The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - 138. Interview with Canadian Trucker Convoy Leader

00:00:00.000 What exactly is the purpose of the protest?

00:00:04.040 Two things.

00:00:05.360 To end the mandates on vaccinations,

00:00:08.440 and by the way, I'm vaccinated, I'm fully vaccinated,

00:00:11.700 and I usually get the flu vaccine every year.

00:00:14.280 So when we're doing the anti-vax thing, sorry, that's not us.

00:00:18.480 So to end the vaccine mandates and allow people the freedom of choice,

00:00:22.800 whether we agree or disagree with that choice,

00:00:24.960 it's their freedom of choice.

00:00:26.340 and to end the um the it's called the arrive can it's a covid passport app similar to what the

00:00:34.800 the provinces have rolled out which they're now uh rolling back and this app goes on your phone

00:00:42.180 and well it tracks you it has your covid health status on your phone

00:00:46.740 welcome to the Michaela Peterson podcast this is an emergency episode it's an interview with

00:00:55.720 one of the leaders of the Canadian trucker, Convoy. I tried to ask neutral questions that

00:01:00.580 every Canadian might be interested in, and people outside of Canada for that matter.

00:01:04.900 It was recorded today. I hope this helps clarify the situation in Canada for people.

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00:01:57.860 Enjoy this episode.

00:02:06.080 Welcome to my podcast.

00:02:08.980 Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:02:12.480 I really wanted to talk to you to get you on to address a whole bunch of questions

00:02:16.160 that I think Canadians and people across the world who are watching what's going on in Ottawa

00:02:21.420 with the trucker's protest, I'm hoping to have you address a whole bunch of those questions.

00:02:27.520 So I want to get through as many of these as you have time for.

00:02:30.100 Sure, of course.

00:02:31.600 So first off, who are you?

00:02:36.300 I'm just some guy who owns a truck.

00:02:38.820 My name is Benjamin Dichter.

00:02:39.900 I am, I guess, the spokesperson, one of the board members of the Freedom Convoy.

00:02:45.040 and i was brought in i guess 24 hours after uh they just decided to go with this chris and

00:02:52.880 bridget and tamara in alberta uh tamara's been a friend of mine for many years and uh she caught

00:02:59.040 she did a she they decided they're gonna do a convoy uh they're fed up there if you've been

00:03:04.920 to alberta recently you know rural alberta now looks like a third world country and has

00:03:09.440 for several years now and they've all had their lives and their businesses crushed

00:03:15.180 and they decided this has got to end we have and they were all about to many of them were about to

00:03:20.500 lose their uh their jobs because i know at least one of them uh couldn't actually get the covid

00:03:27.220 vaccine because of some cardiovascular problem it's none of my business i don't ask and uh you

00:03:34.300 know she's going to lose everything so they decided we we have to do something and make a

00:03:39.220 statement let's go to ottawa we'll have a convoy let's do a go fund me maybe we'll get you know

00:03:45.000 20 grand which is we'll cover some of the gas and um let's go and see what happens and 24 hours

00:03:53.160 later uh tamara called me and said you won't believe this we started this our go fund me is

00:03:59.320 at, I think it was at a hundred, $150,000 at that point. And she said, uh, do you mind coming on

00:04:05.440 board and helping with messaging and, you know, helping organize this as much as you can from

00:04:10.040 your end. And I said, yeah, for, for you, anything, no problem. And, uh, so we started and it just

00:04:16.520 grew organically from there. Okay. So you said it started partly because this lady couldn't get

00:04:26.280 vaccinated because of health conditions and she was at risk of losing or she was going to lose

00:04:30.620 her job because of it so what exactly is the purpose of the protest uh two things to end the

00:04:38.760 mandates on vaccinations because and by the way i'm vaccinated i'm fully vaccinated and i usually

00:04:44.940 get the flu vaccine every year so when we're doing the anti-vax thing sorry that's not us

00:04:49.800 so to end the vaccine mandates and allow people the freedom of choice whether we agree or

00:04:56.120 disagree with that choice it's their freedom of choice and to end the um the it's called the

00:05:02.920 arrive can it's a covid passport app similar to what the parent the provinces have rolled out

00:05:09.220 which they're now uh rolling back and this app goes on your phone and well it tracks you it has

00:05:16.480 your covid health status on your phone and you know i explained this on tucker carlson and a

00:05:24.360 couple of other shows that I, the first time I ever had to use it was a week before all of this

00:05:29.080 started. I was crossing the border from New York into, into Ontario. And I went to hold my phone

00:05:37.560 up to the border agent with my QR code. And I said, here you go. I don't, I don't know what to

00:05:43.320 do, but do what you need. And he said to me, no, no, I don't need to see it. And I said, what do

00:05:48.960 mean you don't need to see it he said well when your phone gets within a certain radius of our

00:05:55.260 booth uh your phone just pops up on my screen and all your information is there already so i i could

00:06:01.560 see you before you even came up to the booth and it occurred to me at that point you know everybody

00:06:07.840 is so concerned you many of our politicians posture the concern of data tracking from

00:06:12.880 uh big tech firms like facebook and twitter and whatnot but at least with those platforms we can

00:06:18.700 opt out but with the government we can't opt out and what's going to be what's the next step are

00:06:24.720 they going to start rolling that out to all government buildings across the country like I

00:06:30.300 don't know maybe that's hyperbolic to think maybe that's just too dystopian but it's clearly a

00:06:36.280 possibility at this point maybe every police cruiser will have a receiver that could monitor

00:06:43.100 each, you know, COVID app and phone in its vicinity. Maybe it's a bit of a slippery slope

00:06:49.340 argument, but we keep sliding down this slope, and nothing seems to be changing. So I think

00:06:55.240 there's a cause for concern. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't think you're crazy. I don't think you're

00:07:01.240 crazy. You're welcome. Okay, so let's I have a whole bunch more questions for you. But I figure

00:07:08.260 I might as well hit this at the beginning. What do you guys need to see from the government?

00:07:13.100 in order to stop protesting?

00:07:16.820 Well, I mean, ultimately, we need to see mandates removed

00:07:19.920 and the passport app dropped.

00:07:22.180 That's it. It's pretty simple.

00:07:23.500 And it's not like we are asking for constitutional reforms

00:07:27.520 or we're asking for reparations

00:07:29.240 or asking for any dramatic change to our country.

00:07:33.440 We just want things to be restored to the way they are,

00:07:36.400 and we want the government to get out of our phone.

00:07:38.460 Like, it's pretty simple, you know?

00:07:40.560 But we haven't even had anybody from the government sit down and meet with us, which is interesting.

00:07:48.040 You know, Justin Trudeau can meet with Joshua Boyle.

00:07:50.900 He can meet with Omar Khadr, but he can't meet with his working class transportation infrastructure who have what I think are reasonable grievances.

00:08:02.500 Right. And again, it's not about vaccines.

00:08:04.940 People can get vaccinated. People can quarantine at home as they please.

00:08:09.360 that's fine. But it should be up to the individual to choose how they want to live their lives.

00:08:18.320 Okay, so what does it look like on the ground in Ottawa? Like, what kind of people are over there?

00:08:23.200 How many people? How many? I have no idea. And it changes day to day. So on the weekends is when

00:08:29.400 things really peak up. There seems to be a lot of people that are coming from, you know,

00:08:35.560 other jurisdictions, whether it's Quebec,

00:08:38.000 we get a lot of people coming from Quebec,

00:08:39.500 Southern Ontario, and other people

00:08:41.620 from coming from Vermont

00:08:42.980 and New York State and New Hampshire,

00:08:46.300 coming to

00:08:47.340 essentially the biggest block party

00:08:49.320 in Canada's history, which we

00:08:51.480 call Trudeau's Truck Stop.

00:08:53.260 It's an amazing vibe.

00:08:55.980 Some of my guys came back,

00:08:57.620 it was the last night, the night before they came back to the hotel,

00:09:00.120 because I'm a little bit incapacitated,

00:09:01.760 so I can only go to a number

00:09:03.720 of meetings that in certain areas. And I said to them, okay, you guys hungry? I'll, I'll order

00:09:09.140 dinner because there's five or six of them here. They're like, Oh no, we're stuffed. I'm like,

00:09:13.660 what do you mean? Like everybody's barbecuing and throwing food in our face. So you walk around

00:09:18.340 downtown Ottawa, every truck or every other group has a little barbecue set up. They have flags or

00:09:24.680 having taking pictures with people. They're trying to spread this message of we're peaceful and

00:09:29.460 loving there's music going on like there were bands bouncy castles until i think a couple days

00:09:34.740 ago when justin trudeau thought the bouncy castles were a threat but the vibe has been amazing it's

00:09:42.580 like it's what i would imagine without let's say the recreational drugs it's what i imagine

00:09:48.260 woodstock would have been like that sort of feel to it or wembley like those sorts of you know

00:09:54.040 big party atmospheres that's what it's like in uh in downtown ottawa it's amazing and on top of

00:10:00.380 that you know they talk about oh the blockade what blockade yeah there's a lot of trucks parked

00:10:07.140 illegally but we have an ops team that you know have experienced ex-military ex-police that have

00:10:14.440 established emergency routes for emergency vehicles traffic is flowing around the city

00:10:20.040 slower there's no question but traffic is still flowing we're trying to minimize the disruption

00:10:25.360 to people in the city and the local businesses who have stayed open and violated the mayor's

00:10:32.260 order to close by the way so the mayor has issued an order that any business that opens will be

00:10:38.500 issued a ticket for however much money it is i don't know but like the shawarma shop like that

00:10:43.720 we've been going to just about every day they said we have we are so thankful we have never been so

00:10:49.440 busy in three years thank you everybody for what you're doing and all the businesses that have been

00:10:54.920 staying open have been prospering okay one of the criticisms i've read about you guys in the media

00:11:01.300 is that this is a an alt-right thing that's going on and a whole bunch of the people who've gone to

00:11:08.540 canada aren't even canadian and so you mentioned that there are people who are coming in from

00:11:13.340 Vermont and other areas. So how do you feel about that? Well, what happened to peace, unity, and

00:11:20.000 love? What happened to open borders? What happened to we're all one world? We're a post-national

00:11:25.560 state. It's amazing how they flip from that ideology to we need hard borders now. Canadians

00:11:32.820 are completely different than Americans. The Americans that are coming are definitely a

00:11:38.980 minority here uh i i would i would guess the largest contingency as separate from the truckers

00:11:45.600 who have come from uh the prairies are people from quebec and that's been most amazing seeing

00:11:52.340 people from quebec hanging out with the people they're supposed to not like from alberta becoming

00:11:58.780 friends talking to each other through google translate and there's a couple of pictures i

00:12:04.700 took I took with a couple of guys one guy was from Alberta one guy was from Quebec and they're both

00:12:09.340 holding signs I had to take a picture one said freedom one said liberté they were hanging out

00:12:15.240 all day together standing beside each other and just shaking everybody's hands and hugging

00:12:19.120 everybody and whatever and that's been the vibe the whole time and you know I told this story a

00:12:24.880 few times of one of my friends who was here helping with my leg after I broke it which was fun

00:12:30.540 she went to the Tim Hortons to grab coffee in the morning and she said

00:12:34.700 that you won't believe this. I just went to Tim Hortons and there's these two guys and she's

00:12:39.520 quite astute. There's these two guys in line. They clearly are friends. They didn't just meet

00:12:44.500 each other and they're talking and they're laughing and they're pointing and all this

00:12:47.640 sort of stuff. And they're dressed as truckers. So we assume they are. She says, but they're

00:12:52.560 talking to each other through Google translate because one is one was French. And one, I think

00:12:57.820 she said was from Saskatchewan or Alberta. So he couldn't communicate directly, but they formed a

00:13:03.380 friendship and some sort of bond. And they're starting to try to learn a little bit of French

00:13:09.140 and a little bit of English. And it's just lovely. It's, it's the, it's the first real unity I've

00:13:16.080 seen in Canada. I mean, you know, we've all grown up with this baggage of all the separatists here

00:13:21.440 and the Western separatists and nobody likes each other and nothing could be further from the truth

00:13:25.840 when government and the media get out of the way, the people unify and they learn, they learn to

00:13:30.980 love each other and respect each other's differences and that's what we've seen all week

00:13:34.340 okay interesting well that's good to hear um what about all this news about um i mean you see you

00:13:42.620 get certain pictures from the media and at the very beginning there was some sort of statue story

00:13:47.860 it was like oh these people are desecrating statues oh the hoax hate i call it hoax hate

00:13:53.060 okay okay so let's get into that a little bit what was that about uh well there were a few of

00:13:57.960 First, there was the Nazi flag that we're alt-right, we're all Nazis, and whatever.

00:14:05.800 I'd hate to tell Mr. Trudeau, I'm Jewish, and some of us still have families in mass graves in Europe.

00:14:13.580 So that smear is not going to work.

00:14:15.920 Tamara is a Métis, so she's from the Native community.

00:14:20.300 So we're the racist, but Mr. Blackface, he's the virtuous one.

00:14:25.200 It's clown world.

00:14:26.560 It's ridiculous, right?

00:14:27.960 yeah so somebody um and this happens a lot in protests where people you know agent provocateurs

00:14:35.040 or whatever you want to call it they'll stage different things right and they're so this

00:14:39.140 particular case i mean nobody saw this until it was all over all over the web somebody uh unraveled

00:14:46.020 a swastika flag a nazi flag and it was nowhere near any of like any of the protests or any of

00:14:54.180 trucks or whatever. It was some back corner of some park. And there just happened to be somebody

00:15:00.420 with a $10,000 Canon camera perfectly lined up for the shot. You know, this was the money shot.

00:15:08.820 So I don't imagine putting the sign mandate freedom on Terry Fox would have been terribly

00:15:17.220 offensive to the man who required those basic freedoms to run across the country, which we

00:15:23.840 can't do right now, right? Without being harassed by the government. So that was the second hoax

00:15:29.380 hate. Then there was the war memorial hoax hate, which was, it started, and you can tell it's a

00:15:35.460 hoax when they keep changing the reason. So first it was a truck parked on the war memorial. No,

00:15:43.500 no truck parked on the war memorial. A truck parked in the spot adjacent to the war memorial

00:15:50.040 that the CBC usually parks in at Memorial Day events.

00:15:54.840 So perhaps they were upset one of our trucks took their parking spot.

00:15:59.180 I would be upset too, right?

00:16:01.880 Then 24 hours or 48 hours later,

00:16:05.320 it became somebody desecrated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

00:16:10.280 Have no idea how.

00:16:11.560 It was just the word desecrated, no specificity whatsoever.

00:16:15.540 and then 24 hours after that it became somebody urinated on the tomb of the unknown soldier or

00:16:23.520 the war memorial somebody took a picture it was a little bit of a warmer day that day

00:16:28.000 of a snow bank that had water melting on the bottom took a picture and that apparently was

00:16:35.600 urine i guess they haven't realized that you know snow melts at zero degrees but okay fine

00:16:40.780 so and what was interesting about that is because you know they they're so disconnected the uh i

00:16:48.580 call them i don't call them the global elites i call them the global scavenger class they're so

00:16:52.620 disconnected from regular people they miscalculate one very basic phenomenon we all know that most

00:17:00.280 people or say many people in trucking are either veterans themselves or come from veteran families

00:17:07.400 so just the fact that that narrative was out there upset them hugely to the point that a bunch of

00:17:14.900 them got together with some veteran truckers they grabbed they got their shovels and equipment and

00:17:20.780 stuff they shoveled all the snow around the war memorial cleaned it up better than the city has

00:17:26.840 ever done made sure there was no garbage or any that sort of stuff they went and got bouquets of

00:17:32.120 flowers and they took a beautiful picture of it somewhere it's somewhere on the internet they

00:17:37.100 lined the tomb of the unknown soldier with flowers and then they they assigned a team

00:17:42.400 that would rotate shifts 24 7 to ensure nobody would be desecrating the war memorial or the

00:17:50.080 tomb of the unknown soldier so that's the reality of what happened what went on okay yes that's

00:17:55.740 definitely different than what you're hearing about in mainstream media things are pretty crazy

00:18:00.200 well let's call them legacy media they're not mainstream they're fringe media is what they are

00:18:04.720 okay legacy media that's definitely more accurate yeah okay so um let's see has there been any

00:18:13.860 violence uh not that i've seen i mean maybe the kids playing on the bouncy castles are considered

00:18:19.820 violence because you know we live in a world where words are violence so who knows what uh

00:18:25.640 the fake news media defines violence, but no, no cops have been injured. No people have been

00:18:30.560 injured. There's not been any scrum. I mean, again, these people, so many of these people

00:18:35.960 come from veteran families. They respect the government. They're not here to overthrow the

00:18:41.460 government because they spend so much of their lives serving the government. So it's a completely

00:18:46.920 different, you know, dynamic than perhaps, you know, the leftist militias that protest where

00:18:53.000 or anti-government. That's not us. So no, we haven't seen any of it. And also people are

00:18:58.580 cognizant of being baited by, you know, leftist activists into, you know, a January 6th like

00:19:06.400 incident and whatever. And when nobody is taking the bait, we understand that this, that's not

00:19:14.020 what this is about. This is about a peaceful, loving protest. And in many ways, especially

00:19:19.280 people who've been coming from other jurisdictions it's been you know a source of inspiration for

00:19:25.400 younger people to see how our process works and how people can come together and unify and want

00:19:31.720 to talk to the government and the government works for us not the other way around which is seems to

00:19:37.040 be the mindset of some people in our political class okay so um i'd like a bit of a timeline i

00:19:45.580 know that this is what i think happened from what i've been reading but you can tell me what

00:19:49.640 actually happened but i believed i believe the government officials tried to hire tow trucks to

00:19:55.500 come take out the trucks and and they just said no i thought that there's been an issue with police

00:20:02.160 arresting people so can you give me a bit of background uh information on the tow trucks

00:20:07.160 police involvement and how people are trying to get rid of the protesters and how that hasn't

00:20:11.860 been working. Okay. So with the, with, we'll just start with the policing and the arresting.

00:20:17.500 From what I understand, a handful of people were arrested earlier in the week, sorry, early in last

00:20:25.120 week. And it was intimidation tactic, right? Charge them with, you know, give them a ticket

00:20:30.320 for mischief. So let's drive them down to the station, give them a ticket for $150. And that's

00:20:35.960 kind of it. From what I understand, there hasn't been anything more than that. I'm not sure. And

00:20:41.580 on police on the police level we've had a we've actually had a great relationship with the police

00:20:47.040 on the ground many of us not only do we have people from military families but many of us come

00:20:52.600 from police families like I have family in policing as well so we kind of understand that the ground

00:20:59.520 level police officers are in a difficult position and we have a common problem and phenomenon in

00:21:05.120 Canada where the upper levels of policing the chiefs and deputy chiefs sometimes are often very

00:21:11.220 politicized they're more politicians than they are police officers because they're appointed by

00:21:16.960 these ridiculous police services boards by people who are in political parties so that that's that's

00:21:23.260 something that has to end and be fixed in our country but that's another issue but uh so the

00:21:29.220 relationship with police has been great many of them have you know there was a time when

00:21:34.400 last week they were taking the uh they're seizing gas cans for people and they thought that would

00:21:42.200 anger us and most of us maybe i have a dark sense of humor i was on the floor laughing i thought if

00:21:49.860 you want an epic pr disaster for police that's the way to do it take fuel from people who just

00:21:56.620 want to keep themselves warm and then the next day they threatened oh we're gonna raid the you

00:22:02.320 know, we're going to raid all the trucks. And what did they end up doing? They found some guys that

00:22:06.780 were having bonfires to keep themselves warm. So they went and seized their cord of wood. And I

00:22:12.920 thought, yeah, stupid is going to double down on stupid no matter what. And I was predicting a

00:22:18.540 little before then that I told people in a couple of speeches I gave, I said, the chief of police

00:22:25.800 of Ottawa, I promise you is going to take early retirement. And guess what? He just announced

00:22:31.500 45 minutes ago that he has resigned his position because he too is being put in a position and

00:22:38.020 being politicized by his local city council who are very rabid aggressive leftists that would

00:22:47.120 have done well during the Bolshevik era like some of the rhetoric coming from them is not becoming

00:22:52.660 of anybody who holds office in a liberal democracy it's quite concerning but even he I think it was

00:22:58.580 too much for even him and last week we had a senior there was a senior uh staff sergeant which

00:23:04.820 if you're if you're in policing you know that's a significant position a senior staff sergeant

00:23:09.780 also resigned his position last week wow okay so what happened with the tow trucks

00:23:18.120 so with the tow trucks or you apologize forgot uh it's so funny there's so many things happen

00:23:25.840 um the federal government and the city government were calling just every tow truck company that

00:23:31.740 they could even down to tow truck companies in a new york state and we had that tow truck company

00:23:40.560 from new york state reach out to us saying yeah guess who called us for an order they said they

00:23:44.880 need a massive you know convoy of tow trucks to come for ottawa and they uh he said to us but

00:23:53.380 don't worry. We like all the other tow truck, tow truck companies informed them that we all have

00:24:00.260 COVID. So we can't come. And then one tow truck company came from, I think it was Quebec. I might

00:24:06.980 be wrong. They showed up with a small fleet of tow trucks and they said, yeah, yeah, sure. We'll

00:24:11.700 come. We'll, we'll show up. They came and they joined the protest. It was hysterical.

00:24:17.860 because remember tow truck drivers truck drivers these are people who work through the night

00:24:25.000 they see emergencies on the road they see accidents they sometimes help people in need

00:24:30.980 who are stranded so there's a little bit of a brotherhood that goes on behind them and that

00:24:36.560 that bond seems to be much stronger than some government bureaucratic demands go figure

00:24:43.120 hmm okay so what do you think is going to happen like what happened recently with Trudeau

00:24:50.700 it's interesting when he gave that press conference uh I was watching that and I thought

00:24:58.500 like Theo Fury uh correctly uh I think I agree with his assessment on Twitter he said well Trudeau

00:25:05.420 has played his final card we'll see what happens next and when I watched that press conference he

00:25:10.740 said something funny saying you know this does not bring in the military and i thought yeah

00:25:15.640 because you tried last week and the military told you to take a hike and we know that because we

00:25:21.360 have people in the military so trudeau hasn't learned this axiom a general without an army

00:25:27.060 is a fool and that's the position he's in so now he's you know gone all hysterical and even people

00:25:33.880 who are on you know the left side of the political spectrum but who you know embrace the values of

00:25:40.600 freedom and i'm thinking the canadian liberties association for example and even the toronto star

00:25:45.080 today even they have said okay this is way way overboard so he's made himself look like a fool

00:25:52.400 to his own people and what are we gonna do we're just gonna wait wow so can you can you explain to

00:25:59.740 any of the people watching who don't know what happened like what exactly happened what are the

00:26:04.640 emergency measure acts a bit of background information there um it's best to talk to a

00:26:11.380 constitutional lawyer about it but they started this on the uh the city level they just declared

00:26:18.020 a state of emergency last last week because you know a bunch of trucks are illegally parked oh my

00:26:23.540 god it's so funny and then doug ford uh you know mr conservative mr you know for the people

00:26:31.620 i think nuked his own political career as well um by trying to seize all our funds and declaring

00:26:38.540 a provincial state of emergency okay nothing changed because well there's a bunch of trucks

00:26:44.040 parts illegally okay and now they're going to try on the federal level okay what are they going to

00:26:50.300 do can't call in the military like he said he doesn't this doesn't mean they will and i don't

00:26:55.560 think there's any appetite from people in the military to go seize uh to go arrest uh truckers

00:27:03.060 people that they may know from their communities who are just parked illegally and having a peaceful

00:27:08.400 protest and have gone out of their way to to demonstrate that it's peaceful it's about unity

00:27:15.780 it's about love and respect for one another and we're just going to sit here and wait so i don't

00:27:22.000 know what's trudeau going to do next we're going to get the air force to do a flyover i mean that'd

00:27:26.860 be cool i love planes so i'd love to see that uh but what's that going to accomplish i don't know

00:27:32.800 okay what happened with it so then this is another thing so many things have happened this is

00:27:37.900 very strange situation but but well it's a strange situation what happened to all the donations

00:27:44.980 oh well we're just gonna have to litigate it so um the gofundme donations which was

00:27:53.840 you know the fake news media was first reporting that it was frozen which it wasn't you know the

00:27:58.960 first day they're saying all the donations were frozen and i thought don't you have eyes you can

00:28:05.680 see the progress bar of the donations go up that's not frozen that's just gofundme's regular procedure

00:28:13.280 of, you know, filtering any new campaign, they do it to ensure it's abiding by AML regulations

00:28:19.860 and international banking regulations. And they have to do their due diligence. And okay, that's

00:28:24.860 fine. We understood that. Right. And again, when we set up GoFundMe, everybody's like, well, why

00:28:28.600 did you go to GoFundMe? Because we just thought we'd get like 20 grand for gas. Like we didn't

00:28:32.820 realize that people would start using this as a statement, a political statement to show their

00:28:37.820 displeasure with a political class which is what it's become so they eventually released uh you

00:28:44.060 know uh one point something million to us which i'll get back to that in a second and then they

00:28:48.980 said we're just going to keep the rest and give it to whatever charity we want so then in came uh

00:28:54.920 florida man ron desantis and the attorney general of florida ted cruz a bunch of other people saying

00:29:00.160 uh yeah this is criminal fraud and this warrants an investigation by the u.s government

00:29:05.160 and then all of a sudden go fund me he's like no no no we're gonna give it back it was so funny

00:29:10.620 oh wow yeah so go fund me pathetic so then they said okay we're gonna refund everything lots of

00:29:18.160 people have gotten their refunds not everybody has lots of people still have not and maybe there's

00:29:22.660 just a bottleneck on their end so uh give send go then uh reached out to us and we had some people

00:29:29.120 working with kids and go they spoke to jacob the ceo and he was great he said we'll do everything

00:29:34.460 in our power to help rebuild it. And as soon as they launched the Freedom Convoy campaign on

00:29:41.120 Give, Send, Go, they got 5 million DDoS attacks per hour. So somebody is very motivated and has

00:29:50.360 many bots that were attacking that website. And they were overwhelmed by the number of donations

00:29:59.960 that were coming into the platform.

00:30:02.400 So they just, you know, smaller company,

00:30:04.620 they didn't have the infrastructure of GoFundMe.

00:30:06.760 I couldn't even get on for seven hours just to see it.

00:30:09.700 I wanted to, you know, look at the messaging and stuff.

00:30:12.120 It took me seven hours before the webpage would even pop up.

00:30:16.480 And it already achieved one point in the first 12 hours,

00:30:20.660 $1.5 million in donations.

00:30:23.240 And somebody told me we hit 4.5 million

00:30:26.300 in like the first 24, 36 hours, something like that.

00:30:29.320 But I couldn't tell because it would the website was so spotty. Right. So it got up to eight point five million dollars. And then Doug Ford, remember, man of the working class. Right. Yeah. He's going to go to court and try to block this funding for all these truckers who need to get fuel.

00:30:51.780 Some of them are having repair issues and all that sort of stuff.

00:30:55.520 And Doug Ford was going to step on the throat of the working man and have the government seize any funds that came in from Give, Send, Go.

00:31:04.860 So Give, Send, Go then said, okay, we're going to stop any transfers.

00:31:09.900 They didn't transfer anything yet.

00:31:12.040 We'll hold on to it while you guys go to court and litigate it with the Ontario government, which is the process right now.

00:31:20.280 So then the Bitcoin community came out, because I have been a secret Bitcoiner for many, many years. And they reached out, they started a drive trying to raise Bitcoin for the truckers. And that got up to $1.1 or $1.2 million in a wallet somewhere to go to the truckers. And that was primarily for legal funds is what they want.

00:31:44.960 They want us to get very aggressive with the media and the government that's been attacking us.

00:31:50.120 And that's going to happen.

00:31:51.220 It's just a matter of time.

00:31:53.040 So now Krista Friedland decided, you know, it's that philosophy they have.

00:31:57.780 Everything I don't like is Hitler.

00:31:59.480 Well, everything I don't like is illegal, right?

00:32:01.600 So now Bitcoin is illegal.

00:32:02.800 Everything's illegal now.

00:32:04.240 That's not how our legal system works.

00:32:06.660 And unfortunately, they're probably going to find that out the hard way.

00:32:10.340 So right now, we're just sitting back and waiting.

00:32:13.920 Okay.

00:32:14.960 Let me see. What other questions do I have here for you? I think that covered most of it.

00:32:22.160 How long do you, like, what happens? Okay, here's one. What happens if Trudeau invokes the Emergency

00:32:30.020 Measures Act? Ontario, Doug Ford has already said he's okay with that. He thinks it's reasonable,

00:32:36.960 right? So what happens if that comes into play? Are you guys concerned on the ground that people

00:32:42.180 are going to start getting arrested or bank accounts frozen uh he's already invoked it

00:32:47.780 remember he did that last night that's what the press conference was i thought that okay then i

00:32:52.460 have a question there and i don't know anything about this so feel free to explain but i thought

00:32:56.420 that once you like i thought that that was a suggestion and then premiers of each province

00:33:02.440 have to agree or is that done from what i understand it's got to go to parliament they

00:33:07.820 got to vote on it yeah right and that hasn't happened yet right uh no i don't believe so

00:33:12.320 maybe that's what's happening today okay i mean you can show you can see how concerned i am

00:33:16.900 yeah yeah i i can yeah okay at some point they're going to learn the people run the government

00:33:24.040 they work for us not the other way around and it might be a hard lesson for them to learn i mean

00:33:29.300 i'm having people now suggest to me that justin trudeau might have just laid the path for the end

00:33:36.460 of his political career and the government to fall and the justification was look at it this

00:33:42.120 it's from a political insider i'm friends with he said look at it this way jackmeet singh keeps

00:33:47.860 alienating himself and the ndp from the seek community which we have so many seek truck

00:33:54.000 drivers here like they're they've been a big part of the people who've been feeding people like

00:33:59.040 they're amazing they're wonderful um so he's now been alienating himself even though the you know

00:34:06.140 the most hardened of NDP people understand the importance of protesting, because that's what

00:34:12.840 they do, right? Like that's, that's supposed to be the party for it, right? That's right. That's

00:34:18.200 right. Yeah. So if Jack Mead Singh is pulled by his own party, and we know he's, he's not all that

00:34:24.460 popular right now. Well, then Trudeau is not going to have the support for the for a minority

00:34:29.340 government, then the government falls. And I guess we go to an election, like, I'm not sure,

00:34:34.900 because I guess a lot of this is unprecedented. I'm not a constitutional expert. So the more they

00:34:40.640 keep doubling down on this stupidity and agitating things and escalating the situation

00:34:47.040 doesn't affect us. We're just parked in parking spots and on the street, but they're just shooting

00:34:54.120 themselves in the foot. But like I said, in the very beginning, extremists always double down

00:35:00.440 on one strategy. They don't seem to have the fortitude and the observing ego to look at things

00:35:08.880 from the other perspective and say, okay, well, how can we maneuver around this and get other

00:35:14.740 people on our side and negotiate? It's quite shocking that somebody who was elected with

00:35:20.600 something like 19% of the Canadian citizenry actually voted for Justin Trudeau are sitting

00:35:27.780 there on their high horse, like we're in command. Like, no, no, you're not. 80% of the people want

00:35:34.280 nothing to do with you. And it's your job to come to the table and talk to us. And listen, if he

00:35:40.340 does, he will. There shouldn't be much of a conversation. It's just, dude, end the mandates

00:35:46.080 and get rid of this passport app. That's it. This is pretty simple stuff. Like the solution,

00:35:51.840 like Pierre Polivri said, it's staring him right in the face. It's so easy. And then they can

00:35:57.700 claim victory and they can say you know our policies saved millions of people and but now

00:36:03.880 is the time to go back and we didn't really want to do it and unfortunately but it was the best

00:36:09.220 thing for the country and spin it however they want that's fine we know they're going to do that

00:36:13.700 some people will believe them some people won't who cares we just get back to what we should but

00:36:18.260 they're just holding on to this and it's just crazy it makes no sense okay wow Eddie I agree

00:36:26.660 that this is absurd i'm surprised actually i thought that i thought sometime last week there

00:36:33.720 would be a rollout of well country uh provinces around started dropping their mandates right

00:36:39.320 like alberta said they were going to drop it even ontario said things would go back to normal

00:36:43.900 eventually and so i'm surprised that at a federal level they're not just looking at all the provinces

00:36:50.240 and all the people or all the countries around the world oh i know like yeah or the rest of the

00:36:56.980 world basically give or take australia australia is still benefit and remember they said you know

00:37:03.460 the winter that's the most dangerous and darkest time for covet okay well we're we're now three

00:37:08.780 weeks into this uh we've had tens of thousands of people here hugging partying together dancing

00:37:15.760 from various provinces in Canada, and I was in the hospital getting my leg reconstructed

00:37:24.820 for surgery a couple of days ago, and I didn't see St. Elmo's fire and, you know, masses of

00:37:31.760 bodies being rolled into the ICU, and I spoke to the people there, and they said, yeah, we're

00:37:37.440 worried. We don't want to have any, you know, massive outbreaks in ICU, and I said, how are

00:37:42.940 things now they said oh yeah it's quiet okay so if it's not happening now then we all know that

00:37:51.520 this policy is the wrong policy and it needs to be abandoned and that's probably why the rest of

00:37:57.200 the world is doing so okay well is there anything else you want to tell people and is there anywhere

00:38:04.140 people could go to support you guys even though those initiatives keep getting shut down um yeah

00:38:10.680 So they can go to my Twitter, which is BJ Dichter.

00:38:16.380 So it's spelled B-J-D-I-C-H-T-E-R.

00:38:19.640 They go to Tamara's Twitter, which is Tamara underscore MVC.

00:38:26.060 And it's very important.

00:38:26.900 The reason we've been focusing on our personal platforms is because we've also had to navigate censorship online, right?

00:38:36.500 There is, yeah, that's it.

00:38:37.920 There's a, there is, Dave Rubin is setting up

00:38:42.960 freedomconvoy.locals.com.

00:38:45.840 So that's the next thing that's going to be set up

00:38:48.340 where you'll find information, be able to donate and whatever.

00:38:51.520 The Give, Send, Go is still there.

00:38:53.680 So you'll be able to donate.

00:38:55.980 The Tally Coin Drive, I think there's another one now set up

00:38:59.880 in Bitcoin with the initial one was put on hold

00:39:03.420 since the announcement from the Canadian government.

00:39:05.680 but now there's another group of people that set up a tally coin.

00:39:09.400 So if you just go to freedom convoy or Canadian truckers,

00:39:12.980 you'll find something again,

00:39:15.280 we're not so centralized because of censorship.

00:39:19.420 Those three things, but basically monitor our, Oh,

00:39:22.600 and Quiggin report is another podcast.

00:39:25.300 It's another Twitter account that works with us.

00:39:29.000 Tom is one of our team and it's one of the accounts that we administer.

00:39:32.180 If you keep an eye on those and myself on getter, same,

00:39:35.680 BJ Dictor. You'll get all the updates you need. We'll post links. You'll get a sense of where

00:39:40.760 we're at. And we're randomly posting, you know, links to support if you want to send money on

00:39:47.260 give, send, go and all that sort of stuff. And we keep getting everybody up to date with what's

00:39:52.720 going on. That's really the best way again. Oh, and there is a freedomconvoycanada.com website,

00:39:57.960 which again is being hacked or hacked DDoS attacks and all that sort of stuff. So when it's up,

00:40:04.880 it's up when it's not it's not um and to everybody who's listening that i just want to let you know

00:40:11.240 this is not about left or right you know i'm i'm not a hardened uh right-wing person you know i i

00:40:18.400 like the i like the variation of the scott adams uh approach which is you know for me personally

00:40:24.280 and i think this explains a lot of us we like the goals of the left we like the systems of the right

00:40:30.260 and we like the freedom of libertarians and somewhere I can get behind that yeah and somewhere

00:40:36.180 between all of that that's where we all fit and that's why we have people across the political

00:40:41.140 spectrum like I did an interview last week with this girl she's an independent journalist because

00:40:46.040 I've been trying to do a lot of independent uh journalists and she said to me I used to be a

00:40:51.400 separatist until two weeks ago I bought my first Canadian flag because I've never been so proud

00:40:58.140 to be. It almost puts a tear in your eye. To make me cry. Yeah. So this is all about having our voices

00:41:07.160 heard. It's peaceful. It's about love, unity, and restoring our basic freedoms to choose to do what

00:41:15.500 we want in terms of bodily autonomy. We understand people are afraid of the virus. People should be

00:41:23.560 free to protect themselves and quarantine at their will and do whatever they want.

00:41:29.560 But the government has gone a little bit out of control in terms of how they can regulate our

00:41:36.160 lives. And like, where does it end? Am I not going to be able to ride motorcycles anymore?

00:41:41.020 Am I not going to be able to eat fast food anymore? Like that's where we're going with this.

00:41:46.040 So it's inclusive of everybody we have, you know, for those who care about racial diversity,

00:41:53.000 i don't really care i care about individuals but we do have people from various communities from

00:41:59.000 all over the world like i mentioned the Sikh community has been a huge help in feeding people

00:42:04.160 because there are a lot of them in trucking and uh yeah we the example of the the Quebecois

00:42:11.580 faction and the Albertan faction everybody coming together like this is i think it's not

00:42:18.980 attributed to us, it's attributed to everybody who got involved. This is the thirst for Canadian

00:42:25.460 unity that our country has always needed. And I think we finally got there. We just need to get

00:42:32.240 our politicians to realize that's what's happened. Okay, well, thank you very much for coming on.

00:42:48.980 Thank you.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - February 15, 2022

138. Interview with Canadian Trucker Convoy Leader

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