Hundreds of tractor rigs, pickup trucks, cars and protestors in the pro-oil, pro-pipeline United We Roll convoy arrived in Ottawa Tuesday morning, parked right in front of Parliament Hill and let loose their horns of discontent.
Hundreds of tractor rigs, pickup trucks, cars and protestors in the pro-oil, pro-pipeline United We Roll convoy arrived in Ottawa Tuesday morning, parked right in front of Parliament Hill and let loose their horns of discontent.
“Our biggest reason to come here was to wake up a nation, make people aware of the problems we have in this country,” said Wade Woywitka, a family farmer and oil and gas industry worker from Vermilion, Alberta. “I’ve lost more than half my wages in the last three years.”
Shelved and moribund pipeline projects are “killing jobs” said Woywitka, over the blare of air-horns. Woywitka said his own journey across the country opened his eyes to how widespread the economic fallout has become.
“When I left Alberta I thought it was just us over a barrel, but when we got to Ontario I realized the problem was right across this country, everybody’s getting it bad,” he said. “I’m here for pipelines and to get the sovereignty of the nation back.”
Thirty-eight-year-old Josh Mainil from Weyburn, Saskatchewan drove his rig for four days to be here in Ottawa. His message was one of unity and jobs.
“We just want everyone to know that we’re one country and want everyone to work together,” said Mainil, who like Woywitka works in agriculture and the resource industry. “We’re getting pretty crippled as far as the oil industry goes and the carbon tax is only going to hurt us more, and it’s going to hurt agriculture big-time as well.”
“So we just want to go back to work, guys are sick of sitting around. We want to work and we want to get things done.”
Pete Sackman is another United We Roll protestor that spoke with The Post Millennial. Sackman lives just down the road from Ottawa in Renfrew, Ontario and was on a break from working on the Enbridge Line 3 project in Hardisty, Saskatchewan.
“I came down to support my fellow well workers,” he said. “What the government is doing to the oil and gas industry, the way they’re cutting it out is just not fair. There’s a lot of guys struggling out there.”
Standing in front of trailer emblazoned with “I (heart) pipelines” and giving the thumbs up, Sackman said that “enough is enough.”
"Our government is failing us. Our whole government set-up is just against the working people,” he said. “There’s struggle, struggle, struggle. Every time you turn around there’s something more against you and the people are getting fed up. I usually try to stay as quiet as I can, but I can’t stay quiet any longer.”
The Post Millennial team is in Ottawa and will provide more coverage on this topic throughout the next two days.
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