Shaun Newman Podcast - #236 - Truck Driver Chris Barber

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

A veteran of the trucking industry (28 years). Chris gives us a breakdown of the Slow Roll across Canada or operation Bearhug. Why they are doing it, how you can help & where to go for information. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 For more information: https://canada-unity.com/bearhug/ SNP Presents February 5th snp.ticketleap.com/snp-presents-solutions-for-the-future/ Support here:⁠ https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

This is Nick Hudson. I'm Dr. Daniel Nagassey. This is Julie Pennessy. This is Corporal Daniel Beaufort. This is Dr. Paul Alexander. This is Dr. Eric Payne. This is Dr. Eric Payne. This is Dr. Peter McCullough.

Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Happy Thursday, folks. Yeah, this is what I call a bonus episode. I wasn't planning on having a four-out this week. Certainly wasn't on the docket, but with the trucker's slow roll progressing here. and picking up steam. I got put in contact with Chris and I thought, well, it's time sensitive. I mean, I don't want to release it a week down the road when they're already on the way.

This will give you hopefully some much needed info. And if you're looking for places to go find more, you can certainly do that. I'll post in the show notes a link to their website. That way you can follow along or if you want to lend a hand or whatever else. I think truck drivers in our community and across our great country have played such a pivotal role in our society if we can help along and what they're doing all the power to them i think it's going to slow things down but uh man i really appreciate what they're trying to do and so if we can lend a hand anyways i'll stop blabbering now let's get on to the ram truck rundown

brought to by auto clearing jeep and ram the prairie's trusted source for kreisler dodge jeep ram fiat and all things automotive for over 110 years he's been on the road for 28 years He's helping organize the truckers slow roll across Canada, Operation Bear Hug. I'm talking about Chris Barber. So buckle up. Here we go. Chris Barber, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today.

I'm joined by Chris Barber. So, sir, thanks for pulling over on the side of the road. This is a first. I appreciate you doing that for me. You're welcome, Sean. Good to be here. Now, for the audience, they're going to have literally no idea who Chris Barber is. I don't know who Chris Barber is.

I don't know how this came to be, but I appreciate you taking some time out of your busy, hardworking day. Could you give the listener a little background on yourself just so they know who they're listening to? I'm a long haul truck driver. I'm a business owner. I own the business. I dispatch the trucks. I do everything from the seat of my truck. I answered a TikTok one night from a girl named Bridget.

She's from Ontario. She's losing her job as a long haul across the states and across the border. And I did a reply on that. and the video went viral. And now we've got a movement going here that's knocking everybody's socks off and half the country's all up, ready to go and send a message to Ottawa. So that's what we're doing. Well, like I said before we started, I got, you know, we should all thought about this a long time ago.

But dad always used to tell me, he's a guy who made his career trucking. And when things got bad, he went trucking. And he said, you want to shut down a country, piss off the truckers, right? And he's not wrong. We're seeing it right now. everybody's like, you know, I live in Lloydminster. This place, all it is trucks. It's all we do here.

And if you want to get them all up to, you know, bringing down the mandate, which is, which is really interesting at this time, you know, like as things are starting to fizzle out, as things are just starting to, you know, we talk, UK's opening up. They're just like, okay, we're done with the mass. We're done with the mandates. They're going to get rid of the past by the sounds of it. And yet, here are two countries are penalizing the guys and gals. who work through the heart of this thing,

nonstop. Have you seen the stuff that's going on with the border lately? I've seen a lot of videos about it. It makes me sickening to know that that's my Canada, where, you know, border crossing guards that I've worked through the better part of 25 years crossing the border every week are now, I don't want to either.

They're acting like people from the 1940s, unfortunately, and that's the sad part about it. And our government's asked them to do that. They're only doing their job. I have the utmost respect for law enforcement and every degree of it. But this has gone too far. This is government overreach.

I think the drivers are, we're tired of it. We need a change. It's like you said, Britain opened everything up today. And we're closing everything down. And Trudeau has his, you know,

hand around our throats. And he's keeping it there. He's not going to let us up on this. Well, can you give us a little bit of an idea what the last maybe week, 10 days has been since, you know,

you mentioned the TikTok goes viral. But, I mean, I think a lot of us around the telegram groups or Twitter or whatever. And, you know, that's how I stumble across your contact info. I assume if I stumble across it, I'm not the only one. My phone rings from sunup to sundown. I think it was ringing at 11 o'clock last night.

I have to turn it off. I get text, emails, calls from all across the country. I've spoke to people from Victoria to New Brunswick to Nova Scotia. I just got a call from a lady in Quebec. It's insane. And I'm trying really hard to keep up with the text messages. and try and push everybody to the website. What is the website?

What is the website? Canada, Unity slash Bear Hug. Canada, Unity slash Bear Hug? I think it's Canada Unity, Canada-Hiveon Unity slash Bear Hug. And on there is the schedules, the routes, the times, the meeting places. There's a program on there called Adopt a Trucker where people can put truckers up that don't have a place to sleep. if it's a daycap truck, there's going to be hot meals, sandwiches, coffees, hot, what's, you name it, all the way across the country. Have you found it there?

I'm looking, yeah, you're seeing what I'm putting down. Okay, so it's Canada-unity.com backslash bear hug. And how, okay, now, now I'm listening again. What is a doctor-trucker? Apparently it's a place where somebody's got a house open, an extra bedroom. some place where a trucker can come in and have a shower or if they've got a hot meal for us. I've obviously got, I've got a sleeper unit in the back here. I'll be sleeping in the truck.

I've got a coffee pot. As when COVID started, I had a Contigo coffee maker in the back of the truck. I've got water bottles, a microwave, Kansas soup, and anything we can eat. When the COVID started, restaurants were closed, gas stations were closed. We couldn't get a cup of coffee. I hate to say that my bathroom was the great outdoors. I run an equipment trailer with slides that pull out from the trailer, and that was my toilet seat, unfortunately, because there was no place to use a toilet. It was,

it was quite interesting. That's, I'm just, well, I mean, you truck, truck drivers are, you're self-sufficient, you know, like you get on the road, where you go, the laws apply to you, kind of, but you find ways to just push through because, I mean, look at the weather that you guys deal with and everything else that you know like when when the world you know like and i got all the time in the world for doctors nurses 100 percent what they do is amazing but while they were getting applaud and everything i didn't you know i work in the outfield i saw what the truckers were bringing us up from the states and nobody was giving them a standing ovation i find it interesting now as uh canada will not let go of what's going on our politicians don't seem to want to just back off some of

this stuff and they keep pulling up. It only makes sense that you guys and gals are the ones that are really putting the feet to the fire, so to speak. We've got a crew behind us. Like you wouldn't believe we've Pat King is on board with this in the media relations. We've got a lot of people behind the scenes work in the Facebook pages, the telegram, I guess we have accounts on that Twitter. The GoFundMe pages went absolutely wild. I think last time I checked we were just under a half a million raised in the GoFundMe here. So that is for drivers for fuel. The guys that can't afford the diesel fuel to get across to Ottawa.

That's for hotel accommodations for the ones that don't have sleeper units on the back of the trucks, repairs. If somebody has a flat tire, I can't afford it. I want to mention, too, once the GoFundMe page is all done, the rally is done, the fuel costs and all the expenses are taking care of. There's an accounting firm in Medicine Hat that's actually looking after the GoFundMe, so it's not Joe Blow, Chris Trucker. it's actually looking after properly.

But the leftover money from this GoFundMe, when it's said and done, I hope there's a lot left over because we're going to donate it to veteran societies across Canada. Those are the guys that we're going to do this for. Man, I tell you what, it's the reason why when I heard this,

I'm like, I got to find a way to get a hold of somebody to talk to him about it. Because, you know, the first thing somebody's going to say is, well, they've got to go fund me and it's raised a million dollars, whatever it ends at. I bet you those, some buys somebody's podcast.

at all. And you just squash that. Like, you got nothing but respect for me. I feel like, you know, like we got to, we got to end these mandates. Like it has to end. And I think what you guys are doing is, honestly, I commend you all for burning your diesel fuel, for taking the time out of your work schedule, for putting things at risk by doing this. Really commend that. I feel like when truck drivers hear this, they're going to wonder how they can get involved. How do they go to the website? Do they find the telegram group? They go to the website.

They find the routes. They join in. I've got there's so many people that are going to be joining in. I'm hearing numbers and it's hard to say the actual number of guys that are going to be there. I've heard 1600 semis are on their way to Ottawa throughout Canada. I've heard numbers as high as 350,000 people in March. This isn't just the semis. I want to make sure everybody knows that.

We've got pilot cars. are going to be leading the way, closing off intersections for us. So we're safe going through intersections. We've got passenger vehicles. We've got a couple campers involved. We've got guys with flatbed, goose neck trailers behind a Dooley. We're, it's about Canada. It's a huge.

When I answered to make a TikTok, I would have never thought, never imagined that it would be the size that it is in the support that we've got right now. It's absolutely unbelievable. Doesn't it give you hope for the future? It does. You know, I told my wife that if this doesn't work, I am so disgusted with my government, not ashamed of my country, but it goes shame to them or just disgusted with my government. I would consider packing up and selling and moving, but where do you go? The U.S. is, I'm in Minnesota right now, Sean. I haven't seen a mask or wore a mask since I crossed the border three days ago.

I've been to Iowa and back up. They're lying to us. And I can see that every time I cross that U.S. border, down here is wide open. You sit next to the guy next to you at the bar at the truck stop when you're having a beer at the end. of the night or a stake. It's enough already. Like, there's just,

it's enough. Yeah. I, I'm, you know, I guess I didn't, I didn't fully, when I,

when I made the text to you a call, and we had our little chat, and I was like, okay, I got to get you on. I got a final way to get on. And I was just thinking, like, it's starting in Vancouver's going.

But now that I'm looking at the website, while you're talking, there's multiple routes. So there's a west route. It starts, uh, on the 22nd. It goes from North BC through North BC.

Uh, January 23rd, they're in Vancouver. You kind of get the idea. Calgary 24th, North Saskatchewan the 24th, and they roll along. And then you got Regina to Canora, and that's a different route. And then you got the east route coming from Enfield and that way. And then you got through Quebec. And then you got the south route coming from Windsor to Kingston.

And then you got Cornwall to Ottawa. Like, you think if you're sitting in Ottawa right now, you're looking at this going, oh crap it's it's there's about maybe 20 of us in a ongoing meetings on a daily basis chatting on us it's hard to believe that i would say roughly 20 people we're we're putting this all together those 20 people and we're we all have our roles we have people that are looking after social media people that look after the money the you know my job is to try and organize Saskatchewan. I've got Ryan who lives in Prince Albert that's organizing Saskatoon, Northern Saskatchewan. And we're working together. What's going to be the cool part is actually meeting

all these people for the first time that I've never met. I've seen them on the meetings that we do. And I have no clue what they're like, but I can almost say to their family now. Should we talk to each other more times than I actually talk to them more now than I talk to my poor wife at home, I'm sure. Well, I think it's pretty cool to watch from where I'm sitting because, you know, we get told over and over and over again, you're a minority. Like, nobody thinks like you. It's not that big a deal. Just shut up and do this or do that, whatever. And then you would, like, I'm very interested to see what happens here, right?

Because when I, when you see people talking about it, you see the government trying to like dampen it a bit. and anytime the government tries dampening anything at this point, it's like they're putting kerosene on the fire because everybody stares at and goes, if they're trying to shut this down, it's bigger than what they're saying it is. Here's a story that there's another reason this makes me so angry. My 16-year-old daughter in Swiftkern, she has a job at the counter at the Burger King's store in Swiftkern.

She goes to high school and she was kind of roughly bullied by her friends and a lot of people in school because she wasn't vaccinated because I wasn't sure if I wanted my 16-year-old daughter to have some this you know what nobody knows the long-term effects of it i'm vaccinated you know i i'm okay with that but a young age when she's got children to bear they don't know the long-term effects of this so she got bullied enough and she was told to work that she couldn't come to work so she went and got double vaccinated and yesterday she tested positive for covid and now she's at home in her bedroom quarantining from the rest of the family so i wasn't in close contact with her because I've been out here trucking the last three weeks.

I'm trying to get everything done before the rally. But I think she went to all the stuff that she's supposed to do and she still winds up with COVID. So her body's going to build those antibodies, those natural ones. Did it work? Honestly, makes me question things. You know, you bring up the vaccine. And you told me before we started this that I better bring up you're not anti-vax.

And maybe you could explain that a little bit. I get my flu shots every year. I'm what they considered compromised immune. I have heart issues. So I, doctor said, I usually do it. I do my flu shot every year.

I'm not anti-vax. I don't want to live in a communist country where I have to show a piece of paper to Joe Blow a Denny's to sit down and have a meal. I shouldn't have to show my vaccination history to somebody at customs so I can cross the border. I have a passport for the border cross, an international passport.

We have retired RCMP running around the province of Saskatchewan right now, looking for anybody that's not wearing a mask to write them $1,800 fines. Well, I think it's $1,800. I'm not sure what it is. We have, you know, health officers now designated to sneak into restaurants to try and find out if they're not, you know, if they're not checking the proper paperwork. The last time in history, stuff like that was done was in the 40s in Germany, unfortunately. And it scares the hell to me to say that.

We need this to end. The passports make no sense anymore, and I think that's where we are as a country. We're tired of it. I'm done with it. I am so finished with it. It's enough already. We need to get back to normal. The amount of business owners that have lost their businesses over this in the last two years

from these shutdowns and these mandates, and it makes me sick. Chris, at the whistle stop in Mirror, Alberta, look at what that guy went through. He tried to take a stand, and the government has rolled right over him like a steamboat. Does he have much left? I sent a message to him the other day asking him if you wanted to take partner I still haven't heard yet but I hope he comes because he'd be a hell of a voice

for why we need these mandates to quit him I really appreciate you giving me some of your hard earned time I don't want to hold you here for half an hour I laugh about it this is the first time I've ever done a truck driver which I don't know why because you guys have the most interesting stories that's why I've had my father on here multiple times

but two I know you're still driving you're burning daylight hour giving it to me and I do really appreciate that. I do a little segment, no matter how long or short these podcasts are. It's the crewmaster final question showed to Heath and Tracy McDonald. They run an oil hauling business. So they're truckers, and they've been supporting the podcast since the very beginning. The first one is, you know, you do this across Canada.

If at the end of it, you get to sit down with one person to have a conversation, who would you want to sit with? Oh, my goodness. You know what? My opinion on politicians in general right now is I don't below the floorboards in the truck. I have always voted conservative. I can't even say I vote because it's a vote against Trudeau and I don't know.

I honestly can't even answer it. That's a hell of a question. Maybe years ago, like, I was always a fan of Harper and a fan of Bradwell and Saskatchew and I'm a huge fan of Brad's, but I don't know if there's many politicians. My hometown politician, I guess, of Jeremy Patser, I guess. We could sit down if he's interested.

We've heard a little bit from the PPP, the PPC party, I guess. Just wanted to meet with us. But we're trying to keep this out of the politician's hands. They haven't done anything to get to us yet. So why would they start now? And we're trying to keep it out of mainstream media hands too, because they're just going to spin it the way the government wants it, too. So we're doing more interviews on social media with guys like you and podcasts.

It gets a message directly to the people instead of going through the government payroll, like we know with all the media companies. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. Well, here's your final one then. You've been on the road, how many years? 28 years this year. Okay, 28 years.

Here's my question then. If I could sit down with one trucker who is an absolute legend, who would you be like, oh, you've got to talk to? And I don't know if it's a call sign. I don't know if it's a guy. I don't know if it's a lady. There has to be one. You know, the one guy I would say it was a guy that used to work for triangle movers of Saskatoon years ago.

He's passed on now, but his name was Gris, and he was this big six-foot-six-tall guy. I drove an old white frayliner, and he came up to me when I was a new trucker ever, and I was maybe a year, two years into it, long haul into the States, and kind of grab me by the shoulder and said he was traveling with me. He's scared to live in a shit out of me. He was this big guy, looked like a big Grizzly Wallace kind of guy. There's a lot of guys out there. This trucking industry is full of lots of really good, hardworking guys.

and yeah, I'll give them all showed out. We need the credit that we deserve. I mean, you're like you said before, the medical profession, I can't say enough good about the medical people in the country. They were their front lines. If there was a front line, they were on it. We were one stage back from that front line,

hauling equipment. I think throughout this whole pandemic, a lot of people have forgotten about the stuff that they got us, well, yesterday's heroes, today's zeros, right? I said that last night in a podcast, and it kind of went good. so I'll say it again tonight. Yeah, well, you're the unsung hero because nobody sees you come, nobody sees you leave.

You just show up to the store and there's the goods and nobody really puts too much thought into it, right? And so... I actually... Sorry. No. I was... If I put a video on TikTok the other day and a lady commented that I was the selfish piece of, you know what? Because I refused to deliver the groceries to the store to keep her fed.

And I kind of wanted to say... maybe I did say something, I'm not sure, but I hope you starve. It's not my responsibility. I do my stuff. And you take that for granted. There's a few people in this country that have that mentality. And I hope when they go to Walmart next, like my mother did yesterday and said the store shells were half bare. I don't know.

Yeah, I don't wish ill will on anyone. But I think sometimes a rude awakening is a good, a good pill to have because, you know, life's been pretty good in Canada. I think we can all agree that. And if you go, you know, I get to interview a lot of old timers. So people, you know, I remember Chris interviewing a 98 year old. And I said, what do you, you know, what do you remember about the 20s? Like, you know, you're pretty old.

Like, I mean, and he goes, we didn't have money. And like, what do you mean? He's like, I don't know what my, when I was a kid, we didn't know what money was. I'm like, oh my God. like that's in a lifetime somebody who went from barter system and you made all your own food and you had cows and chickens and pigs and you never they never said they starved they said they were always well fed but they didn't have money they weren't going on trips to Mexico they weren't rolling into a supermarket and having everything at their beck and call and so here we sit

and i'm not saying i want to be very clear i don't want to see the supermarket empty because i i want to go in and be able to get my stuff but i also don't want to ever have to have to to think that I need a piece of paper to go into, like you say, Denny's, or heaven forbid, the grocery store or it feels like it's coming, doesn't it? It does. I think it is coming. They tried that over out in East Coast somewhere and it failed, but everything's coming. If they can put a COVID passport on you to get into a restaurant or like Saskatchew, you can't go into a liquor store or a pot store, restaurants, now the border, when does it stop? There's enough people that lost their job. We're in trouble as a country.

if we keep heading down this direction and it needs to stop. We need to stop this entitled attitude and pick up the pieces and let's rebuild what we have. It's, I think it's time. I feel sorry for my children. They're there in their teens and what are we leaving for them? Yeah, well, we as adults, men need to take a stand and you guys are doing it. You're leading the way and I do appreciate that because I don't know what we're leaving our kids. We're leaving them a lot of pain and, you know, like,

debt and everything else. And if all of a sudden you need to have this Y, X, Y, Z to go into anywhere, I don't know what that looks like either, right? Like once upon a time, it was just you hopped on a plane, you flew across the country, nobody even thought a second about it. And that has changed in the last two years. And we've given it up quite willingly, to be honest. That's the scary part is everybody's so compliant, placing just whatever the government

says, you know, how long until the microchips come for under your skin? And I know that's a far-fetched, you know, conspiracy theory. But Sweden, Sweden's got it. Or Sweden's unrolling it, I should say. And a digital currency. Like there's so many things here. How much more to the government do you want running your life? I would prefer a wood cabin up in northern Saskatchewan with a wood stove and a rifle for, you know, my hunting and keeping my belly fit.

But that's not feasible with children and a lifestyle and a mortgage home. So I'll keep working down here. Good Saskatchewan boy. Well, I appreciate it, Chris. I don't want to hold you up. I want to get you back on the road, and I'll be watching, hopefully hear from the community. They hear the call, and I'm sure you're going to have some trucks heading out from this way. I can guarantee it.

But I do appreciate what you guys are doing. Pat King will be doing lives all the way through it. So if you follow him at all, he'll be the guy at the lead of the show. He'll be keeping everybody abreast of it. And I'll have my TikTok, my 18-year-old son is going to jump in the truck with me and go. So he'll be running the video camera for my lives. Did you ever? getting used to. Did you ever think you'd be a TikTok star? I'm a, I'm a, I'm a social media,

kind of a trollish, kind of a turd. I like to get in there and take a, I like stir the pot and piss as many people off. If anybody on here knows me, they know that's who I am. Yeah, so anybody looking at me at the face of the Western part of this leg and thinking that I'm the role model is not really, I'm trying hard to fill those shoes, but it's a big, big jump. Well, I appreciate you giving us a few minutes of your time and safe travels on the road. We'll do, my friend. Take care, Canada. Let's get this next week, okay? Hey, thanks for tuning in today, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to like and subscribe. I'm not going to blabber on too long here.

If you're looking for more information, the website is posted in the show notes. It is a quick turnaround. I am back on tomorrow, Friday. I got an excellent, excellent guest coming up for Friday. So I hope you tune back. in and listen to Mr. Brian Peckford. Yeah, it's going to be an awesome Friday. So thanks for tuning in today. Go have yourself a Thursday and we will catch up to you Friday.