Community Solidarity seeks to rise up as ‘World Unity Convoy’ gathering gears up By: Carol Sanders Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023

As preparations continue east of Winnipeg for a weekend reunion of the so-called freedom convoy, a gathering at a downtown church led by a coalition formed to counter messages of “anger and hate” ended with Nazi imagery and confrontation.

On Thursday, Community Solidarity Manitoba — which includes advocates for peace, social justice, immigrants, workers, public health and murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people — held a news conference, warning the reprised “World Unity Convoy” is rooted in “far-right interests.”

When the media event ended, a man holding a picture of the Nazi flag confronted organizers and another protester accused him of being a government-funded “agent provocateur,” before a church pastor stepped in to bring calm.

About 25 kilometres east of Winnipeg, the convoy reunion site dubbed “Camp Hope” was prepping to be the main staging area for groups of mainly passenger vehicles arriving from neighbouring provinces.

A dozen or so vehicles had arrived by Thursday afternoon at the private property owned by Walter and Maria Hiebert.

World Unity organizers estimated up to 800 people may attend events including a Saturday morning rally, speeches, concerts, workshops, a craft market, and a vigil. It’s expected attendees will spend the nights in their vehicles, with locals or at area hotels and short-term rentals.

Despite social media posts saying all are welcome, a Free Press photographer was not welcome Thursday, and was told not to take photos from the public road northeast of Deacons Corner.

RCMP cruisers and a Winnipeg Police Service vehicle were seen in the area. City police said they’re aware of the event near Dugald, scheduled to run from Friday to Tuesday.

“We have been working with the RCMP and are committed to support our policing partners should the need arise,” the WPS said in an email. “We are also making plans should there be any events that take place in the city of Winnipeg.”

The WPS officer in charge of the response to the long-running “freedom convoy” gathering last year near the Manitoba legislature told municipal officials last month police won’t allow the protesters to occupy Winnipeg again.

“If they come in and do a ‘slow roll’ and go back to (Camp Hope), we can manage that,” Insp. Gord Spado said at the Manitoba Disaster Management Conference. “If they… stop and occupy and things like that, we’re not going to give them a foothold this time.”

“If they come in and do a ‘slow roll’ and go back to (Camp Hope), we can manage that… If they… stop and occupy and things like that, we’re not going to give them a foothold this time.”–Insp. Gord Spado

No events in Winnipeg have been publicly advertised by organizers. However, barricades were placed on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building to control access. No parking signs and temporary construction barricades were also placed around Memorial Boulevard.

In February 2022, opponents of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and anti-government protesters armed with an air horns rallied for three weeks in front of the legislature.

Trucks, farm equipment and other vehicles lined Broadway and occupied Memorial Boulevard around the clock Feb. 4-23. Their presence was allowed by police and the provincial government that wanted to avoid a potentially violent confrontation.

After the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act and police moved to break up the massive occupation of downtown Ottawa, Winnipeg police then ordered demonstrators to leave or risk having their vehicles confiscated.

The protest cost the City of Winnipeg close to $400,000, including roughly $100,000 in police overtime, officials said. A total of 184 noise complaints related to the site were recorded by police.

Nearly a year later, Community Solidarity Manitoba aims to provide “an alternate narrative,” spokesman Diwa Marcelino said at its inaugural event at Broadway Disciples United Church.

The group is not planning a convoy counter protest this weekend, but wants to bring together people who’ve been struggling through “overlapping crises,” he said Thursday.

Community Solidarity is working to overcome racial and economic divisions in society that have been exacerbated by the convoy and its “white nationalist agenda,” Marcelino said.

“Freedom convoy” organizers, he said, were associated with the xenophobic, anti-government yellow vest movement flagged by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network as a far-right extremist group. It has since recruited new members by adding more grievances and rebranding itself as a peace movement, Marcelino said.

As for Community Solidarity, its goal is to create a “safer and more just world,” said a spokesman for Migrante Manitoba, a non-profit organization that advocates for immigrants and migrant workers.

At the end of Thursday’s event inside the Broadway church — where signs ask that masks be worn amid the COVID-19 pandemic — a man not wearing a mask and holding a picture of the Nazi flag confronted event organizers.

When they asked him to leave, he yelled the swastika predates the Nazis and its use at a freedom convoy event had nothing to do with Hitler or genocide.

He was interrupted by another maskless attendee who accused the first man of being an “agent provocateur paid by the state.”

The confrontation ended peacefully when church pastor Bill Millar intervened, calming the man holding the picture of the Nazi flag (who did not respond when asked by media for his name) and gently asking him to leave.

— with files from Danielle Da Silva

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

After 20 years of reporting on the growing diversity of people calling Manitoba home, Carol moved to the legislature bureau in early 2020.

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