What Countries Are We Worried About Right Now? Part 5: Canada (Plus Some Recent History from France)

Over the weekend there was a large (and perhaps overrated) public protest in Canada's capital, Ottawa. Many of those involved were long-distance truck drivers. It received some coverage in the U.S. media, mostly focused on the politics.

What has gotten more coverage is that in a related protest, for 3 days now Canadian truckers have blocked a border crossing into the U.S. In fact, it's the one where our own I-15 crosses the border from Montana into Alberta.

 

This is a much bigger deal (macroeconomically). There are only 3 border crossings on the interstates that truckers prefer in the 2,000 miles western part of our border with Canada. And, due to the limitations of the Jones Act, almost all commerce between Canada and the U.S. goes by truck or train. Further, the U.S. and Canada are the world's largest trading partners. 

I spent at least a minute researching this part on Google Maps. The trip from the border to Salt Lake City is usually 10 hours by the interstates that truckers love. To go around the blockade, through Calgary, Kamloops, Vancouver, Seattle, Yakima, and Boise takes more than 3 times as long. It's 4 times as long to go through Regina, Winnipeg, Fargo, Sioux City, Omaha, and Cheyenne. 

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A little common sense should also tell you that COVID-19 and the lockdowns have made truckers way more important to our macroeconomy than they were before.

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Also, truckers have discovered through actions in France over the last 5 years that they have more political power than they previously thought, and a convenient way for expressing that which inconveniences everyone else.

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While many have joined the protests, it is centered on truckers. What they're upset about is that there's been no reconciliation between vaccination policies between Canada and the U.S. Like in the U.S. Canadian truckers are encouraged but not required to get vaccinations. But if they go from Canada to America and back, they have to quarantine for 2 weeks when re-entering Canada. This amounts to preventing them from earning a living doing their job.

The thing is, the Canadian government may have a point. They have a nationalized healthcare system, so taxpayers are paying for everyone's potential COVID-19 treatment. And the U.S. stinks at fighting COVID-19. Our case rates per 100,000 people are 3 times higher over the last 2 weeks, and 4 times higher over the last week. We also have 75% more deaths per million people than Canada does. And adjusting for the fact that our population is 9 times as large as theirs, so it stands to reason that we should have 9 times as many hospitalizations. But we don't. Instead we have 14 times as many hospitalizations currently.

Macroeconomically, we're almost 2 years into this pandemic, and our best friends don't really want to play with us. And it's creating political unrest over there.