After weeks of waffling over truckers and vaccine mandates, Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Erin O’Toole has doubled down by calling for shot clinics along trucking routes and “educational programs for truckers to better address vaccine hesitancy.”
O’Toole made these and other recommendations in a Postmedia column Wednesday. His statements come after several prominent members of his Conservative caucus have already sent out clear messages of support for truckers as well as condemnations of COVID vaccine mandates.
The CPC leader also suggested Prime Minister Justin Trudeau temporarily pause the federal order forcing cross-border Canadian truckers to get COVID shots “until a study can be conducted to weigh the positive benefits against the immediate negative consequences of the federal government’s mandate…”
O’Toole went on to recommend Trudeau “introduce legislation to protect the jobs of federally regulated truckers by ensuring that those affected have the option to be reassigned to domestic routes.”
O’Toole wrote more than 700 words before getting to his recommendations, describing himself as being “upset” by the COVID situation over the past two years. He wrote that while truckers had a right to be heard at their upcoming protest, he warned them not to be violent once the Freedom Convoy reaches Ottawa.
“It upsets me to know that there are individuals who plan to use this protest as a means for violence,” O’Toole wrote. “So I am pleading with everyone who will be in Ottawa this week. Please remain calm. Protest peacefully.”
“Do not resort to violence. Be on the lookout for agitators and report them to police. Violence will only serve to delegitimize valid and reasonable concerns.”
O’Toole did urge those in Ottawa who disagreed with the truckers’ message to let them protest peacefully and to hear them with compassion.
“I plead with you – lower the temperature,” he wrote. “Stop demonizing your fellow citizens and calling them names. Be respectful even if you don’t agree. Understand their anxieties and concerns. Stand in support of peaceful protest and condemn violence and hate.
“How we react now, how we try to understand the concerns of people we deeply disagree with – this is a question of who we are as a country and as a people. Frustration with this pandemic is not an excuse to forget the compassion we normally show for people who are worried or feel ignored.”
O’Toole has been widely criticized for his lack of clarity about the convoy and the vaccine mandates it opposes.
His recommendations come days after several prominent Conservative MPs issued clear statements of support for truckers, as well as categorical rejections of all vaccine mandates.
These included Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, who said Sunday that “COVID has become a never-ending excuse for power-hungry authorities to replace our freedom with their control. Enough. Reopen our businesses, let our truckers drive & restore freedom for all.”
Deputy leader Candice Bergen released her own statement Tuesday, saying “Conservatives have been opposed to federally mandated vaccines since Trudeau introduced them; and we oppose the mandatory vaccine on Canadian Truckers.”
Thousands of truckers and supporters from across Canada and the United States are rolling towards Ottawa as part of the Truckers for Freedom Convoy. Canadians have been lining the snowy highways and overpasses from Vancouver to Sydney, Nova Scotia to wave at the drivers and to cheer them on.
The full convoy is expected to arrive in Ottawa on Saturday.
