Convoy skirts Winnipeg on way to Ottawa

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This article was published 15/02/2019 (2478 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A convoy of about 80 semi-trucks and other vehicles rolled through the Winnipeg area on Friday afternoon, en route to Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Pulling over briefly at a Headingley truck stop where a few more trucks joined, the United We Roll Convoy For Canada continued its run on the perimeter, bypassing the city.

The convoy is hauling its pro-pipeline, anti-carbon tax message to Ottawa, where participants will hold rallies on Tuesday and Wednesday on Parliament Hill.

The trail of trucks is a calculated plan to get the ear of federal politicians and turn heads around the country, organizer Glen Carritt said.

“A convoy is a spectacle, that’s for sure, and that’s why we’re doing this,” Carritt said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon while travelling on the Trans-Canada Highway.

Carritt, the operations manager of Oilfield Paramedics Fire and Safety Inc. in Innisfail, Alta., said there have been some local rallies in Alberta but a national stage is needed “to get our voices heard.”

“It’s the theatrics of all the trucks that’s going to gain the attention to do what we want to accomplish.”

He had to shout during the interview over the sounds of blasting semi-truck horns around him.

“It’s going fantastic. We’re getting so much support. Every time you hear a horn honk, it’s more support for us on our way,” he said, adding there have also been fuel donations to semi drivers from individuals and businesses along the way.

The focus at the rallies will be the need for pipeline construction and other concerns in Canada’s oil and gas industry, but Carritt said other groups are invited join and voice concerns about other issues.

“We invite everybody, however they can get there, to join us. Anybody who has any concerns, Indigenous people, GMC plant workers, anyone. We see rally after rally across the country. We want all those people to be invited and join us at this rally,” Carritt said. “Anyone who has a concern with the current government.”

The convoy, which departed from Red Deer, Alta., with about 160 vehicles on Thursday morning, stopped in Regina on Thursday night and planned to spend Friday night in Kenora. Semis and other vehicles are joining and departing when they can.

“We picked up a few in Regina, another 10 or 15 in Virden, we picked up one in Brandon and we’re expecting to pick up some in Winnipeg, so we’re gaining again,” Carritt said. “We always said there was going to be this many (75 or 80) that would go all the way to Ottawa.”

The United We Roll Convoy For Canada website says the convoy’s purpose “is to show our concern to the current government that we oppose bill C48 and C69. We are in favour of pipelines to move our products in the oil and gas sector to the rest of Canada as well as the rest of the world. We are opposed to the current format of the carbon tax as well as the UN impact on Canadian borders.”

Bill C-48 is the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act, which bans large-capacity oil tankers from loading and unloading in ports along an extensive stretch of northern B.C. coastline. Bill C-69 is the Impact Assessment Act, which will impose new environmental assessments on Canada’s resource sector.

Carritt said the convoy is “a peaceful movement,” but added participants can wear yellow vests, blue coveralls, white hard hats or red scarves, referring to clothing items worn by various recent protest movements in Canada, as long as a respectful atmosphere is maintained.

Organizers are publicly discouraging radicalism, racism, hate speech and violence that have surfaced in some yellow-vest protests in Canada and worldwide.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca