Does a viral post about the Canadian "Freedom Convoy" held in 2022 also show an image of the trucks participating in the convoy? No, that's not true: The picture used in the post is not of the 2022 convoy, but of a convoy held in 2019 called "United We Roll" that protested the Canadian government's energy policies.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on February 1, 2022. The post has an image of a convoy of trucks with snow on the ground and text that reads:
Huge shoutout to mainstream media for downplaying the convoy
Huge shoutout to the towns and city's that shut their traffic cameras off when the convoy went through
Huge shoutout to Justin Trudeau for hiding in his bedroom just before the convoy gets to Ottawa
Huge shoutout to Facebook for deleting the original convoy page
Huge shoutout to GoFundMe for trying to tie up the money that's for the truckers and their supportYou've all shown how important this convoy really is
The scope of this fact check only covers the image used in the post.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook on February 2, 2022:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Feb 2 23:02:13 2022 UTC)
The Freedom Convoy, which began at the end of January 2022, was created to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truck drivers crossing the border into the U.S. and vice versa. When the convoy reached Ottawa, Canada's capital, other protests that were generally against COVID vaccine mandates occurred alongside the convoy.
Although the post does not call the Freedom Convoy by name, the post implies that it is referring to that convoy via the text in the graphic. For example, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family were relocated from their home amidst the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa -- which could be what the post meant by Trudeau "hiding in his bedroom." There are also reports that fund raising platform GoFundMe is holding the funds raised for the Freedom Convoy.
The image used in the Facebook post is from "United We Roll," a convoy held in February 2019 that started in Alberta and ended in Ottawa. It began to bring attention to the oil and gas sectors of the country, which protesters felt were being ignored. An article (archived here) from CTV News about United We Roll that was published on February 14, 2019, includes the same image used in the Facebook post. The image in the article was captioned:
A convoy of at least 100 trucks is driving from Alberta to Parliament Hill to draw attention to what it says is Ottawa's lack of support for the energy sector.
An archived version of the article captured on the day it was published is linked here. The picture appears in the archived version of the article, further proving it was taken before the Freedom Convoy in 2022.
Lead Stories previously debunked a claim that Guinness World Records recognized the Freedom Convoy as the world's "longest convoy." That fact check can be found here.
