Out of thin air and without a single shred of evidence, a CBC anchor on Power & Politics suggested on Friday that Russia had played a role in planning and orchestrating the Truckers for Freedom Convoy.
Nil Köksal made the outlandish claim while interviewing Liberal public safety minister Marco Mendicino as protesters began to arrive in Ottawa to protest COVID-19 mandates and erosion of freedoms.
“Given Canada’s support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia, I don’t know if it is far-fetched to ask, but there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, perhaps even instigating it from the outside?” asked Köksal.
Without challenging the assertion, Mendocino stated that he would leave the answer to his national security experts.
“Well again, I’m going to defer to our partners at Public Safety, the trained officials and experts in that area,” said Mendicino.
Köksal made no mention of who exactly it was that was concerned about Russian infiltration in the protest. To date, neither Public Safety nor the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have issued any warnings to the effect.
The CBC’s claim continues a trend by Canadian legacy media outlets to paint the convoy as an extremist movement set to storm the capital city akin to the Jan. 6 US Capitol riots in Washington DC.
No such claims have been made by the convoy or its organizers, and most of the media’s comparisons to the event have fallen on deaf ears.
The US Capitol riots allegedly took place as an attempt to overturn the results of the 2021 US election.
In comparison, the Truckers for Freedom Convoy began after the Liberal government’s decision to implement a vaccine mandate for cross-border truck drivers. It has since grown to include calls for the reinstatement of Charter rights in Canada and for the country to drop all COVID restrictions.
Convoy organizers have stated clearly that any instigators or radicals would not be welcome among their ranks. They have encouraged their supporters to report any attempted violence or criminal acts to police.
Even the RCMP have confirmed that the trucker convoy is a “peaceful” movement made up of Canadians of all sorts
