The Lawfare Podcast: The Trucker Convoys and Domestic Unrest in Canada

Over the past few weeks, Canada has been living through its own insurrectionary moment, as a series of trucker convoys have used tractor trailer trucks to occupy much of downtown Ottawa, launch protests in other major Canadian cities, and block points of entry along the country's southern border with the United States. While nominally objecting to Canadian vaccination mandates, particularly as applied to truckers, the convoy movement has at times made even more ambitious demands, including the dissolution of the Trudeau government, and it has close ties to far right-wing nationalists and ethno-nationalist organizations, both in Canada and the United States. While the convoy movement began in Canada, there are signs that is beginning to spread, with similar efforts appearing in Australia and New Zealand and intelligence reports suggesting the same may soon happen in the United States.

To put these recent developments in context, Scott R. Anderson sat down with three Canadian national security experts who have been following the convoy crisis closely: Amarnath Amarasingam, assistant professor at Queen’s University; Stephanie Carvin, associate professor at Carleton University; and Jessica Davis, president of Insight Threat Intelligence. They discussed the origins of the convoy movement, its relationship with domestic violent extremism and what it might mean for both Canada and the rest of the world.