The Freedom Convoy was voted as The Canadian Press Newsmaker of the Year by editors in newsrooms across the country. .The annual poll of newsrooms across Canada found a total of 49% of the 104 survey respondents voted for the protesters to be Newsmaker of the Year, ahead of 28% for Queen Elizabeth II, who died back in September..“Love them or hate them, the convoy protesters impacted most Canadians’ daily lives in 2022 and showed the fractures in our country,” wrote Tim Switzer, managing editor of the Regina Leader-Post..The Canadian Press has been holding the annual poll since 1946. Back in 2021, the top story was all the children who did not return from residential schools, while in 2020 the frontline workers during COVID-19 were the winner..The Freedom Convoy demonstrations were born out of an anger with COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers crossing the Canada-US border. But they snowballed into a protests against COVID-19 restrictions as a whole, as well as dissatisfaction with the reigning Liberal government..Hundreds of vehicles travelled across the country to park in downtown Ottawa, where they then occupied the nation's capital for three weeks. Incessant honking and diesel fumes caused psychological harms to many Ottawans, but the protestors attempted to smooth things over by offering free food and entertainment to many city residents..Several more border blockades popped up in Coutts, AB and Windsor, ON, paralyzing cross-border traffic and costing the Canadian and US economies millions of dollars..Police officers eventually forcefully removed the Ottawa protestors in mid-February, but not before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history on Feb. 14..Shortly after the protests ended, provincial governments removed vaccine mandates that had barred unvaccinated Canadians from entering gyms, restaurants, museums and bars..Murray Wood, program director at 980 CJME in Regina, said the Freedom Convoy protestors "may have been unclear on their goals and ill-informed as to how to pursue them, but they reflected a schism in our society that is ignored at our peril.".“Rarely has an act of protest been so dramatically acted upon by the highest levels of power in Canada,” Walton added..Marco Vigliotti, city editor of the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun, said the Freedom Convoy, "brought international attention to Canada and forced the country to grapple with an angry, conspiratorial populist wave.".On Monday, The Canadian Press also revealed the “Freedom Convoy” protest itself had been selected as the top news story of the year.
