Welcome to the Colette Podcast. My name is Claire Lehman and I am editor and chief of Colette.

Colette is where Free Thought lives. We are an independent grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

Our podcast is a team effort and is jointly hosted by myself and Canadian editor Jonathan Kay.

You can support our podcast by visiting Patreon.com

forward slash Kulett and becoming a monthly patron. By becoming a monthly

patron you'll also receive our weekly newsletter. Welcome to the Colette Podcast.

I'm Jonathan Kay.

As most of you know, I host this podcast from Toronto.

But most of the stories I do aren't Canadian because it's rare that anything happens in this country that the world

particularly cares about. But that changed in late January when a convoy of Canadian trucks headed east to the capital city of Ottawa to protest vaccine

mandates imposed on international truckers by the Canadian government.

Most Canadians thought that this would be a short-lived political stunt. But more than two weeks later, many trucks in that protest convoy are still in downtown Ottawa.

And the protest has become a major international news event, even inspiring copycat events in other countries.

Here in Canada, meanwhile, Ottawa authorities have proven unable to dislodge the protesters,

who have turned parts of downtown into a sort of combination parking lot and

noisy street party. And while there's been almost no violence to speak of, Canada's political

class and media have descended into what has sometimes resembled

full-blown social panic, accusing the protesters of everything from alt-right

Trumpism to plotting an insurrection. And there was definitely a grain of truth to those fears, at least originally, since some of the

original organizers, like Pat King, really were fringe figures.

But the protests themselves have not only been generally peaceful,

but surprisingly multicultural,

...