If you’ve been seeing news this week and last from North of the border and wondering just what’s happening there with the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests, soon entering their third week in Canada, hear a long take on it all in today's edition of Overdrive Radio. Alberta, Canada-headquartered owner-operator Mike Murchison is not a direct participant in those protests but a clear-eyed watcher of what’s going on in Canadian trucking and society, generally speaking.

He narrates his hauls and so much more via the Road Warrior News publication, out of Toronto, and operates principally in the Western parts of both Canada and the United States, wholly dependent on cross-border freight for his business' success. Read some of his stories, and hear a song he wrote inspired by the early parts of the protests via this link: https://roadwarriornews.com/category/mike-murchison-rwn/

Much of today's podcast derives from a conversation with Murchison early this week on Tuesday, February 8, yet when we spoke briefly with Murchison this morning, he noted further efforts to attempt to end the protests by Canadian national and provincial governments. Ontario leadership had declared a state of emergency in part aimed at the shutdown of the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, by some estimates accounting for as much as 40% of all U.S.-Canada trade. The emergency declaration came with threats of fines, license suspensions and more for those impeding that bridge’s traffic, and out in Alberta similar ramp-ups in enforcement activity were under way, he said, at the blockaded Coutts border crossing.

The podcast touches on much more, though, tracing the protests' roots back to a U.S./Canadian cross-border vaccination requirements for essential travelers, implemented last month; the outsize importance of being able to cross that border to Canadian owner-operators and drivers; and the more sweeping and enforced pandemic-related restrictions in Canada, compared to what those of us in the U.S. have seen.

Read Long Haul Paul Marhoefer's "Faces of the Road" series installment about Murchison, his owner-operator business, and his music: https://www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra/article/15286651/truckersongwriter-mike-murchison-faces-of-the-road