House Arrest - Ep. 17 - Trucker Roundtable

00:00:00.000 hello everyone it's chris here tamara is busy obviously she is out with rebel right now with

00:00:26.240 the book signing tour. And so you're stuck with me today. I believe we're live right now.

00:00:56.240 there we go we can hear some people excuse the delay everyone I don't know if I'm on here by

00:01:12.240 myself right now I've got some guests lined up and we were having some technical issues

00:01:15.900 earlier so I just want to see and I can't seem to stream this I'm in the truck right now

00:01:20.800 I'm out trucking I am back in Saskatchewan after a quick trip to South Dakota

00:01:25.540 and a reload in uh in north dakota this morning got tied up for the morning and uh we're back

00:01:35.280 in saskatchewa now headed for the saskatoon region with a tractor for one of my customers so

00:01:40.140 um for some reason i'm in the show but i can't see our guests in the waiting room we were just

00:01:47.460 chatting tasha are you still in there

00:01:55.540 we're gonna have to stream this the big reds account afterwards i guess because i don't see

00:02:02.100 how i thought i have everything set up on my laptop but maybe i was mistaken so

00:02:06.980 we are having a little bit of troubles here

00:02:10.420 i'm trying to do this while i'm playing on my laptop so excuse me everyone

00:02:20.200 usually i can see people in the in the stream yard system you can see the people that are down

00:02:25.220 in the bottom there we just had everybody up there and as soon as we went live I lost everybody

00:02:29.160 so unfortunately you're stuck with me right now myself and I and you all so

00:02:34.280 I literally just got in I just got parked about 15 minutes ago I got stuck in North Dakota for

00:02:43.840 a little while this morning while I was waiting for permits for Montana and so that put me a

00:02:48.800 little bit behind the border went really well today I'm hauling a used piece of equipment so

00:02:53.560 I had to do what they call the 72-hour clearance with U.S. Customs before I could cross into

00:02:58.600 Canada. So I'm at a loss right now with logging into my stuff here. So you'll have to bear with

00:03:06.960 me here until we get some technical things fixed while I fix and log in here so we can stream it

00:03:13.200 out to everybody. This is the trouble with trucking and then trying to do this show.

00:03:16.940 um tamara is obviously out i believe she's in calgary right now

00:03:21.360 so i'll ask for your patience while i try and get things logged in and under wraps here

00:03:28.640 it's been a busy last little while jonathan has been out trucking like crazy he's hauling

00:03:33.980 sprayers at a benson minnesota uh back to swift current and i am uh doing i did a combine to

00:03:43.340 south dakota of course i'm going to just try and log into my big red account here so i can stream

00:03:56.000 it out it's telling me that i can't log into that account so for some reason i am kind of

00:04:13.180 messed up here so we'll accept it this is obviously streaming on all the other platforms

00:04:19.060 i have lost everybody so

00:04:22.740 it's usually better when tamara's here isn't it then you can at least

00:04:27.820 you know she can fill the gap while i'm trying to do other stuff so

00:04:30.900 and tamara just texts the group chat and said how can i help you could be here because we're

00:04:35.660 having troubles this is not the chris show this is the house arrest although i'm in house arrest

00:04:40.920 right now in big red and zippy is uh sound asleep on the passenger seat here waiting for me to take

00:04:46.040 him out for his nightly pee so for some reason i can't see anybody

00:04:53.040 okay if we can do this i'll bring uh jay and with tonight's guests we're gonna bring jay

00:05:08.780 van and we're on jay can you hear me yes i can chris good okay help me out buddy fill the

00:05:14.780 conversation we have sanch in the background too sanch diebold is uh one of the truckers from

00:05:21.120 north battleford saskatchewan that was with the sun convoy she traveled all the way out to ottawa

00:05:24.960 jay van and we're as most people know um jay you had the black freight liner you were front and

00:05:31.420 center for convoy were you not do you want to give uh the listeners a little bit of an insight on on

00:05:35.780 what your role was and why you went to ottawa sure yeah i got lucky enough to be at what i called

00:05:42.800 zero zero two wellington uh mike in the red western star was at zero zero one because he was

00:05:49.140 right beside uh peace peace tower uh and then we were the second truck beside him and uh we came a

00:05:57.720 day earlier than the west so we kind of snuck in there i think actually i felt like we took your

00:06:02.400 spot to be honest but uh

00:06:05.780 but anyway when well when we when we realized what we were in one of the best pieces of real

00:06:13.460 estate in the world at the time then i had a shed on the back of my flatbed and that's what we were

00:06:21.280 going to live in for the weekend is kind of how we figured and then uh a weekend or so we built a

00:06:28.340 media platform on the top of it thinking well we gotta we got the best spot in the world like

00:06:34.160 let's let's share the truth and uh you know i remember we invited like um at the time we were

00:06:42.440 tweeting out somebody who has way more skills than i do and that was tweeting out things like uh

00:06:48.100 elon elon musk or donald trump or whatever you're invited to uh have an interview here in ottawa uh

00:06:55.000 never happened but yeah so that's um that became quite uh it did quite your turn is quite famous

00:07:05.000 because of the the the broadcasting from david dave paisley right live from the shed dave's kind

00:07:12.660 of disappeared in the last number of years i really missed listening to his podcast and his

00:07:16.520 uh his talking i know dave had a little bit of a rough time with the amount of trolls online and

00:07:21.440 the amount of hate that come came his way it's sad to see because he was definitely a voice

00:07:25.780 for a lot of people especially through convoy a big shout out to him yeah he uh he's doing well

00:07:33.780 i do speak with him once in a while and uh he's doing well but yeah he just wanted to step away

00:07:37.800 from that i thought he had a role maybe in the future in his future life as a as a reporter of

00:07:44.080 some sort he was really good at at uh speaking and and sharing what was important especially at

00:07:49.660 that time he was yes and it's sad to see that it comes down to that you know you see a lot of

00:07:55.180 people come on here uh and all of a sudden they just disappear and there is a lot of hate that

00:08:00.060 comes your way you know as soon as you put yourself out there on social media as a personality

00:08:04.300 um there's people out there that i've got death threats my family has had death threats

00:08:08.880 it's sad it's sickening but i keep reminding most people you know you just got to stick with it and

00:08:14.260 ignore the hate you try to ignore the hate i love to troll way too much of course and that's

00:08:18.420 it's not what this show is about so tell me why you uh tell me why you went to ottawa

00:08:24.400 yeah i mean it's four years ago already but uh try to put myself back in that frame of mind but it

00:08:32.080 was just uh two years of um stupidity um you know we started i started out uh wearing masks and and

00:08:43.400 kind of hearing stuff like or let me back up i guess i just heard stuff on the news that maybe

00:08:48.180 stuff was happening in the world and whatever so when you went in a store or something you had to

00:08:52.060 wear a mask and um yeah you had to uh social distance and we're you know we would stand in the

00:09:00.140 uh corner at work and talk about it and we're all just perplexed what's going on you know and then

00:09:05.560 it it was just going to be two weeks to flatten the curve and then it was going to be uh this and

00:09:10.920 then it was going to be this and now you can't visit your uh aging grandparents in the in the

00:09:16.260 home uh you have to look through the window and and it's just getting stupider and stupider as it

00:09:22.160 went and um then you started hearing stories of people uh having mental breakdowns and things like

00:09:30.560 that and uh people having weddings and funerals with uh not not everyone allowed to go and if you

00:09:40.060 did go now your neighbors maybe were um tattletailing on you and we saw videos of police

00:09:46.520 officers uh uh tasing a kid in calgary that was playing pond hockey and anyway so all that stuff

00:09:54.000 uh eventually we heard this convoy was going and it was winter time and it's slower at work

00:10:00.660 in the winter time and i thought hey that's something i can do i and then i i remember

00:10:05.820 distinctly chris sitting in a excavator seat on a job site and i i felt like the holy spirit said

00:10:13.440 to me you got to go that's you you got to go so didn't know what i was going to do i called a few

00:10:19.540 people wondered who would go with me and maybe we'll go for the weekend and then it'll be over

00:10:23.440 you know and then uh my co-worker luke lubinsky um said well why don't you take the freight liner

00:10:30.520 it's and i said okay well i don't got a bunk on there where am i going to sleep he says i'll just

00:10:34.740 put an ice shack on it or something and then my brother he sells uh amish made sheds so i asked

00:10:41.460 him if i could borrow a shed and my dad and mom helped me uh install a little uh porta potty in

00:10:47.720 the front corner which became very well used during the convoy thanks to the city not allowing

00:10:53.460 us to actually bring in and and service uh regular porta potties for all those crowds

00:10:58.140 uh so again you know that whole being treated like animals was had been going on for a couple

00:11:05.040 years and then they they doubled down while we were in ottawa and just and just you know called

00:11:10.820 us names and and didn't let us you know have bathrooms and all that crap so yeah that's that's

00:11:18.720 where it started and then that's why i ended up staying for the three and a half weeks it almost

00:11:23.980 felt like the the government you know provoked us into taking that stand you know i i think about it

00:11:31.260 quite frequently you know what they did to us and how they tried to demonize us in legacy media and

00:11:36.840 tear us apart and make us sound like white supremacists and misogynists and people you know

00:11:41.240 it became a you know a power struggle over you know ottawa is our capital people are allowed to

00:11:49.000 protest the government and that's what we wanted to do and that's what we were trying to do and

00:11:52.620 the government trampled on our constitutional freedoms by not listening to us number one

00:11:57.320 and to this day how many four years no accountability for the way government

00:12:01.900 treated canadian citizens who were tired of this and the stories we heard of the

00:12:05.740 that one gets me all the time is the care homes and the hospitals watching your loved one pass

00:12:10.400 away on an ipad i know i spoke with so many people out here across the country that that happened to

00:12:14.860 and oh i don't know well that yeah and then like you said when we i mean i just

00:12:25.160 you know out of my own free will i came and i joined the convoy i didn't even make it in time

00:12:30.740 to the meeting point i didn't didn't really know uh harold jonker was our our captain i knew him

00:12:36.500 but i didn't know him uh turns out now him and his whole family were best buddies and we're

00:12:42.000 we're neighbors about five kilometers away from each other like but but before that you know you

00:12:48.480 knew of these people but now uh four years later you consider them brothers right and um anyway

00:12:56.120 i went on my own free will joined the convoy in vineland um didn't know what to expect

00:13:03.420 first overpass i go under there's like a thousand people standing on the bridge with flags and

00:13:10.020 banners and like holy shit this is actually gonna be this is something like i didn't know what to

00:13:16.100 expect i knew you guys were coming i'd been watching you a bit coming across country um

00:13:21.340 and then our our convoy from from niagara was just growing and growing and growing and every

00:13:27.700 overpass was more people and um me and my cousin who was sitting beside me we were just i said man

00:13:34.640 it's uh getting dusty in here like we're crying like this is crazy so yeah do you feel like yeah

00:13:44.080 do you feel like you know do you feel like we owed something to those people standing on those

00:13:49.420 overpasses in that cold frigid weather you know i felt like when we went from medicine hat all the

00:13:54.820 way to ottawa i felt like that the people that were standing on the side of the highway we owed

00:13:59.780 it to them to follow through with this that was the way i felt about it and a lot of us a lot of

00:14:05.520 them told us in our travels and you know don't leave until something's done and and you know

00:14:11.140 ottawa like that that was on my conscience a lot we owed it to the people that we still were

00:14:16.200 standing up for at that time agreed i thought i thought originally we were going to drive through

00:14:21.360 the city honk our horns a little bit end up at a truck stop out of town grab a bus in the morning

00:14:26.600 and go in with some placards and signs and stand on the on the grass there and and then he would

00:14:32.280 come out and talk to us and say hey guys i'm trying my best and we'd say okay that's good

00:14:36.680 enough for us we're just easy going canadians you know we're not going to put up too much of a fuss

00:14:41.200 but then he he called us all kinds of names and and wanted to come see us and got fake covid so

00:14:48.280 can hide oh got an echo up there

00:15:00.120 the echo is bad sancha's house oh no i can hear myself echoing

00:15:10.520 i hate that there's nothing worse than coming on a show and you're like i do this every now

00:15:14.840 now and then i was just talking to sounds backstage before this happened you come on my something

00:15:19.540 setting in my computer at home changes and i can't log in anything and then i come in the truck here

00:15:24.360 where i think everything's on already on my laptop and i'm not streaming to my big red account so

00:15:29.260 wherever this is streaming right now it is what it is i will share it out afterward um can't do much

00:15:35.460 about it here from the road this is the trouble with having a having a job and not working your

00:15:39.880 tail off all the time and so ideally jade the amount of people in ottawa that were coming up

00:15:48.360 to us and telling their stories um and and the amount of support we had in the city in the amount

00:15:54.080 of you know the joyfulness that we've seen and the amount of people actually living their lives

00:15:58.840 again was a was a that was something that kept us going was it not yeah absolutely like just

00:16:08.040 driving in and and uh all those overpasses and then i think the first truck stop we stopped at

00:16:13.780 i forget exactly where but there was this huge crowd of people bringing us uh lunch like buns

00:16:20.340 with meat and cheese and chili and uh it's like wow like this is nuts this is absolutely nuts and

00:16:28.160 everybody's hugging and high-fiving and smiling we haven't seen smiles in two years right and um

00:16:35.320 just like holy cow this is bigger than we thought and then uh when we got to ottawa yeah just the

00:16:41.620 amount of people not only uh coming into the city but locals that would come out uh every night and

00:16:49.620 say hey thanks for thanks for coming we needed something we needed we needed some hope and um

00:16:55.860 yeah i say like truthfully the reason i stayed as long as i did was because i had grandmothers and i

00:17:03.720 like uh like european grandmothers like um ladies that have been through a lot in their lives

00:17:11.320 coming coming up saying you have to stay like you're you're giving the country hope you're

00:17:16.360 giving the world hope and you can't leave and so you know on one hand you're getting uh told by the

00:17:22.900 police force and uh and the uh prime minister that you're you're no good for nothing and worse than

00:17:31.440 that and then on the other hand you have real people telling you real stories of hurt and

00:17:37.740 and they're saying please stay so it's a no-brainer for any uh common person you're of course you're

00:17:47.380 gonna stay um and so you know i stayed till the cops told me i had to go at gunpoint and then uh

00:17:56.340 Well, they didn't say go at that point.

00:17:57.840 They said, you're under arrest.

00:17:59.900 And I willingly gave them my hands and said, okay, well, if that's where we got to go as a country,

00:18:04.520 that's where we got to go right now.

00:18:06.900 And so be it, right?

00:18:09.140 So you were arrested.

00:18:10.400 You were charged.

00:18:11.980 What were you charged with?

00:18:15.200 I had four charges.

00:18:18.760 And two of them were dropped within a year.

00:18:22.820 But I got stuck with two mischief charges.

00:18:26.140 one personally and then one corporately something to that effect uh i still honestly

00:18:33.260 as a as a common working man i don't understand how they got a guilty verdict on that

00:18:42.620 um what i heard in court what i saw the lawyers talking about and the and the judge it it still

00:18:49.660 doesn't make sense to me today like uh that they could actually pin a crime on on me but they did

00:18:56.780 i think it was the doubling down of the government on it um yeah same here i sat in that courtroom

00:19:02.800 for you know basically two years and listened to witnesses and stuff that didn't pertain anything

00:19:08.260 to me and the amount of stuff that the crown was just throwing was laughable at sometimes it was

00:19:15.360 you know sad in the next so they got you on a mischief obviously you were found guilty on a

00:19:21.940 mischief what was your you you did some you did the sentence didn't you a little similar to the

00:19:26.140 one that i'm having right now right yeah i mean a lot a lot less but uh but back to the laughable

00:19:32.960 moments we we had a uh they were showing a ton of videos of my own videos that i created i mean i

00:19:38.900 had never done like maybe in my life i had done two facebook lives uh in the past just uh uh

00:19:46.780 i did a rant one day about driving you know from from trucking i did a rant and

00:19:52.000 and a few a few of my friends and family laughed and whatever it was funny and that was i did that

00:19:58.360 maybe twice three times and then i got to ottawa and i said somebody's got to document this stuff

00:20:03.780 like this is nuts i got to show the people home what's actually happening because i was watching

00:20:08.400 the news just the same as the next guy and it was it was lies it was totally not what was going on

00:20:14.400 so anyway i made these facebook lives and then um in the courtroom they're showing them and then uh

00:20:22.400 a bunch of people are supporting me in the courtroom of course and there's a scene where uh

00:20:27.760 uh, we're visiting the, uh, uh, the camp outside of town there at, uh, uh, what was that called?

00:20:37.360 Embram exit 88. Exit 88. Yeah. So I'm, my dad and sister had come to visit mom and, and, uh,

00:20:45.140 David Paisley was with us. Uh, and so we're walking around and, and then, uh, I'm talking to some

00:20:52.140 lady there or some girl and uh i mentioned oh by the way dave uh dave here he's single like

00:21:00.020 just something like that well anyway the whole courtroom burst out laughing because we're

00:21:04.040 remembering this like this is this is a great memory and then we got a stern warning like no

00:21:10.580 laughter in the courtroom this is serious like we're different people we're we're in a different

00:21:16.100 world you know we're regular hard-working country people i mean we like to have fun uh we don't

00:21:24.660 really like we can spot pretty quick usually and and we we're living in it and then here we are in

00:21:33.220 the courtroom and we're getting reprimanded for for a bit of laughter you know so anyway um but

00:21:39.860 But, yeah, my sentence was a month and a half of house arrest

00:21:44.920 and a month and a half of curfew.

00:21:48.700 And then the judge said, much like you, he said,

00:21:53.040 you can go to work because we want to keep getting your tax dollars.

00:21:56.620 That would be nice.

00:21:57.600 Since you're supporting us, let's keep getting that.

00:22:01.400 And then you can farm as well because we don't, you know.

00:22:04.640 So I'm thinking, well, that's all I do is I work and I farm

00:22:07.600 and i go to church on sunday and um you know he even gave me uh five hours a week or something

00:22:14.740 that i go shopping or something so really there was i i say it like this like he gave me the most

00:22:21.580 lenient sentence he could because i think in in truth he looked out at his courtroom and he saw

00:22:26.760 this farmer that was not a criminal but because of his position in a politically charged courtroom

00:22:35.120 he had to do what he had to do and so he gave me the easiest sentence he could give me without

00:22:42.080 um uh like taking away much so i i didn't my life didn't really change much so people say oh boy you

00:22:53.580 had a you had a sentence and everything and uh it wasn't that bad right and yeah i i'm a criminal

00:23:01.200 now according to my record but

00:23:03.040 so far too that hasn't

00:23:05.500 really affected me

00:23:06.900 Have you had any trouble comes from the border

00:23:09.580 into the states? Have you tried

00:23:11.180 with the criminal record? I have yeah I've been

00:23:13.100 across three times just with the

00:23:15.140 family and never wants a question

00:23:17.120 about it or anything so

00:23:18.380 I wonder if I tried to

00:23:21.180 go in the truck if that would be a different story

00:23:23.180 I don't know but

00:23:24.040 The judge in our sentence

00:23:26.980 when she read the sentence though she said that a misdemeanor

00:23:29.120 charge was not something that the u.s looks at as a as a sentence or a criminal record worthy of

00:23:35.060 being banned from going into the states so she kind of handed that down knowing that it shouldn't

00:23:39.980 affect me i guess if you find the wrong guard it possibly could but uh i just you know i'm prepared

00:23:45.640 for it if it does happen but most of the time if you're barred from the states it's because you're

00:23:49.720 you've been felt guilty of a violent crime you know dwi would be considered a violent crime

00:23:54.600 somewhere injury b and e you know all that sort of stuff so sanch is your mic working i hope so

00:24:01.960 can you hear me yes there you are everybody this is sanch north battleford saskatchewan

00:24:08.200 truckers that went to ottawa and uh yes why why why did you go sanch did you plan on like taking

00:24:15.800 part in the full three weeks no i had no idea actually um what inspired me to go um other than

00:24:24.880 all the restrictions and covid things that were going on is when i heard about the mandates they

00:24:30.860 were putting for the truckers to cross the border and i thought this just doesn't make sense why

00:24:36.460 would truckers crossing the border have to be vaccinated quarantine testing done when you're

00:24:45.660 solo sat in your truck go to your destination most of the time you don't get out

00:24:55.100 you're not mixing with other people and it didn't make sense and i spoke to a former

00:25:01.980 student of mine and she just got herself a truck and i said you know what

00:25:06.460 i think we should go on this convoy and seen a little bit of on facebook and didn't know what

00:25:13.100 to expect didn't wasn't prepared for anything we were prepared to go down to uh balgoni and

00:25:20.000 meet the alberta and bc the west crew and go for the night and what ended up three and a half weeks

00:25:28.400 in autumn that's probably one of my favorite stories that nicole hunt has told me you know

00:25:34.340 she throws her two children in a truck that she'd owned for like a week or something like that

00:25:39.460 we're gonna go to belgoni and we're gonna come home and then the next thing you know i'm begging

00:25:44.720 nicole to leave ottawa on the saturday i think it was saturday i was begging nicole because you

00:25:51.380 know nicole she had her two young kids you know early not even one was what i don't even know how

00:25:56.700 tyler would have been at that time maybe 10 yeah 10 and six or 10 and eight and

00:26:02.360 and uh had a crying fest on the phone i said nicole it's time to go home we're heading home

00:26:10.180 on saturday of course i had you know court restrictions and and the conditions that i

00:26:15.100 had to leave on saturday and she's like no i want to stay and fight yeah there was no place for it

00:26:20.680 at that time when you got you know children in the truck and she cried a little bit and then you

00:26:25.520 and nicole and i think there was what about seven or eight trucks that went home from ottawa together

00:26:30.120 yeah we all went home together yeah yeah it was a somber ride exactly exactly and i always remember

00:26:38.200 there was one i can't remember the town you might remember because you i think you were ahead of me

00:26:42.600 weren't you on the convoy and there was a guy stood there and he went like this as we all drove past

00:26:48.360 and we all had tears running down it was an emotional roller coaster from the from the moment

00:26:52.760 you left you didn't know what to expect all the way along um with uh i heard you talking earlier

00:27:01.000 about the the overpasses and the the uh the people who stood beside the roads day and night day and

00:27:09.400 night and tears and people coming up to your trucks and holding your hand and not letting go

00:27:14.120 of your hand and saying please stay please stay and it was just an it was emotional roller coaster

00:27:19.240 it for me yeah i found sandwiches i thought i found frozen sandwiches and cookies under the bed

00:27:24.600 in the truck because that was what everywhere you went somebody was handing you you know hot soup or

00:27:29.560 sandwiches or pop like i said i did a tick tock about this today and i don't know if i could even

00:27:35.880 find it up here but uh i dropped the visor in the truck today just for something and the tim hordes

00:27:41.640 gift card yes you know there's there's two two gift cards in here and i don't know what's on

00:27:47.560 them for the card but you know every now and then you get a reminder of ottawa like that and that's

00:27:52.680 what tim horton could probably there was so many of them there was so many so many of them yeah

00:28:00.440 yeah and then for us we just you know we literally with the clothes we were in we were just going

00:28:06.280 overnight for one night i actually had work and i had students um i'm an instructor a class one

00:28:14.600 instructor and i had students here and i said to my husband i'm just going overnight me and

00:28:18.840 nicole um i'll be back tomorrow and then we met up with the west crew um i called and i said

00:28:29.640 actually i'm just going to go a little bit further east um you know winnipeg i'll be back in a day or

00:28:36.760 two and literally we only had clothes didn't even have a hairbrush nothing with us me and

00:28:41.720 Nicole had to stop in Walmart and get some supplies didn't have a toothbrush nothing just fly off the

00:28:48.680 feet of our pants didn't know what to expect and wow you know um and like what he was saying you

00:28:56.600 know the the overpasses and you're thinking oh wow there's a few people here a few people there

00:29:01.400 and then the beeping of the horns and a few people and more and more and the flags and you're thinking

00:29:06.520 wow you know and and it was real it felt wow it's real you know and then all of a sudden all this

00:29:13.400 unity and everyone coming together it you had to be there to to feel that you know it was amazing

00:29:21.960 if the politicians could have seen what we've seen on our way to ottawa do you think that would have

00:29:26.280 changed their mindset in having a conversation when we got there because i don't think they've

00:29:30.520 seen any of that yeah i think so i think so i think everyone had their heart in there and they

00:29:37.080 if they were where we were at and saw the the people and the the little children everyone

00:29:43.340 of course i think i believe they would yeah jay how far of a drive is it from niagara region to

00:29:49.620 ottawa for you on convoy and how long do you think it took you well it's normally a six-hour drive

00:29:55.620 uh i mean we took we took a i don't know a good 12 hours to get there probably like it was it was

00:30:04.380 a slow drive right we did we did so many i forget where we slept the first night but we

00:30:09.340 we stopped at a truck stop and then we finished the second day but but um

00:30:15.980 oh what yeah never mind i just had a thought and it went away

00:30:23.780 For us, I think we would average, what, 60 to 70 kilometers an hour per day.

00:30:29.980 So I know our first stop was Belgone.

00:30:32.240 I'm sitting close to there right now, actually, coming in from the States.

00:30:36.220 Our second night was Kenora, Ontario.

00:30:39.600 Our third night was Thunder Bay, Ontario.

00:30:42.200 You know, that's a – and then we were Sault Ste. Marie,

00:30:45.020 and then Sault Ste. Marie right to just outside of Ottawa.

00:30:48.580 And that drive usually takes you two and a half, three days.

00:30:51.320 it took us what you know five days to get there yeah yeah five days and thunder bay was where um

00:30:59.080 wasn't that where the hudderite um followed us yes manitoba um never forget that headingly manitoba

00:31:07.480 i swear to this day was the most emotional experience i think i've ever witnessed i don't

00:31:13.080 know yes the people were lined up on both sides of the highway rcmp called me um we were scheduled

00:31:20.600 to stop at the Flying J in Headingley, Manitoba, RCMP called me and they said, you know what,

00:31:25.560 this parking lot, there's 10,000 people here. You can't come in here. It's a safety hazard.

00:31:30.600 And of course we listened to law enforcement the entire time across there. And so we had

00:31:34.680 to abort that. We actually parked south of the city on perimeter, you know, lined up

00:31:39.220 on a service road and the Hutterites were supposed to feed us in that parking lot at

00:31:42.840 the Headingley, Flying J. And they followed us all the way to Kenora, Ontario, with cargo

00:31:48.880 trailers with hot meals and barbecues and cook stoves and and they fed us at like 11 o'clock at

00:31:55.200 night a cold parking lot i remember the food was warm enough that you could actually warm your

00:31:59.440 hands up yes yeah it was freezing it was so cold and i think one of i'm not sure if it if you guys

00:32:09.280 were on the same street or me and nicole got or diverted but it was a heck of a hill and yeah

00:32:16.240 right and i couldn't make it to the top and i was spinning out even with all my locks on

00:32:20.140 i had to back right the way down and go around some detour way is that where you guys went

00:32:26.560 i remember going up the hill but maybe i was i was one of the first ones up and so maybe

00:32:30.800 action at that time but i remember thinking like holy crap we're downtown nor Ontario here and

00:32:36.260 there's guys with 53 foot trailers behind us how are they gonna make this but you know it was tight

00:32:41.920 in there it was kind of i just remember how cold it was and how um wonderful and those people were

00:32:49.160 to us i've actually stopped a couple times it's the recreational center in kenora where they put

00:32:54.220 us up for the night and i've on my way back and forth with my eight trips to ottawa for trial in

00:32:58.860 the last few years i've stopped a couple times i took my father out and i showed him a lot of the

00:33:02.440 ins and the outs of the different places that you know were memorable in convoy and that was

00:33:07.340 definitely one of them yeah just meeting those people stands out to me as well yeah yeah so in

00:33:14.040 the end of the day essentially you were not arrested you uh you're hanging out with two

00:33:19.680 convicted criminals here so i just want to know that actually the day when it was move out or get

00:33:30.180 your truck seized i will always remember that morning you know early hours in the morning and

00:33:35.460 someone was hammering on my door you know get out get out get out and i looked in my mirror

00:33:42.020 and two blocks behind me was it felt like i was in um a fat you know um where all the camel you

00:33:49.860 know in the desert afghanistan and it was like a whole soldier hopefully and i'm thinking oh my

00:33:56.820 goodness i've got to get out i've got to get out of here and i didn't want to i didn't want to i

00:34:02.580 I was like Nicole, I am staying here to the end.

00:34:07.020 People have held my hand and not let go and said, please don't leave.

00:34:10.520 And I felt obliged and wanted to be there for them, you know,

00:34:16.160 and they were all hanging on us being there.

00:34:19.580 But I looked in my mirror and thought, wow, I'm going to get seized and arrested.

00:34:27.040 And thought, okay, I'm going to try and get out of here.

00:34:29.800 I think we'd had a dump more dumping of snow and that was the next thing to try and try and get

00:34:35.080 out of there and I was just a couple of blocks from parliament hill downtown there not in the

00:34:41.640 residential area though right you were in the business district I remember you trying to work

00:34:45.320 there you know that's right in the business district and you know sadly and reluctantly I

00:34:50.760 everyone said you've got to go you've got to roll got to roll and so I rolled with the other trucks

00:34:56.200 and rolled rolled out of there um but i could see them and that that you know in in my mirror there

00:35:01.720 and that was awful i thought wow i feel like i'm in in some war zone coming because they were it

00:35:07.480 it was horrible i'm glad you did because uh you know jay obviously was arrested at his truck so

00:35:13.880 jay what happened in your truck after you were arrested can you tell that story yeah i actually

00:35:20.920 uh i was doing a live uh at the time watching the watching the troops come forward uh

00:35:28.200 um across uh wellington and then uh we were parked at metcalf and uh so then they they kept

00:35:36.840 moving well then i saw ben the guy with the boom truck that we were using for a stage

00:35:41.880 uh they were beating him up pushing him around and uh they sprayed pepper spray in his eyes and

00:35:46.760 And, um, he wasn't resisting at all.

00:35:49.040 They just, uh, they were just being rough.

00:35:51.780 And I thought, oh, wow, that's, uh, that's quite something.

00:35:55.340 And then there was, uh, a guy in the truck with me.

00:35:58.260 He said, oh, I'll stay with you.

00:35:59.480 I said, well, that's just dumb.

00:36:00.620 I says, there's only one guy needs to get arrested with each truck.

00:36:03.220 But I said, we should, we should have somebody with each truck.

00:36:06.580 Like that's kind of, we're making a stand.

00:36:09.660 So I shook his hand.

00:36:11.520 He got out and I turn around and I hear time to get out.

00:36:15.780 and that's a policeman pointing his pistol at me.

00:36:20.500 So, okay, I'll get out.

00:36:21.820 Well, then I jumped down.

00:36:23.860 No, I stood on my step with my phone, and then it's recording the whole time.

00:36:31.700 And then he's yelling, get down, get down.

00:36:34.380 So, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming.

00:36:35.640 And then they grab me with six guys or so, and they're throwing me around.

00:36:41.760 and and i just all you hear on the phone is it's getting kicked out of my hand

00:36:46.800 and uh i'm just saying everybody calm down just calm down and i just think that's so funny because

00:36:54.960 i'm i'm just i'm i'm the criminal right like i'm the bad guy and i'm just like calm down just like

00:37:01.120 chill out everybody we're cool we're like no one's here to hurt you

00:37:04.560 dude it was nuts and then then they were telling me get your hands get your hands behind your back

00:37:15.900 while my hands are pinned one hand is pinned underneath me and my kind of like i'm a trucker

00:37:21.280 i don't know about you guys but i can hardly move on a good day if you get out of the truck and and

00:37:27.640 you you know you walk from the the fuel island to the the the the restaurant or something and

00:37:33.720 you're just like okay maybe by 50 feet it okay now i'm standing straight good good we're you

00:37:39.020 know we're presentable again but so i'm like i can't i can't like you got six of you on top of

00:37:43.520 me and i can't move my hand like i don't know what you want from me so i remember that and then they

00:37:48.480 they stuck me in a a paddy wagon after they processed me and i sat there for three or four

00:37:54.420 hours with uh one other gentleman and uh he was a frenchman and he had come just for the day

00:38:01.440 he had lost his job he had lost his girlfriend he was a mental basket case all from COVID

00:38:09.060 restrictions he just he was ready to commit suicide he told me well the reason I found

00:38:16.560 that out when we got to the police station they ask questions when you're getting processed and

00:38:22.840 so one of the questions is like do you have any symptoms of COVID-19 blah blah blah are you

00:38:29.480 suicidal uh because that they treat you differently inside i guess right guy says well i was up until

00:38:37.720 today and then i came here and my faith in humanity was restored and i just thought that

00:38:43.260 was such a powerful powerful moment and the two of us shared uh we i asked him if i could pray

00:38:49.920 with him because i didn't know what else to do and uh we had like that was a hugely emotional

00:38:55.220 thing too right meanwhile outside the the paddy wagon the four cops with us were uh discussing

00:39:02.180 what they were going to do with all their overtime pay one was going to do a kitchen

00:39:05.660 reno one was thinking about doing a bathroom reno maybe and they were laughing and carrying

00:39:10.400 on like just another day at work right and meanwhile i'm having this moment with a guy

00:39:15.460 who was maybe going to not be there tomorrow and that was like how come i was seeing all this but

00:39:22.380 those boys working their cop shift couldn't care less so back to your point earlier you guys were

00:39:28.380 talking about what if the politicians saw what we saw i don't know if it would have changed

00:39:35.800 anything i had a i had a neighbor call me he was so angry um uh he saw on the news that the

00:39:43.540 terry fox statue had been defaced and i was parked right beside it i could see it out of my

00:39:51.760 passenger window and i look out i'm like oh what's wrong with it and i see a sign in his hands like

00:40:00.140 the way the statue is he can kind of hold a sign and it says something like end mandates or

00:40:06.020 something like that mandate freedom yeah and he's got a he's got a flag draped around his shoulders

00:40:12.500 canadian flag which is like i thought that is that is perfect that would have been terry if he

00:40:17.480 was alive today i i think so i'm like okay well it's not like there's no spray paint there's no

00:40:22.980 f you this or that it's okay so i shared that with my neighbor and he he uh no no that's just

00:40:31.180 wrong i can't believe you'd stoop to that level and blah blah blah i said can i can i invite you

00:40:37.440 to come and just sit in my cab for one hour i said in fact i will pay you a hundred bucks an

00:40:46.000 hour i remember telling him i'll pay you a hundred bucks an hour if if you would just come for a day

00:40:50.620 i just want you to feel it see it and then then we'll talk and he says no i don't need to i can

00:40:56.320 see what i need to see on the news and this is a neighbor right like this so so this is the diff

00:41:03.920 like and i yeah i don't know if like i've tried to change i've tried to empathize with with the

00:41:12.120 other like the other side and different political things you know and I'm almost 50 years old and

00:41:19.200 I'm at the point where I'm like well I don't I don't think I don't think we can uh we can't do

00:41:25.840 it like we're just different we're built different I don't know anyway I know there's been like I know

00:41:33.040 it firsthand that I've been able to reason with somebody that was dead set against me you know

00:41:37.360 and meet them at a place of commonness I guess and you know not agree on everything and still

00:41:43.960 be off base on everything but at least have an understanding there and I know I've done that a

00:41:48.580 number of times and I'm thankful for that experience because it's it's kind of humbled

00:41:53.000 me even more annoying but you know I don't have any hate in my heart towards these people but I

00:41:58.540 sure see a lot of it from them and when you look at especially the Terry Fox statue he's a Canadian

00:42:03.900 icon i remember him as a kid uh when i was you know in high school i wasn't even in high school

00:42:09.940 at that time i was like what year was that when he passed it was in the 80s um when we see

00:42:16.640 palestinian protesters draping you know the hijab around him or uh the pride community putting

00:42:22.700 rainbow flags around them there was no difference there between what you know we did compared to

00:42:27.900 what they did and yet we were demonized in the media and and if you want to get a group of

00:42:32.820 canadians you know to hate someone you know make it sound like we demonized terry fox and that's

00:42:38.960 definitely the way to do it the media did their their they did their propaganda extremely well

00:42:44.080 yeah i remember one time sorry um growing up for me i'm obviously from england and my parents you

00:42:54.160 know the news was on you know every time six o'clock every night you could be on watch the

00:43:00.380 media. And that's what we believed back then. When I was in Ottawa, one of the days I was

00:43:07.840 walking, left the truck, it was about two blocks away, and there was these concrete boulders

00:43:13.560 across the street. And I was on foot walking along, and I could see these guys hammering

00:43:20.080 up some plywood on storefronts. And I thought, oh, I wonder what's going on here. And there's

00:43:25.960 the global news van there and uh apparently later on that evening apparently we the truckers had

00:43:34.380 been looting and been smashing the windows and they were you know putting all the ply board up

00:43:41.140 um saying that we had done that and it was like i'd walked into a hollywood set and it was all

00:43:47.560 staged and i saw it witnessing it and i was streaming it live with my with my cell phone

00:43:52.700 and then it shut down i don't know where that that actual video went that i had done but i was

00:43:59.420 right there and i'm thinking wow and just setting us up it was a hollywood stage there and i'm

00:44:05.200 thinking wow but before that and years ago i would believe everything the media would say

00:44:09.860 but our family would sit and have suppers and dinners together we watched the flintstones from

00:44:17.720 12 o'clock till 12 30 on ctv and then from 12 or 12 30 to one o'clock would be your your saskatchewan

00:44:24.380 news and it's six o'clock or five o'clock whatever time it was we would sit down as a family at the

00:44:28.800 supper table and the news would be on and we discussed the current dates and we trusted the

00:44:32.260 media that's how we're raised right now none of my family members watch legacy media anymore just

00:44:37.960 because of what we've witnessed what we've seen sad yes very sad but like you're saying you have

00:44:43.600 to be there to to see that and believe it you're not the only one like there was guys right there

00:44:51.600 on wellington too that saw some staged things going on so yeah it definitely was real yeah

00:44:58.040 were you part of the were you part of the flag that certain flag that came out of one of the

00:45:02.000 hotel buildings did you witness that or was that something that was i didn't no no no i didn't

00:45:08.540 i know there's a story behind that and i know legacy tried to paint this is a you know a really

00:45:13.760 bad light around that and uh i know exactly it was the setup just like just like so many other

00:45:18.600 things same was you know somebody lit an apartment building on fire in downtown ottawa in the lobby

00:45:24.620 and it you know they lit it on fire in the in the lobby and they phoned media before they phoned the

00:45:30.240 fire department because they wanted to paint that and it came out during the poec that that was a

00:45:34.420 staged event but the media never retracted that story they never went back on that and told

00:45:38.700 Canadians what actually happened I believe that we just we have to keep just telling our stories

00:45:43.760 and that's why I was so excited to get you two on here tonight um to have that conversation and get

00:45:48.260 some stories out I think there's how many people have stories about Ottawa right yes yeah oh totally

00:45:54.860 and one of the reasons why I decided to fit in my truck tonight um was there was a lot of uh

00:46:01.180 residents from Ottawa and people from Quebec that came up to our windows, they all did,

00:46:08.780 and many of them said, can I sit in your truck? And I had them sat in the truck, and it just

00:46:13.620 made their day. They'd never seen what it looks like out of the window of a truck, being

00:46:17.420 in the truck, and it just made their day. And they were so happy and thankful, and the

00:46:22.880 smiles, you know? And I'm sure some listeners here tonight might be them and recognise this

00:46:30.920 truck and you get the flag behind you i see a few signatures on that flag so tell me about

00:46:36.280 the signatures on your flag i know i have many signatures you're actually on here chris all right

00:46:42.120 good i've sent some of these things over the last number of years signatures on here but i had um

00:46:48.280 lots of the um freedom fighters and the people down there some people from quebec and that's

00:46:55.480 something actually um that there was always from my perspective um the government had believed you

00:47:03.960 know there's the west east against the west west against the east you know what there was none of

00:47:09.240 that that i witnessed in on this freedom convoy a lot of the people that came up to my truck they

00:47:15.720 were all residents of ottawa quebec um they have biggest hearts um there was no division you know

00:47:25.960 it was that you're being united and the strength that being united um borders that's obviously what

00:47:33.240 the government was fearing because we have power when we united yep and there was many many from

00:47:40.760 the east and so i have lots of um there's a quebec one up there and lots of thank yous

00:47:46.840 um yukon white horse all over all over canada there's some americans on here and they wanted

00:47:54.440 to sign this flag and i yeah it's beautiful it was amazing i never you know i wasn't i was at

00:48:00.840 big red a number of times during convoy but we were so busy running around this flag this is by

00:48:05.080 me has been there for the last i put it up just before convoy i didn't have anybody sign it though

00:48:10.600 I never, you know, there was an amazing idea for that.

00:48:13.840 That flag is, that flag's got some miles on it.

00:48:17.440 Yeah.

00:48:18.840 Yeah, totally.

00:48:20.480 Totally.

00:48:20.960 And yeah, I cherish everything.

00:48:22.840 And I actually, this evening I was, um, uh, had a little luck and I was getting

00:48:27.600 someone, yeah, we all have these, you know, little things that the children have

00:48:31.560 done and the thank you cards and, you know, you know, and just a reminder that

00:48:37.960 standing, you know, together.

00:48:40.600 you know we're stronger together um and we can change the future and our army is getting bigger

00:48:47.480 and bigger every day yeah the truth is coming out it sometimes takes a little while for for things

00:48:52.440 to correct themselves but i believe that the more that we keep showing who we are is you know people

00:48:56.920 that took part in it or we're just blue color people we're not activists we're just workers

00:49:02.360 we just had enough i think you know we all truck through the the pandemic we've seen exactly the

00:49:06.920 effects i you know i had a microwave that was underneath the bed in this truck and cans of

00:49:11.400 soup that i would open and try and heat up to have a bite to eat we didn't have food we didn't have

00:49:15.720 amenities out here when when covet hit we were left to the wolves basically but we didn't complain

00:49:21.240 about it we just did our job and uh after two years it was becoming i didn't see the end in it did you

00:49:27.880 no no it was going to keep going yeah i would cross the border into north dakota and i remember

00:49:37.960 just a day and night difference you'd cross the border and you can eat in a restaurant you weren't

00:49:42.440 worried about you know following arrows in a grocery store you weren't worried about wearing

00:49:45.720 a mask in a restaurant until you sat down at the table no fixing passports and then all of a sudden

00:49:50.840 you come back to canada and you got to show an app on your phone to get back into your own country

00:49:54.680 as well as the passport that you own i don't know what it would take for more people to wake up

00:50:00.760 because i'm glad to have been awake back then yeah yeah so since you're in a driver instructing

00:50:08.600 class in north battle for saskatchewa and you are training the future of janitor's

00:50:13.800 you know trucking industry right now what are your thoughts on the where the industry's going

00:50:17.960 and the driver's standards out there to this day okay a tough one so um yeah we run the school

00:50:28.520 my husband's been running this teaching 20 years this trucking school and i've been teaching 15

00:50:35.820 years for the class one and we've seen a lot a lot of changes uh the melt program which is the

00:50:42.840 mandatory entry-level program that SGI, Saskatchewan government, as well as other provinces have put

00:50:51.740 together since the Humboldt crash. It's supposed to bring out more training, bring out stronger

00:50:59.320 drivers. For us and our community, 99% of our drivers are in the ag, our farm kids, our farmers.

00:51:08.460 um they do come out stronger however i want to say there's some customers that we have

00:51:19.140 who just come here get their training and it's so a weight um we thrive on the old school

00:51:30.380 old trucking we have the old older peterbilts and kenworths the 2000s the cat engines

00:51:38.260 slow and easy um is the way forward and we put a lot of students through like i say that are on

00:51:47.020 the agricultural sector not so much you know east west um on the highway trucking i think there is

00:51:56.020 a lot of benefit to it but you need to have that passion for trucking and i think it doesn't matter

00:52:02.480 if you put 200 hours four months if you don't have passion for trucking and you're just out there just

00:52:09.360 because it's an easy wage it's not going to change a thing no and i didn't i don't know if i should

00:52:16.020 take the podcast in this direction or not but i think it's a discussion that has to happen in this

00:52:19.900 country when i got my truck trucking license in 1992 it was the the week between christmas and

00:52:25.800 new year's my father and i jumped in the car we drove to yorkton saskatchewan van x driving school

00:52:31.520 i think you know 80 of saskatchewan truck drivers probably went to school at van x back in the day

00:52:37.520 it was a four-day course and when i got my class 1a driver's license it cost me 980 now that course

00:52:44.400 is 30 days of training what is it just under ten thousand dollars probably 12 000 maybe from 10

00:52:51.840 000 to 14 000 depending on where where you are actually my husband was talking about that today

00:52:56.960 it cost him just under five hundred dollars there was a bit of change at bandex in yorkton back in

00:53:02.960 the day back in the day back in the day when i came out of that school born and raised on a farm

00:53:08.080 drove the grain trucks uh for mom and dad obviously had a lot of experience behind the wheel of

00:53:12.560 driving and i couldn't find a job every place i went for a job you needed two years minimum

00:53:17.200 experience uh i was telling this for you a couple the other day i ended up taking a job with a

00:53:22.480 the gravel hauling company, the 24 foot belly dump, uh, electric switch on the bottom of

00:53:27.660 that belly dump. So if you accidentally hit that switch when you were driving, somebody

00:53:31.340 was getting free loaded gravel cause you couldn't turn that up. But I learned how to drive in

00:53:35.100 an old, uh, 1974 R model Mac. But I looked on the back roads out in the gravel where

00:53:40.480 you're pulling hills, spinning out on hills, turning around in really tight corners, backing

00:53:43.900 up into approaches. It was, uh, I swear that that job and that, that career in my time

00:53:50.420 saved my life and it probably saved countless of other thousands of people out here in the highway

00:53:53.960 because it gave me the skills that i needed to learn out on the where nobody was around to affect

00:53:59.540 and i think i lost it yeah yeah i know with us we we have our vans loaded we actually got a set

00:54:08.320 of super bees now because 99 of the students that leave here are going to be pulling super bees

00:54:14.940 um in the license there's no distinction in the license now whether what trailer you pull if

00:54:21.480 you're listed for heavy haul if graduated license that sort of thing so basically once you get your

00:54:25.360 1a as long as you can find a job they will throw up and send you off on the highway yeah basically

00:54:31.140 yeah i believe alberta is changing that i'm doing a graduated um a graduated program where you can

00:54:40.820 a certain weight certain trailers and what i believe i haven't looked into it that much

00:54:47.300 that would be a good idea that makes a lot of sense right like

00:54:51.540 yeah with different yeah with the weight i remember you saying chris a few days ago

00:54:58.420 and we noticed it every day those black marks on the road yeah or the the crashes um i i seriously

00:55:06.580 i have a i have a huge problem with the automatic transmission a part of the side of this industry

00:55:11.380 if you're coming into the trucking industry you should learn how to drive a stick

00:55:15.540 truck and you should learn on that right from day one but there's two parts to the driver's

00:55:19.700 license isn't there you can have an uh electric an automatic transmission endorsement or a standard

00:55:24.900 is that true that's right that's right and we get a lot of phone calls um from customers saying do

00:55:32.260 you have automatics no 18 and 30 speed but you know what i had a phone call just this week from

00:55:39.780 someone in toronto and there's three men and they said oh we've seen your peter belts we want to

00:55:46.260 learn in the standard we don't want from toronto nice school and i said really you don't want to

00:55:54.180 land in toronto no no no we want to learn in in your peanut belts wow i should elaborate on on

00:56:03.700 the difference why i mentioned the automatic transmission versus the standard transmission

00:56:07.860 in a commercial vehicle an automatic transmission will handle so much differently on ice and when

00:56:13.620 you're out here on the highways in the wintertime at a fresh snowfall and the first thing you see

00:56:16.980 in the ditch you don't see the long nose trucks uh in the ditch you see the white we call them

00:56:22.100 type of word torpedoes because they're basically that they're automatic transmissions and running

00:56:26.740 cruise control on them is the same thing as a car you can't your weight distribution your shifting

00:56:32.340 truck it will throw you in the ditch so fast and if you're not prepared for that and a lot

00:56:36.820 of these drivers that don't have enough experience are not that's why you're seeing so many trucks in

00:56:41.380 the ditch and so many accidents out there every snowfall yeah yeah absolutely and that reminds me

00:56:46.660 when we were all on the convoy road conditions were horrible they were ontario was you know

00:56:54.020 we didn't get we didn't get a snow squall we missed the snow squall remember blind river

00:56:58.420 was closed when we were coming across ontario and we were waiting for the approval watching

00:57:02.740 the highways to make sure they were going to have the highway open and uh that was a little

00:57:06.180 you know montreal hill there just outside of sault st marie a little dicey yeah right and

00:57:12.340 And Nicole and I, like I said, we went off going, just going to go to Regina for the night.

00:57:17.400 We had no weight with Bob tailing.

00:57:19.280 No way.

00:57:19.900 It was white knuckle, white knuckle there and, and back.

00:57:24.680 But how do you put 75 kilometers of traffic in one straight line and not have one single

00:57:29.760 altercation all the way across?

00:57:32.740 It was, I believe we had, we had a higher power watching us the entire way.

00:57:36.900 Totally.

00:57:37.220 Totally. And for Nicole and I, I mean, I only met two other lady drivers when we were actually in Ottawa, but it was just me and her from this way and from the West.

00:57:51.840 But the guys, the people we met, I consider them all my family,

00:57:58.200 from Pinocchio, Stetler, Maple Creek, and they were between us

00:58:03.580 and they were our little guardians.

00:58:06.980 And are you okay? Are you okay?

00:58:08.680 We'd check our trucks, would advisors help us if we needed anything.

00:58:16.020 It was absolutely wonderful.

00:58:17.880 and i consider this whole convoy and the people i've met in ottawa and along the way they're all

00:58:26.120 my family and i'm in touch with a lot a lot of people still you know yeah to this day and i'm

00:58:33.080 out here in the truck it's you know i i'm stopped in the city right now but i i made sure i stopped

00:58:38.040 on a back behind some business residency i'm in a business district but hidden out of sight

00:58:43.400 um because i know that there would be knocks at the door for the whole hour that we were on here

00:58:48.040 so i tried to hide as best as i could and i think i'm successful so far so but when i'm out here

00:58:53.640 every stop i stop at i always say that subway is my achilles heel because there's always somebody

00:58:58.600 that was with us on convoy or somebody that followed us or supporter that will come up to

00:59:03.000 the truck and and knock on the door usually when my mouth is full of you know of a sub

00:59:07.880 um but it's it's it's awesome four years later to still be seeing the amount of support that

00:59:12.040 that we see out here to this day, it's, I can't be more thankful.

00:59:16.660 Yeah, totally.

00:59:17.620 And that just shows you how, how big, I mean, we don't realize the num, the

00:59:21.940 numbers out there of us that just keep growing and growing.

00:59:25.540 You know, I was in Costco not long ago and they saw my hoodie.

00:59:29.140 I hadn't picked up, oh, where did you get that from?

00:59:32.320 You know, and started chatting or can I have one?

00:59:34.560 So I've mailed the lady one, you know, um, and it just keeps going and going,

00:59:40.080 you know, yeah.

00:59:42.040 But I know those road conditions were glare ice and it was white knuckle and it was, yeah, it wasn't good, but we made it.

00:59:49.960 It was a work of, it was, it was definitely, we were in, we were in somebody's hands.

00:59:54.320 I know that there's a, to have a close call, I believe.

00:59:59.180 I don't, don't think, you know, I know there's some tires on some trucks and I've ran Ontario before.

01:00:05.240 I know that you don't normally take the Southern Rail through 17 in the middle of winter.

01:00:08.920 that is but when i looked at this the the maps that we were using to get out there i'm like oh

01:00:13.240 boy we're like 17 who does that in the winter time and the weather broke and we did take 11 on the

01:00:19.080 way home remember five cents we were stuck in a snowstorm icy oh i think the conditions on the

01:00:24.840 way home were worse than the conditions on the way out they were they were and brandon was sheer ice

01:00:30.760 there were trucks in the ditch and trailers and it was you don't touch your steering wheel because

01:00:35.480 you'd be in a ditch yeah it was pack ice it was coming through monotoba i think nicole can attest

01:00:41.960 to that a little bit i'm just going to give her a little shout out there because that'll just

01:00:45.800 i'll get a text message from her later and she'll say you're such a turd yeah yeah oh totally but

01:00:53.000 you know going out there and coming back then the the support like you say on along the road every

01:00:59.320 single road there wasn't faith left they kept us going hey they just kept the momentum going and

01:01:06.040 it just got stronger and stronger and stronger and you didn't you just kept going pointed your

01:01:11.240 nose and yeah i just i'm sitting here like i said in the middle of i'm just sitting here

01:01:18.600 hidden from all sight and one of the trucks from the convoy the company just literally drove by

01:01:24.040 that's awesome i was wondering if he was going to stop i've seen the deckle on the door and

01:01:31.480 yeah probably turning around but that's the community we built out here we built an amazing

01:01:37.800 community all across this country i look on my social media messages and it is usually it's full

01:01:43.560 of messages every day i i can't keep up with it i honestly can't and i've got about to hand it off

01:01:49.080 to somebody else to manage i'll usually get to the comments but um it's evident that we had an

01:01:54.520 effect on a lot of people out here um judging from the conversations that i still have with people to

01:01:59.320 this day so i'm a community that we've made totally and one of the communities actually

01:02:06.360 when we were in ottawa we decided to go on a little mini convoy outside of the city there

01:02:13.160 i'm not sure if both of you were in it to drive by the the big uh old people's home like the

01:02:20.360 retirement home and that touched me because i remember well they were they were all sat at

01:02:27.480 their windows because obviously back then they were locked in their room and they were sat in

01:02:32.520 their windows waving and i was um and again crying trying to drive crying and they're waving out the

01:02:42.120 window at us and that was yeah something else and we touched all those little small communities

01:02:48.200 an area you know that was yeah lovely there was a lot of there was a lot of wet eyes i remember

01:02:54.520 the window for everybody that tried to come up to the side of the truck that tamara was on

01:02:58.520 you know jonathan and tamara and but and zippy were in here um the window still doesn't work

01:03:03.080 properly in the winter time for the kenworth electric window on your pasture side so it was

01:03:07.240 never fixed it frustrating for tamara because somebody would come up and she'd try and roll

01:03:12.200 the window down and then it wouldn't go back up so um yeah i gotta get to that one of these days

01:03:16.920 the memories and my air horn here doesn't work because it i got a very sore throat by the time

01:03:22.680 it got home i've got another set and it doesn't work i still got this one you ready i don't know

01:03:31.880 if you can even hear it oh yeah i can hear it yeah hong kong yeah not like is the horn as soon

01:03:41.880 as i grab the horn he uh i think he's traumatized from ottawa yeah he might be a resident of ottawa

01:03:48.280 probably yeah under the bed it's good times yeah good memories well awesome i will we'll keep it

01:03:58.440 it to about an hour tonight um i still make some miles i got a little bit of driving yet to do

01:04:03.280 tonight i think i still have 325 kilometers on my uh on my gps and uh a few hours to go here so

01:04:10.040 i want to thank both of you for coming on tonight it was uh amazing chat i think we touched all the

01:04:15.100 bases that we needed to touch did we not i mean we could probably tell stories for three days

01:04:19.100 oh yeah yeah yeah no it was great great to come on here and

01:04:27.080 and there are stories yeah i appreciate it next week i don't think tamara's going to be back next

01:04:35.120 week uh we're going to have uh michelle wharton on and she's going to she's part of the vax injured

01:04:39.660 um she's been severely vaccinated and injured so we're going to have her on and ted klutz is going

01:04:45.300 to be here to help me uh um interview her and get her story out as well we're trying to do one of

01:04:50.880 those stories every month so uh please everybody join me next week i'll i'll have things better

01:04:56.440 set up so i'm streaming properly and my laptop will be logged in properly i'm not even logged

01:05:00.440 into this as admin so um i can't i can't see much of anything right now but tasha thank you so much

01:05:06.680 for running the back the back side of me thank you yeah well great well you have a good night

01:05:17.560 everyone and yeah it's great to be on here we'll log off of this live for tonight i'll meet you

01:05:23.320 guys on backstage after we we end the live and uh thanks everybody for joining in it was uh

01:05:28.080 it was a good little chat here we'll make some more miles yet tonight so thanks everyone

House Arrest - February 27, 2026

Ep. 17 - Trucker Roundtable

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