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Editorial: Will the convoy make a difference?

Editor's note: This is the editorial piece that ran in this week's edition of the Estevan Mercury. To be clear, we support those who sacrificed their time and money to travel with the Convoy to Ottawa.

Editor's note: This is the editorial piece that ran in this week's edition of the Estevan Mercury. To be clear, we support those who sacrificed their time and money to travel with the Convoy to Ottawa. We also applaud the convoy participants for bringing forward concerns that not only affect our community, but our province and the country as a whole. We also applaud those who showed support for the convoy along the way, whether it be greeting the convoy as it passed by, or giving free food to the participants. 

We also hope that the ideas shared by the convoy participants will generate discussion across the country. The messages of the convoy participants, regarding the carbon tax and the need for pipelines, are very important.

If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, we encourage you to do so by emailing it to editor@estevanmercury.ca.

 

The convoy has rolled into the Ottawa area, the first rally has taken place and now it remains to be seen whether it will actually make a difference on our country’s decision makers.

The United we Roll Convoy to Ottawa was arguably the biggest initiative yet as part of the growing frustration for the direction with the federal government.

That frustration has spawned the Western Canadian answer to the Yellow Vest Movement, a series of convoys and a number of rallies, including one in Regina and another in Moosomin. The people who have organized those events will tell you they are happy with the awareness they generated about the current plight of the energy sector and other issues they have with the federal government.

Those events have usually been one-day or two-day affairs, or, in the case of Yellow Vest Movement in Estevan, a once-a-week effort that lasts a couple of hours.

The Convoy to Ottawa is different. The core riders – the ones who are travelling across much of the country, and spending a couple of days in Ottawa – are dedicating upwards of a week trying to get their message across. It costs a lot of money to make a round trip from the Prairies to Ontario for a rally.

If you’re willing to sacrifice a week of work and revenue for a protest trip to Ottawa, then it reflects how aggravated you are. And they’re doing this even though there isn’t a guarantee of anything for the end result.

They’ll get to Ottawa, they’ll receive encouragement from those who support them, and they’ll have positive interactions with like-minded people on the convoy. There are some political heavyweights who were slated to speak at their Feb. 19 Ottawa rally.

But they aren’t going to change the minds of anyone in Ottawa, and it’s unlikely they’ll tell the feds something they don’t already know.

It’s also worth noting that it appears the number of participants was much lower than expected. Organizers touted there would be hundreds making the drive from the west to the east. It appears there wasn’t even 100 who left Virden, Man., on Friday.

They had a lot who joined them briefly along the way. But it was still a far cry from the number projected.

It also means a smaller crowd for Parliament Hill.

Organizers will tout the number of short-term participants, the support they have received since the convoy was first discussed, and the number of people who have warmly greeted them along the way, as reasons to celebrate. But they didn’t get hundreds of trucks rolling from Red Deer to Ottawa.

It hurt that one group involved with the convoy, Canada Action, pulled out because this convoy was initially connected with the Yellow Vests. Canada Action is another group understandably skittish because of the Yellow Vests’ stance on illegal immigration. While organizers of United we Roll have also tried to distance themselves from the Yellow Vests, you’ll still see many of them on this convoy.

Ultimately, there will be some dissatisfaction with this convoy. Dissatisfaction with the number of trucks involved. Dissatisfaction with the bottom line.

It’s not going to change anything in Western Canada. The seats that the federal Liberals lose in the west were lost long before the convoy set out from Ottawa. If they lose seats in B.C.’s Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, or in eastern Canada, then odds are it will be for other issues than energy policy. (Although there could be losses in New Brunswick stemming from the demise of the Energy East pipeline).

If the Liberals lose this election, it’s going to be because of a scandal like the one that came forward recently involving former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, or because of the Liberals fiscal mismanagement, or because of gaffes like the ill-fated India trip last year.

It’s not going to be because of yellow vests, convoys or rallies in Saskatchewan, regardless of how strong they advocate for change.