In January and February of 2022 Canada saw protests in its capital city, Ottawa, and in cities around the country. The protesters opposed government vaccine mandates and public health measures to combat COVID-19. The core of the protesters started out as truckers, but many other people joined.
Convoys of trucks and other vehicles formed and drove across the country, arriving in Ottawa where they stayed for several weeks in the downtown area around the Parliament building. There were similar protests in many other parts of Canada. The protesters believed that it should be an individual choice whether to get vaccinated or not and the government should not require people to do so. Eventually police cleared away the demonstrators in Ottawa and elsewhere and made arrests.
Far right
“The group of people whose political views are most conservative” (Merriam Webster, 2022)
Vaccine Hesitancy
“The SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy concluded that vaccine hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite availability of vaccination services” (MacDonald, 2015, p. 4161).
Immunization
“The process of being made immune or resistant to an infectious disease, typically by the administration of a vaccine. It implies that you have had an immune response” (CDC, 2020).
Freedom Convoy
A group of truckers and their supporters who protested “COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The protest started over anger directed at a vaccine mandate beginning in January 2022 on cross-border truckers but grew as it got “support from anti-vaccine mandate groups” (Woods and Pringle, 2022)
Blockade Protests
A series of protests across Canada that involved truck drivers and other supporters who opposed vaccine mandates and other covid-19 public health rules. The protests occurred in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. They blocked border crossings with the US and blockaded the Ambassador Bridge in Ontario an important trade link to the United States.
Canada’s Emergencies Act
“The Emergencies Act, which replaced the War Measures Act in the 1980s, defines a national emergency as a temporary ‘urgent and critical situation’ that ‘seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it.’ The act gives special powers to respond to emergency scenarios affecting public welfare (natural disasters, disease outbreaks), public order (civil unrest), international emergencies or war emergencies. It grants cabinet the ability to ‘take special temporary measures that may not be appropriate in normal times’ to cope with an ‘urgent and critical situation’ and the resulting fallout. It is still subject to the protections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms” (Tunney, 2022).
These e-Books are available in the online library collection. Click the link to access the resource.
Calling the Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines
Reich, J.A. 2016
Some of these titles may be available via the AC Library databases, while some may be free online.
Freedom, Rights, and Vaccine Refusal: The History of an Idea
Colgrove, J. & Samuel, S. J. 2022
Benham, J.L. 2021
Individual determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy
Gerretsen, P. & Kim, J. 2021
Public health experts are learning from Canada’s anti-mask protests
Hapuhennedige, S. 2020
Confidence and Receptivity for COVID-19 Vaccines: A Rapid Systematic Review
Lin, C. & Tu, P. & Beitsch, L.M. 2020
Taylor, S. & Asmundson, G. 2021
Statista. 2020
Vaccine Preventable Disease: Surveillance Report to December 31, 2017
Government of Canada. 2020
When antivaccine sentiment turned violent: the Montréal Vaccine Riot of 1885
Berman, J.M. 2021
Muhajarine, N. & Adeyinka, D. A. 2021
Rini, R. 2022
When looking for resources related to Vaccines, try some of these keywords in your searching:
Sample search: convoy AND protest AND Ottawa
* Interested in learning more about using keywords for research? Check out our videos on how to create and search using keywords on our Research Skills page.
What Does the Trucker Convoy Hope to Accomplish? by CTV News, Aiello, R. (2022, Jan 28).
Who is Tamara Lich — the ‘spark that lit the fire’ by Crawford, B. (2022, Feb 4).
The Occupation of Ottawa: A Timeline by Duffy, A. (2022, Feb 18). Ottawa Citizen.
Maverick Party planning to up its game after poor election results. by Graveland, B. (2021, Oct 2). Global News.
Vaccine Hesitancy: Definition, Scope and Determinants. Vaccine, 33(34), 4161-4164. by MacDonald, N.E. (2015).
The far right. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved Merriam-Webster, March 15, 2022.
Who is who? A guide to the major players in the trucker convoy protest. Parkhill, M. (2022, Feb 10). CTV News.
Federal government invokes Emergencies Act for first time ever in response to protests, blockades by Tunney, C. (2022, Feb 14). CBC News.
Vaccine, 33(34), 4161-4164. by MacDonald, N.E. (2015).
Heavy Police Presence as Truckers Arrive in Downtown Ottawa. by Woods, M and Pringle, J. (2022, Jan 28).CTV News.
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