The polls I've seen had ~half of Canadians sympathetic to the protests [1], and about 20% strongly supporting. It's completely true that it could be one highly motivated individual, but that has nothing to do with your first assertion (which is a mixed truth at best). I think that the government's claim (echoed by many media outlets) that this is purely a fringe movement has added fuel to the fire.
The polls roughly match. About 1 in 4 support the goals and methods, 1 in 4 support the goals but not the methods, and 2 in 4 don't support the goals or methods
24% of 18-34 and 34-55 support the truckers and what they are doing
27%/26% support them but not the way they are doing it
49%/50% think they are completely wrong and need to be stopped regardless
There's no real difference between young and middle age, although over 55s skew significantly to "stop them". Not much difference on income, but educational attainment shows significant skew, with university educated far less likely to support the truckers
> An Ipsos poll published Thursday and conducted exclusively for Global News showed that nearly 46 per cent of Canadians say they “may not agree with everything” the trucker convoy says or does, but the frustration of protesters is “legitimate and worthy” of sympathy.
I don't think your statement is at odds with gp's. A legitimate concern doesn't make it popular.
However, the greater issue is a lack of organization and so nothing (very little) is going to get done (much like with BLM).
The best thing ruin collective disputes is to add more noise and discourse so that the original cause is lost in the shuffle and the majority just sit back and shrug. "I can get behind solving one problem at a time, but when they're shouting for 20, I can't be bothered to care."
Had the parent post said merely “unpopular”, I’d probably agree. However “super unpopular” to me feels aligned with the government message that this is a tiny fringe minority, which quite frankly, is dishonest.
Re: getting things done, so far it seems counter-productive in the sense that now the government doesn’t want to seem “weak” and relax restrictions, even though it’s what reasonable governments are doing at this point. I’m not going to put this at the feet of the organizers (whoever they are); it simply deepens my already deep disappointment with the Canadian government since thats a political move.
They have an NGO, some directors and a lawsuit they are working on for constitutional challenge against the mandate by one of the Constitution drafters.
There's sympathy shown in the polls (Canadians are a sympathetic people!) but the polling shows a pretty clear super majority of people that want the protesters to go home (Canadians don't like disorder).
[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/8610727/ipsos-poll-trucker-convoy...