Hundreds of people took to Cochrane's Centennial Plaza Sunday, Jan. 30, to protest government mandates in support of the trucker convoy that landed on the front steps of Parliament Hill earlier this weekend.
The rally was organized in short time by 2021 town council candidate Deborah Murphy, with the intent of supporting the truckers who she said, have "brought unity to our country, when Trudeau was trying to divide and conquer us."
Murphy said those in attendance are not anti-vaccination, they are against COVID-19 mandates.
"We are not extreme-right angle people," she said. "We are people of choice, people of freedom."
Murphy and several others made speeches calling for change at the event, including veteran Lex Leugner; a local nurse who was suspended from her job for refusing the vaccine; Dicksy Higgins, a resident who has been unable to use the facilities at Spray Lake Sawmills due to the Restrictions Exemption Program; Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie; and even a handful of children took to the stage to make calls for change.
They were cheered on by those in the crowd and those honking while driving by in a looping convoy with Canadian and "F**k Trudeau" flags hoisted in the air.
In her speech, Murphy said she is planning to put a list together of local businesses who are currently not complying, or planning not to comply with government mandates, so they could support them.
Just last week, Guthrie posted a Facebook video calling for an end to mandates, vaccine passports and "divisive policies."
He reiterated at the rally that he remains firm in this stance.
"We have truckers, farmers, ranchers from coast to coast to coast, who have put their jobs aside right now, made a trek at their own expense all across this country, and they've ended up in Ottawa — right now as we're standing here — in order to stand up for our freedoms.
"You're here to make a statement, and I appreciate it, and I hear you," he said to the crowd. "I'm gonna take the message back — we have a Caucus meeting tomorrow — and I'm going to let everybody know what we're seeing right here in Cochrane."
As speeches came to a close, protesters took to the street to march, chanting 'My body, my choice; your body, your choice,' 'Just say no,' and 'Do not comply' through the downtown area.
There was a small RCMP presence during the march with officers driving around downtown roadways. The crowd eventually dissipated after returning to Centennial Plaza.
