By Jessie Weisner

Medicine Hat local describes experience with convoy in Ottawa

Feb 20, 2019 | 1:52 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Hundreds of people and trucks from across Canada rolled into Ottawa yesterday with the ‘United We Roll’ convoy, protesting different subjects, and advocating for the country’s energy sector.

Ken Goldade, owner of DD2 Oilfield Rentals in Medicine Hat, is right in the middle of the action in Ottawa, and gave a little insight into what he’s experiencing on Parliament Hill.

He’s accompanied by one of his employees, Mike Bahr. 

“We’re getting heard, people are hearing us,” says Goldade.

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The United We Roll convoy began in Red Deer on Valentine’s Day, and made its way east over four days, stopping for rallies along the way.

Although Goldade flew to Ottawa, he says he followed the convoy’s journey across the country.

“It just kept picking up momentum and more people supporting all the time, people standing along the roads of all the intersections waving a cheering, waiting for hours in the cold with their kids. By the time they got to Ontario it had really grown, so it’s amazing the support we got out of the towns in Ontario,” he said.

During day one of the protests on Tuesday, Goldade says Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer and other representatives from the federal Conservative Party spoke to the crowd, encouraging their efforts.

“Some good speeches from different MP’s and members of the Conservative Party, we’ve seen no body come out from the Liberal Party or the NDP party, the only people that have come out here are people from the Conservative Party.”

Goldade says the main subjects the group is fighting for at this time is getting pipelines built as fast as possible, and opposing the non-binding UN immigration pact.

“The main thing short term is oil and gas, get the pipelines built. Long term we’re worried about the UN thing, it’s a big thing for long term.”

He says his expectation heading to Ontario was that they’d be met with strong opposition, but he was totally wrong.

“People are all coming together from all the provinces, all parts of this country and coming together, united,” he said. “We didn’t expect the support and the stuff from Ontario, we though we’d have more people against us and not happy to see us but they’re all standing up supporting us, coming up and shaking our hands.”

Goldade says the convoy definitely achieved its goal of being seen and heard by Parliament and the country.