Here's where Canadians are living abroad: report
A recent report sheds light on Canadians living abroad--estimated at around four million people in 2016—and the public policies that impact them.
A pickup truck decorated with a Confederate flag at the “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa early last year was driven by a local roofer who supported the protests, not by Liberal government “provocateurs” as convoy organizers alleged at the public inquiry into the invoking of the Emergencies Act.
Maurice Landriault told CTV National News that it was his Dodge Ram 2500 seen on Elgin Street and at a protest site at Confederation Square, but he denies the flag he mounted on the tailgate next to a Canadian flag was offensive.
“It’s a sign of independence,” he said. “I look at it as a rebel sign. In the biker community, a lot of people have the Confederate flag because we’re rebels.”
But to many, the flag is a racist symbol and a disturbing reminder of the U.S. Confederacy’s fight to preserve slavery. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced their display at the Ottawa protest, saying his government wouldn’t give in to “racist flags.”
Landriault says some protesters asked him to take it off his truck.
“They’re telling me it’s racist. It’s not racist. You guys are making it racist.”
At the Public Order Emergency Commission in November, convoy organizers brought a motion to compel evidence about Nazi and Confederate flags seen at the protest, claiming the Liberal government attempted to use them to wrongly portray protesters as racists and extremists.
Their lawyer, Brendan Miller, argued they had “evidence and grounds to suspect that the flags, and purported protesters using them, were not protesters with the convoy at all, but provocateurs.”
He asked Commissioner Paul Rouleau to order the Ottawa Police Service or the Ontario Provincial Police to trace the pickup truck’s licence plate to uncover the owner’s identity.
Rouleau declined the request, saying there is “no proper foundation in the evidence to believe that the registration information for this vehicle would disclose the existence of an agent provocateur.”
Miller also alleged that a man photographed holding a flag with a swastika near Parliament Hill was Toronto communications consultant Brian Fox, in an attempt to discredit the convoy movement, possibly at the direction of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Fox and his firm, Enterprise Canada, called the claim absurd and despicable, and are suing Miller for defamation.
Still, convoy supporters continued to promote theories that offensive symbols seen on Ottawa streets in January and February were the work of “antifa” – short for anti-fascists – or other saboteurs working in league with the federal government.
CTV National News obtained Landriault’s name from the registration of the licence plate filed with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.
He says he bought the Confederate flag in 2019 to take to a concert by rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
He says he eventually traded the flag to another protester for a flag with a NSFW (not safe for work) slogan from a Frank Zappa song.
On the day Trudeau testified at the commission, Landriault attended the hearings dressed in a “Beetlejuice” costume and wearing a Harley Davidson baseball cap adorned with a Confederate flag motif.
During a break in the proceedings, he says he approached Miller.
"I told him I'm the one who had the truck, and I didn't work for no government," he said.
Landriault, who is unvaccinated, is a motorcycle rider and helped organize fellow bikers to participate in a 2021 protest against COVID-19 measures.
He says he attended the convoy protest last year to send a message to the government about vaccination mandates.
“We’re fed up,” he said. “You’ve taken too much control of people’s lives. You’re forcing a person to take a vaccine to go to a restaurant, to go to a movie, to travel, to go to school.”
He says he used his truck and trailer to help bring fresh supplies of diesel fuel to keep the big rigs running.
The pickup truck he drove to the protest was totalled in a collision last year, he says.
A recent report sheds light on Canadians living abroad--estimated at around four million people in 2016—and the public policies that impact them.
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
Polish President Andrzej Duda says while no decision has been made around whether Poland will host nuclear weapons as part of an expansion of the NATO alliance’s nuclear sharing program, his country is willing and prepared to do so.
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer said Saturday that the onetime movie mogul has been hospitalized for a battery of tests after his return to New York City following an appeals court ruling nullifying his 2020 rape conviction.
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
A number of LGBQT+2s groups in Central Alberta are pushing back against a request from the Red Deer South UCP constituency to reinstate MLA Jennifer Johnson into the UCP caucus.
Mookie Betts went 3 for 5, including a triple and an RBI single, as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 4-2 on Saturday.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”