I noticed that during the Truckers’ Convoy which haunted Ottawa for a few weeks in the winter of 2022, during the end of the pandemic many of the protesters were fueled by faith. Trucker George Dyck, interviewed on CBC radio, and likely a good Mennonite, was not concerned when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau threatened to invoke the Emergencies Act even though it could be used to freeze his bank account.
This is what he told Jorge Barrera of CBC News at the time:
“I take it one step at a time,” said Dyck. “In all honesty, God is my shield, and that is what I stand by.”
Barrera said this in response: “Faith led him to Ottawa, and faith is what keeps him there.” In other words, echoing the words of Bob Dylan in another context, “You don’t count the dead with God on your side.”
In February of 2022 George Dyck, who lives about 600 kilometres southwest of Ottawa in Aylmer, Ontario, the centre of the largest outbreak of measles in North America, Ont., prayed with his wife before going to turn his 18 wheel rig toward Ottawa in order to join a national protest against mask mandates even though they were not imposed by the federal government. As he told CBC News, “I had the feeling I had to be here,” said the 44-year-old trucker.
This strikes as being a religious response. Many of us don’t see how this could be a religious issue, but I think it is for people like George Dyck, and some other Mennonites, and other people too in and around the area of Aylmer. It also strikes me that this is the same as it is for the measles vaccine, which the same people in the same places seem to resist.
If it is a religious belief then of course it will be very difficult to dislodge. As John Loftus once said about religious beliefs, “it is impossible to reason someone out of a religious belief, because they did not get the belief by reason.” I am paraphrasing his comments here.
Barrera described this incident in Ottawa in 2022:
“Dyck has been parked there for over three weeks and, this past Saturday, his cargo trailer was a refuge from the windchill-edged temperatures of downtown Ottawa, with a handful of chairs toward the back and a propane heater emanating warmth.
The words “Freedom Is Essential” are emblazoned in large blue and yellow letters across the side of his charcoal-coloured trailer.
At one point, a man shook Dyck’s hand as he left the trailer, a folded $50 bill in his palm. This happens a lot — bills slipped in with a handshake, a smile and a thank you. Dyck often responds with, “God bless you.”
The truckers in Ottawa were part of a movement that felt a lot like a religion. As Barrera said,
“God keeps telling me to, ‘Stay where you are. Don’t go anywhere. You are doing the right thing,'” Dyck said.
Devoted to the cause.
Christian faith — with an overtly evangelical feel — flows likes an undercurrent through the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa.
It’s unclear how many of the roughly 4,000 people who gathered in the Parliament precinct this past weekend call themselves Christians, but the biblical references were everywhere — in the hand-made placards lining the stone and iron fence at the border of Parliament Hill reading, “We are praying for Justin [Trudeau],” quoting parts of Psalm 23 or paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 1:27 in the New Testament:
“God chose the foolish to shame the wisdom of the wise.”
One thing is clear, the connection between the anti-vaccine movement has now morphed into the anti-measles vaccine movement and is filled with evangelical exuberance which runs deep.