Republicans Wage Culture War in Canada by Propping Up Anti-Vax Truckers

Over the past several days, the American right has attempted to wage a cultural proxy war by backing anti-vaxxers in Canada. What started with a group of truckers protesting the Canadian government’s COVID-19 mandate—which requires haulers to be fully vaccinated before entering Canada or face testing and quarantine requirements—has morphed into a so-called Freedom Convoy made up of thousands of protesters. They have assembled a boisterous encampment in downtown Ottawa, the country’s capital city, and their acts of civil disobedience have ranged from continuously blasting their horns to blocking roads and bridges. But while Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that the disruption “has to stop,” after Ottawa’s mayor declared a state of emergency, the rally has been met with a constant stream of fawning Fox News coverage from some of the network’s biggest stars—and Republican lawmakers in the U.S., who are portraying the protest as a righteous populist uprising against liberal “authoritarians,” are attacking the donation platform that decided against hosting a fundraiser for it.

The Freedom Convoy had reportedly collected about $7.9 million in donations on GoFundMe before the tech company pulled the protest’s donation page last week over “police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.” The fundraising site initially said that it had already released $1 million to organizers and would work with them to donate the remaining funds to “credible and established” charities verified by GoFundMe but chosen by the Freedom Convoy organizers. Donors not satisfied with that arrangement also had the option of requesting refunds. Ultimately, GoFundMe opted to simplify the process by “automatically [refunding] all contributions directly.” But the platform’s handling of the controversy is still being criticized by high-profile Republicans, such as Senator Ted Cruz and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who have respectively accused GoFundMe of attempted theft and fraud.

“The efforts of government officials to suppress peaceful protest…is an abuse of power,” Cruz said during a Tuesday interview with Politico. “That abuse of power was compounded when GoFundMe at the explicit behest of the Canadian government tried to effectively steal $10 million that had been raised to support the Canadian truckers.” The Texas senator, who has urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate GoFundMe over whether the company had committed a “deceptive trade practice,” went on to say that the “Big Tech oligarchs” who run GoFundMe only “backed down” when the public outrage became too great to ignore. (The FTC confirmed to Politico that it received Cruz’s letter but declined to comment further.) Both DeSantis and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton have intimated they will use the legal powers of their respective state governments to investigate GoFundMe. (The fundraising platform did not immediately respond to comment on Paxton, DeSantis, and Cruz’s statements when contacted by Vanity Fair.)

Republicans are trying to portray the Canadian demonstrations as a revolt with a groundswell of support that could spread elsewhere. “I think the Canadian trucker protest is a remarkable uprising and it’s a manifestation of the deep outrage across Canada and across the United States,” Cruz claimed. “I think it would be a very good thing if the protest expands.”

Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary for Donald Trump, characterized the Canadian protesters as “our freedom fighters” during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News. “These guys are the real deal,” said the Outnumbered cohost. “They’re standing up to their Orwellian dictatorial government with all of these COVID edicts, and good for them. And guess what…they have the support of the people.” (Trump previously wrote: “Thankfully, the Freedom Convoy could be coming to D.C. with American Truckers who want to protest [Joe] Biden’s ridiculous COVID policies.”)

While the protest has certainly gained approval from the American right, it doesn’t exactly have the widespread support that conservatives like Trump and McEnany suggest it has. Nearly 90% of Ottawa residents who were recently polled by the local polling firm Abacus Data said that it was time for the protesters to go home. Additionally, Trudeau said during the early days of the demonstration that the protesters represented a “small fringe minority;” an estimated 90% of Canada’s truckers are vaccinated and 81% of the country’s total population are fully vaccinated.

Still, members of the noisy minority gathered in Ottawa continue to find new ways of raking in cash while causing headaches for the Canadian government. A band of Canadian libertarians has raised more than $650,000 on a cryptocurrency fundraising platform, while the Freedom Convoy donation page on GiveSendGo, a site advertised as the “#1 free Christian crowdfunding site,” has amassed more than $7.7 million. And in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, a member of the Ottawa caravan maintained they will not leave “until I get my freedom back,” while another said they planned on staying until the protest was over or they were arrested. There has been no indication from Trudeau suggesting that he will acquiesce to the protesters’ demands, but it appears that a forced clear out could happen after the prime minister brought in hundreds of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers “to further strengthen our response.”

Even if the Ottawa encampment is quelled in the coming days, it appears to have inspired copycat protests from the similarly disgruntled: In France, a group of about 200 anti-vaxxers adopted the Freedom Convoy moniker and picked up Canadian flags on Wednesday while protesting vaccine mandates. Anti-vax organizers from across Western Europe are also planning a united Freedom Convoy march of their own in Brussels on Valentine’s Day.

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