Truck drivers are protesting about Justin Trudeau’s measures to make it a requirement that truck drivers get vaccinated or submit to Covid testing and quarantine. That follows a similar vaccine-or-test mandate announced in the US in October last year for workers crossing country borders, including truck drivers. 

Those opposed to the requirements have been protesting as part of a self-proclaimed ‘Freedom Convoy’, bringing disruption to the streets of the capital Ottowa and elsewhere for the last two weeks. However, it is the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge linking Ontario and Michigan that has had an impact on automotive production in both countries. 

On Monday morning (February 14), the Canada Border Services Agency reported that there were no longer delays on the bridge and that protesters had been moved after six days of disruption. However, leading carmakers and supplier groups said the action had made worse an already difficult situation for production in the wake of Covid and the semiconductor shortage.