Myth, identity and ableism: Jericho March becomes Canadian Marathon of Hope in the Freedom Convoy

The aim and means of the Freedom Convoy are instructive for understanding how ableism is promoted in Canadian society today. As an example of such promotion, the author considers the Jericho March that took place during the Freedom Convoy Trucker Protest in Ottawa. The organizer of the Jericho March described the Convoy’s aim as an end to all public protections against the spread of COVID-19, and the discourse used by the organizer prior to the Convoy aligns with the kind of ableism that characterizes this general aim. The organizer’s description of the Jericho March as the Convoy participants’ ‘Marathon of Hope’ also aligns with other appropriations of Terry Fox’s iconography within the Freedom Convoy. After situating the Jericho March within more aggressive tactics used by Convoy participants, the author synthesizes theoretical perspectives from Fiona Campbell and Keiji Nishitani to think about what kind of Canadian identity the march promoted. From these considerations, it seems that myth can be used by individual organizers in Canada today to actively promote and perhaps even shift the boundaries of structural forms of oppression.