After two years of heartache, a place to ‘fuel up on happiness’ by Donna Laframboise Katia arrived in Canada as a small child with her immigrant parents. When they left Switzerland four decades ago, this country seemed safe, stable, well-governed.
Read MoreThe first day of Ottawa Police Detective Helen Grus’s trial began with prayer outside the tribunal, and ended with many spectators saying they were shocked by an audio recording played by the prosecution. Detective Grus is charged with Discreditable Conduct under the Police Services Act for the ‘unauthorized’ re-investigation of nine sudden infant deaths (‘SIDS’), where she sought to know if the mothers’ vaccination status might have been connected with the deaths.
Monday August 14, 2023 was not the trial, but a pre-trial hearing where defense and prosecution debated the adequacy of disclosure and whether defense would be able to call and cross-exam a lengthy list of witnesses. The prosecution also played an almost three-hour recording of the the May 12, 2022 Professional Standards interview of Detective Grus that caused one retired RCMP observer to declare, “This is becoming a trial about Ottawa Police officers being in Neglect of Duty for failing to properly investigate Sudden Infant Deaths, and for obstructing Detective Grus’s investigations.”
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Rich and Dan, photo taken the first week and supplied by them. Note the huge Canadian flags they’re wearing as capes.
Keeping stuff from freezing solid was an enormous challenge for Freedom Convoy protesters by Donna Laframboise Rich is an aircraft mechanic who resides an hour’s drive west of Hamilton, Ontario. Currently aged 48, the only time he’s been unemployed was
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Formerly Travis’ profile picture on Facebook. The bottom half of the flag he’s holding is the New Brunswick flag.
“To see people dying alone and families unable to have proper funerals was horrible. Horrible” by Donna Laframboise New Brunswick trucker Travis Macleod hauls sea cans – containers that get loaded directly onto ships docked in the Port of Saint
Read MoreDuring the three weeks Mark and his truck spent in Ottawa, the parking tickets and small acts of vandalism were minor matters. Wife Joanne describes him as a laidback guy who doesn’t talk much about feelings. But as they texted back and forth during those weeks, she says, he told her about the tears and the gratitude. People kept thanking him for taking a stand. “He said the love that was there, it was just unbelievable.”
Regular people would come by his truck offering submarine sandwiches and fried chicken. An Asian woman, Mark says, “was bringing us down Chinese food all the time. And Tim Horton’s. I don’t drink coffee myself, but they’d be bringing wagons full.” At random times of day, strangers would ask if he needed fuel. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
After the police started cracking down on fuel deliveries, folks got more creative:
Virtually every industry is looking to reduce carbon emissions in its development and operational life cycles. This has proven to be a particular challenge in the transportation industry, specifically heavy-duty transport where the industry has traditionally relied heavily on energy-dense diesel fuel to provide the torque necessary for heavy load transportation. However, Hydrogen may become an attractive zero-emission alternative for heavy-duty commercial vehicles. Unlike diesel which produces carbon dioxide and other harmful bi-products, hydrogen produces only water at the tailpipe.
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Screen capture from a video Mark recorded around 9 am, Friday January 28th, 2022. (Click image to view video.) The long white sign reads: ‘Camionneurs, Montmagny vous remercie,’ which translates as: ‘Truckers, Montmagny thanks you.’ That community is located an hour north of Quebec City.
‘A thousand people standing on an overpass and you driving under it’ by Donna Laframboise Read Part One, here By the time Mark, a Nova Scotia commercial fisherman, joined the Freedom Convoy the pandemic had dragged on for nearly two years.
Read MoreMark rescues old trucks. These days he owns 30 of them, the oldest being a green 1936 Maple Leaf, one of the earliest heavy duty pickups sold in Canada. “I get most of them outta California,” he says. “You start with no rust, so they’re a lot easier to restore.”
A commercial fisherman in Nova Scotia for 40 years, in the summer of 2023 he tells me scallops are doing well. Lobsters are another story. Market prices are “always up and down, they’re yo-yos. You never know.”
Back in January 2022, an Ontario friend told Mark he was heading to Ottawa to take part in the trucker protest scheduled for that weekend. Did Mark want to come?
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Facebook Marketplace is the 2023 version of a car trunk full of stolen goods - now, when a consumer product "falls off of a truck," it probably lands at an online market. Photo: Facebook
Ah yes! The underground “black market” of hot goods. Stolen stuff. It’s thriving and as hot as ever – at least, it was in Peel Region until July 19th.
Operation “Big Rig” put a stop to what we now know was a ring involving 15 individuals. Possibly more. But 15 were charged. Its probably not the end; just an interruption in a trade that will kick back up down the road when things cool down.
Myself, I’ve spent many days and nights visiting, working, and slumbering within the borders of Peel County. Never had any problems unless you count the slow lines at the Tim Hortons.
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