The real struggling workers of the #UnitedWeRoll convoy

United We Roll convoy organizer Glen Carritt says if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t get the two-day demonstration’s pro-oil, pro-pipeline message, “then there’s something completely broken with the system.”

The Innisfail town councillor told The Post Millennial that western workers hurt by the resources downturn that was compounded by a provincial carbon tax, tried to get the federal government’s attention to their plight. When that failed, according to Carritt, he decided to help them make their statement right in the nation’s heart.

“We were having rallies in western Canada and nobody had our voices heard so we decided to come out to Parliament buildings – to Wellington Street – and park trucks right in front of the parliament and Mr. Trudeau’s office,” Carritt said. “And that’s exactly what we did. We brought 200 trucks up here and made a lot of noise.”

Beyond the big rig spectacle clogging the government precinct’s thoroughfare and air horns cutting through February’s chill, were individuals who have suffered the economic consequences of an oil patch that has already shed more than 100,000 jobs.

Heavy equipment operator Ilia Keydo attended the demonstration and said that things in northern British Columbia where he’s from, are grim.

“I’ve been around the pipelines quite a bit and I’ve definitely noticed a big decrease in the amount of work that’s out there, people’s wages dropping and their whole liftestyle becoming a little bit worse,” he said. “I just believe in the pipelines and that they do stimulate Canada’s economy and I’m hoping they’ll approve everything and work starts picking up. I hope my phone starts ringing with all the jobs calling me back.”

Al Nielsen, a trucker and oil field consultant with 23 years of experience, said he drove five days to be in Ottawa and spoke of the economic situation in his hometown of Olds, Alberta.

“The big projects aren’t there anymore so you gotta do something else … we’re all just trying to survive, like everybody in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario,” Nielsen said. “We’re just all trying to make a living and trying not to spend the retirement money on basic necessities because that’s what we’ve been pushed to.”

In 2017, Alberta introduced its own $20/tonne carbon tax that increased to $30 at the beginning of 2018. Like Alberta, the federal government’s carbon tax kicked in at $20/tonne starting January 1st of this year, to be levied on all provincial and territorial jurisdictions without their own version, and will increase to $50/tonne by 2022.

As Alberta has done, Ottawa will also provide rebates – in Ontario, for example, the federal government estimates an average family of four will receive $718.

Regardless of the rebates – which amount to partial reimbursement of taxes already paid on goods and services – people like Nielsen don’t see the purported benefits, only detriments.

“I live in an oil and farming community and it’s tough for everybody because all these carbon taxes in Alberta, we were hit really hard with this carbon tax which makes it very expensive to do everything,” he said. “It adds cost to groceries, everything you have comes in a truck or some other form of transportation … so they’re taxing basic necessities. In this country heat is a basic necessity. Transportation is a basic necessity.”

Les Michelson works in Edmonton’s real estate market and also traveled with the convoy to attend the Ottawa demonstration. A self-described yellow vest protester, Michelson said his “livelihood depends on the ups and downs of the oil economy.”

“We have a stiffling economy in Alberta, we’re in a bust cycle and it’s been the worst that I can remember in 50 years,” he said. “What we want are pipelines built, we need to get our oil to tidewater, we need to get a higher price for our Canadian oil and we need to build a pipeline to eastern Canada.”

At the end of last year, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers estimated that Canada stood to lose up to $100 billion annually due to the then-near $60 price difference between Canadian oil and West Texas Intermediate (light sweet crude) on world markets.

Making matters worse for Michelson, the rest of his United We Roll cohorts and by extention all Canadians, is that TransCanada cancelled in 2017 Energy East – a proposed pipeline from Alberta to the east coast – after stiff opposition from various municipalities and aboriginal groups on the right-of-way. Mired in legal challenges, the Northern Gateway pipeline to Canada’s west coast was also shelved and the last hope – Transmountain, formerly owned by Kinder Morgan – was purchased by the federal government for $4.5 billion and its proposed twinning from Burnaby to Alberta, remains in limbo.

Adding to the country’s pipeline woes is the addition of a carbon tax which spurred Yann Bossel, a cash-crop and dairy farmer from Winchester Ontario, into action. Arriving Wednesday morning in Ottawa in his massive, dual-wheel John Deere tractor, Bossel said the tax will cascade through the economy.

“Since we all use oil and gas, obviously the carbon tax is going to affect everybody. But at what point is enough tax enough?’ he said. “At what point is farming the population for every dollar they have enough? Sure, its cutting into profits but it’s not just profits, it’s also going to cut into growth.”