The Executive Vice President of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association says that quieting the current Canadian trucker protests and avoiding a similar situation in America is as “simple” as ‘doing away’ with vaccine mandates.
Pugh’s comments come shortly after Canadian police allegedly began arresting protestors continuing to block the Ambassador Bridge connecting Canada to Detroit.
“Enforcement actions continue at the demonstration area with arrests being made. Vehicles being towed. Please continue avoiding the area,” the Windsor Police tweeted on Sunday morning. Meanwhile, more than 4,000 demonstrators continued to protest in Ottawa over the weekend, reported Fox News.
Enforcement actions continue at the demonstration area with arrests being made. Vehicles being towed. Please continue avoiding the area.
— Windsor Police (@WindsorPolice) February 13, 2022
It’s clear that Canadian officials are looking to quiet the ongoing vaccine mandate protest chaos, but the Canadian government has yet to yield to truckers’ demands. Now, America is bracing itself for its own potential vaccine mandate protest and officials are searching for a way to avoid similar chaos, but OOIDA VP Lewie Pugh says the solution is “pretty simple.”
“It’s pretty simple, do away with the mandates is what we’ve told them [political leaders],” Pugh. “Start listening to stuff that helps truckers instead of hurting truckers and over regulating truckers.”
“We are not against vaccines, we just feel that it’s sort of a pro-choice, it’s your body, so it should be your choice,” Pugh continued, adding that truckers “can’t be blocking” roadways and crucial bridges because those actions are “turning the public against them, and we don’t want to see that.”
“But we do believe that people have a right to peacefully protest, and they should,” he said.
“Truckers have been operating back and forth across this border since COVID began… There’s never been an issue until the 15th of January when Canada did theirs [mandate] and then January 22nd, when the United States added their mandate for crossing the border. Truckers aren’t super spreaders.”
“The men and women behind the wheel have been delivering everything they’ve needed, the goods, the shots, the masks, the hand sanitizer, all of the items since day one, getting them out there to the first responders and there’s never been a problem,” he added.
“They were national heroes a year ago and now we don’t want to let them go across the border unless they have a shot.”
Pugh also said that members of the OOIDA have had “some high-ranking meetings with DOT [Department of Transportation] and FMCSA [The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration] in the United States, and we also had meetings with members of parliament [in Canada], and we’ve simply told them, ‘You want to make this go away, drop the mandate.’”