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<p>I analyze news media framing of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”– a series of anti-government protests involving truckers who blockaded downtown streets in Ottawa and several border crossings for weeks in 2022. After police inaction, the Canadian government invoked <i>The Emergencies Act</i>, authorizing sweeping powers to arrest and detain protesters, freeze or seize assets, and compel private towing companies to remove vehicles. Employing a social constructionist framework, I qualitatively analyze claims in 131 news reports about the convoy in Canada’s two national newspapers, <i>The Globe &amp; Mail</i> and <i>National Post</i>, January to April, 2022. Significantly, claims about police powers and the right to protest revealed an ideological inversion, with liberal and conservative commenters attempting to define the situation in terms typically associated with the other. While media reports frequently employed the rhetoric of a moral panic, I conclude that the event is better understood as a moral breach characterized by competing claims rather than consensus, and more akin to American-style culture wars.</p>

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Outlaw Heroes or Extremists: Canada’s “Freedom Convoy” and the Social Construction of a National Emergency

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月20日

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  • Steven Kohm

摘要

I analyze news media framing of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy”– a series of anti-government protests involving truckers who blockaded downtown streets in Ottawa and several border crossings for weeks in 2022. After police inaction, the Canadian government invoked The Emergencies Act, authorizing sweeping powers to arrest and detain protesters, freeze or seize assets, and compel private towing companies to remove vehicles. Employing a social constructionist framework, I qualitatively analyze claims in 131 news reports about the convoy in Canada’s two national newspapers, The Globe & Mail and National Post, January to April, 2022. Significantly, claims about police powers and the right to protest revealed an ideological inversion, with liberal and conservative commenters attempting to define the situation in terms typically associated with the other. While media reports frequently employed the rhetoric of a moral panic, I conclude that the event is better understood as a moral breach characterized by competing claims rather than consensus, and more akin to American-style culture wars.