During the January protests against vaccine mandates, top Biden administration officials encouraged their Canadian authoritarian counterparts to clear trucks who were blocking areas of the US-Canada border.
On Thursday, a public inquiry into the Canadian government’s decision to use emergency powers to clear the “Freedom Convoy” demonstrators found that Washington made frantic phone calls to Ottawa in an attempt to open up choked-off supply lines.
According to Politico, after a phone call from White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese on Feb. 10, Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said in an email to her staff, “They are very, very, very worried.”
“If this is not sorted out in the next 12 hours, all of their northeastern car plants will shut down,” Freeland said in her email.
According to the article, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called his Canadian counterpart, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, on the same day Deese called Freeland, and Buttigieg questioned Alghabra on Canada’s “plan to resolve” the demonstrations.
Buttigieg initiated the call, according to Alghabra, and said that the encounter was “unusual.”
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELBrian Clow, Canada’s deputy chief of staff, also heard from White House officials, including National Security Council director Juan Gonzalez, who wanted to connect Canadian national security personnel with the US Department of Homeland Security.
The following day, on February 11, President Joe Biden spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who informed the commander-in-chief that Ottawa had a plan to relieve the blockades.
Biden reportedly referenced to trucker convoys threatening to interrupt the Super Bowl in Los Angeles and Washington streets during his discussion with Trudeau.
In an email, Freeland told staff that Deese wanted daily updates on the protests, which never happened because the Emergencies Act was activated three days after Trudeau’s call with Biden.
Freeland told Canadian investigators that she was concerned that Canada was “in the process of doing long-term and possibly irreparable harm to our trading relationship with the United States” and that Washington politicians “who would love any excuse to impose more protectionist measures on us.”
The inquiry discovered that border blockades in Manitoba and between Detroit and Windsor were cleared prior to the activation of the Emergencies Act.
The never-before-used Canadian law empowered the government to freeze demonstrators’ bank accounts, prohibit travel to demonstration places, and force trucks to tow automobiles blocking streets.
The commission is investigating whether the government was justified in using emergency powers.
Protesters with the “Freedom Convoy” were opposing Canadian COVID vaccine mandates and limitations.
