Opinion: Freedom Convoy Truckers Hurt Their Own Cause

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Whether the truckers who’ve shut down parts of Ottawa, Canada and the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Canada, are winning the debate over vaccine mandates or not, I suspect they aren’t winning the hearts and minds of some people they might otherwise be able to convince to support them.

To be clear, I am in favor of vaccine mandates — I think they would help end the pandemic by getting more people vaccinated as well as ease the strain on the healthcare system, and I think the “my body, my choice” argument rings hollow here since a person’s choice to not get vaccinated could lead to potentially deadly consequences. Meanwhile, our own Matt disagrees with me, and that’s fine — reasonable people can disagree reasonably.

But this post isn’t an argument in favor of or against mandates. Instead, I’d like to point out that if you want to get people on your side of a debate, perhaps choking supply chains, delaying the shipment of goods, and pissing off the locals isn’t the way to do it.

Especially if you’re pissing off small-business owners who have already struggled due to the pandemic and the restrictions that are meant to slow the spread of the virus. While I’ve generally been in favor of restrictions, as long as they are grounded in science, it’s undeniable that restrictions have hurt businesses. So, too, has the mere presence of the virus — even in places where restrictions are few, people may choose to stay home for safety.

So, if you’re goal is to get people on your side in a protest against mandates, you might not want to shut down their city so much that they can’t serve customers. Or shut down a bridge that is used to ship auto parts across the border, thus hurting supply chains at a time that those same supply chains are already hurting due to the semiconductor-chip shortage.

Yes, it’s true that the NYT piece linked above can’t possibly represent the opinion of every Ottawan who’s dealing with the convoy. After all, the piece only quotes two business owners, and one seems angrier at the Canadian government for not managing the protests than he is with the truckers.

A cynic might suggest that the NYT might have only quoted those who supported its premise or that the reporter just didn’t make an effort to talk to enough people. I doubt the former is the case — the linked article is just a short blurb in a blog that’s updating different aspects of the situation in something like real-time, and it’s possible no one else wanted to talk to the paper.

Whatever the case may be, at least two Ottawa business owners are pissed off that the protests are hurting their business. Seems to me that if I was an anti-mandate trucker, I’d not want to anger those who might otherwise support me against the government.

To be clear, I am all for protesting — even if I don’t agree with the ideology of the protesters — and I am glad that in America, at least, the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in our Constitution. I’m just saying that there’s a way to protest that persuades, and a way that pisses people off.

I wonder if the truckers who are causing the worst trouble are aware of the difference.

[Image © Darryl Barton/Shutterstock.com]

Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Jebby Jebby on Feb 16, 2022

    Reading these two opposing opinion pieces and then scrolling thru the comments makes me weep for our future. Remember back when we could disagree about car companies and still get along? The rabid hatred for one another in a group of alleged car lovers is depressing.

  • 08Suzuki 08Suzuki on Feb 21, 2022

    Of course Matt would disagree with you, Tim. Matt's a legit self-outed Neo Nazi. I'd link you to one of TTAC's own articles where his profound ignorance and lack of self-awareness ended up outing himself as a Neo Nazi (it was the one where he was whining and complaining about why Germany doesn't respect freedom of speech and, therefore, release actual legit Neo Nazis from jail) but apparently Matt had an iota of a moment of self-awareness where he realized being a Neo Nazi isn't cool, despite his clear love of being one, and nuked it from the Interwebs. I strongly suspect this comment will likewise get nuked with a strong possibility of me being banned because, well, with Matt being such a stringent defender of people's unequivocal, uninhibited right to freedom of speech and all.

  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
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