Deputy opinion editor at Newsweek: Canadian trucker convoy protests about ‘control,’ ‘class divide’

Batya Ungar-Sargon, the deputy opinion editor at Newsweek, argued that the Canadian trucker convoy protests were about “control” and the “class divide” and not about the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

During a Monday appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Ungar-Sargon criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for invoking his emergency powers to quell the Canadian trucker protests without trying to meet with protesters first.

“You know, Justin Trudeau declared a state of emergency using the Emergencies Act, which is only allowed to be used if, as a last resort, but he didn’t even try the first resort of speaking to the truckers once. Not a single person from government has walked out and asked those people what they want, because it’s not about what they want,” Ungar-Sargon said.

“It’s not about the mandates. It’s about control. It’s about the class divide. And it’s about who gets to have a say and who doesn’t get to have a say and the upward transfer of wealth and power to liberal progressive elites at the expense of the working class,” she added.

Ungar-Sargon’s comments come as the protests, which started with truck drivers protesting a mandate requiring them to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter Canada and went on to spread to cities around the country and cause disruptions at multiple border crossings between the U.S. and Canada, appear to have ended in Ottawa.

However, Canadian lawmakers extended the emergency powers invoked by Trudeau on Monday night.