Yorkton, Saskatchewan entrepreneur Dallon Leger took himself out of the trucker convoy, but never wanted the trucker convoy out of himself. And so, the Saskatchewan Freedom Campout was born..“Like everybody else, we’re sick of what’s going on. And we wanted to stand up for our freedoms, right? So I went down to Ottawa, spent two weeks there, and I came back home,” Leger recalled in an interview with Western Standard..“I wanted to bring a piece of Ottawa back to Saskatchewan and give people the ability to be a part of the unity and hope and what Ottawa represented…There was no violence. It was nothing but hugs and unity and laughter and tears and everything good about Canada. That is my intention here.”.The campout is barely a week old, located on a corner on private property adjacent to the crossing at Northgate. The reason it’s located near the U.S. border is not to block traffic, but to symbolize the problems are national, not provincial, as mandates are lifting in Saskatchewan. He says no more than 75 people have been there at any one time, though those who have come and gone number in the hundreds..“You get up in the morning, we get the fire going again and start making breakfast. And that’s all it’s a community. We’re all out together, sharing food that locals have brought in and it’s a family. So we’re all jumping in each other’s campers telling stories, getting to know one each other,” Leger said..“At six o’clock in the evening, we get together, everybody in their vehicles, and we have a moment of silence for everybody that’s gone to Ottawa, that’s still in Ottawa, that’s injured by the Ottawa police…Once that moment of silence is over, we lay on the horns for two to three minutes to make some noise. And I get the goosebumps.”.Leger hopes to DJ on Friday nights and live music Saturday nights. This Sunday, pancakes were served from 10 am ‘til noon, followed by a “freedom and faith” message. He said many camping there have said the experience is “therapeutic.”.“We are all like-minded here. We all disagree with what’s happening…I felt like I couldn’t have those conversations, even with family and people that I trusted, because you never knew how they felt. And there was such a division and hate being created by our leaders,” Leger said..“The biggest thing I took away from Ottawa was after two years, we were able to have conversations again. And it was not anti-vaccine or anti-COVID or anything. It was genuine feelings. It was genuine people’s lives. They’ve lost their homes, or they’ve lost their jobs, or grandma passed away and they couldn’t go see her…That’s the community that we’re bringing in.”.Leger said prior to the crackdown, most police in Ottawa were friendly, and even allowed you to take pictures with them and any horses they mounted. But when Leger saw the video of a horse trampling a protester in Ottawa, it made him “fricken pissed.”.In the days of the Emergency Act, the police presence was strong outside of the campground, so Leger found a policeman to vent to..“I said, ‘Have you seen the videos of what’s happening in Ottawa?’ And he said, ‘No, we were directed not to watch anything.’” But with permission, Leger showed him anyway..“He could not watch the video. He couldn’t watch it. It hurt him. You could see the emotion and the hurt in his face. Like, these are humans, they have a job to do.”.Leger had developed a business recycling plastic grain bags on farms. However, the provincial government is implementing its own program that includes a mandatory deposit when new bags are bought. The 30-year-old Leger, who moved to Saskatchewan from Ontario 11 years ago, believes government overreach has gone too far..“We’re camping out here until the federal government lifts their mandates, we’re going with the exact same goal that the freedom convoy had,” Leger said..“The semi drivers that come sleep in their trucks Those that have campers are sleeping their campers. And we have multiple space heaters because the furnace just doesn’t keep up. And there are also many people sleeping in their vehicles. So people are toughing this. This is winter camping in February in Saskatchewan. This is insane.”.Lee Harding is a Saskatchewan-based contributor to the Western Standard.
