalition, an anti-Muslim hate group, was welcomed as part of the convoy.” And Yellow Vests Canada, with more than 110,000 members on Facebook, “has become notorious for hateful rhetoric about immigrants, and especially Muslims.”
“Since December, members have posted conspiracy theories about Muslims to the Facebook page, and refer to them using derogatory terms,” Huffington Post added. “There is a post calling for Liberal MP Iqra Khalid to be deported, another saying ‘euro-Canadians’ should advocate for their ‘ethnic interests.’ Last month Facebook began removing comments from the page after Global News reported members were making death threats against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.”
Balgord said he doubted Scheer is unaware of the extremist views the convoy is fostering. Scheer’s office declined Vice’s request to comment.
“Your [political leader] doesn’t endorse a thing without a staffer looking at it. If they looked at this movement for even 10 minutes on social media, they would’ve found a death threat directed towards Trudeau, they would’ve found examples of overt racism,” said Balgord. “It’s that prevalent.”
From this EM article it appears it’s not possible to separate the far right wing from the pro-oil contingents in this event. If that’s the case, it disgraces both points of view. I was ambivalent about Trudeau’s pipeline deal with Alberta. Not any more. Alberta: time to put some eggs in another basket.
Gary, this story was based strictly on curated content — we weren’t actually on the Hill, so we were guided by the news reports that emerged. My sense was that key organizers of the convoy were nervous about the racist/white nationalist slant at the rally, and online. Not nervous enough to disavow it, though. And not nervous enough to shut it down. The rally featured plenty of pro-pipeline rhetoric (and more than enough pro-fossil myths) to complement and leaven the rants from Faith Goldy and others, but as I compiled the story, I gradually realized that wasn’t anything new. Goldy telling Indigenous protesters to go back where they came from, or a 25-year member of the Senate advising truckers to roll over any Liberals in their path? Yeah, that struck me as a new and deeply disturbing development.
All of it – the pro-oil convoy, the lunatic fringe of white nationalists, disrespect for First Nations – it comes from the same place – ignorance, corruption, and hate.
“deeply disturbing development”
Next thing we know Andrew Scheer will be talking about some of the “fine people” who are members of racist, nationalist, divisive organizations.
Conservative leadership is playing a dangerous and irresponsible game – consonant with the known behaviour of Scheer’s right hand man, Hamish Marshall. Given the poor turn-out, they have only exposed their own opportunism, and have a chance to turn this around before the inevitable disaster.
This is outright BS… there were two different stages… one at entrance and the other much farther away … one was yellow vest and the other was anti yellow vest.. clearly visible in the photos … so the question should be… why was faith speaking at the anti yellow vest stage….
Bottom line is we need to just #leaveitintheground