I cannot speak to the case of individuals, I am not in their heads, nor do I know all the details of their histories. But in answer to the general question you pose in the title of this post, "What did Canadian/US truckers know that made them say no?" I think of the problem as the Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled …
I cannot speak to the case of individuals, I am not in their heads, nor do I know all the details of their histories. But in answer to the general question you pose in the title of this post, "What did Canadian/US truckers know that made them say no?" I think of the problem as the Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled Status Considerations Cloud 2-part thing.
First part: there are some people who are not so concerned about what people in a supposedly "better" slice of the sociological pie think of them; therefore, their vision isn't clouded by the Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled Status Considerations Cloud. They just check in with their own experience and their own God-given common sense, and if they spot bovineshale, they call it bovineshale.
Second part: Then there are the people who do have a professional and social status they have worked hard for many years to achieve and wish to protect. And now, suddenly in March 2020 there appears this Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled Status Considerations Cloud. And over 2021 and 2022 and 2023, it only gets bigger and louder and darker. Among this second group of people, only a very small percentage have shown that they have the wherewithal to be able to see clearly past that— to walk out of it, making the necessary sacrifices, into the clear air. This is why most of them are still lost in the dark and the noise, and to follow the metaphor a ways, wondering how they got so much seagull poop in their hair.
I cannot speak to the case of individuals, I am not in their heads, nor do I know all the details of their histories. But in answer to the general question you pose in the title of this post, "What did Canadian/US truckers know that made them say no?" I think of the problem as the Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled Status Considerations Cloud 2-part thing.
First part: there are some people who are not so concerned about what people in a supposedly "better" slice of the sociological pie think of them; therefore, their vision isn't clouded by the Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled Status Considerations Cloud. They just check in with their own experience and their own God-given common sense, and if they spot bovineshale, they call it bovineshale.
Second part: Then there are the people who do have a professional and social status they have worked hard for many years to achieve and wish to protect. And now, suddenly in March 2020 there appears this Giant Roiling Seagull-and-confetti-and-cannonball-filled Status Considerations Cloud. And over 2021 and 2022 and 2023, it only gets bigger and louder and darker. Among this second group of people, only a very small percentage have shown that they have the wherewithal to be able to see clearly past that— to walk out of it, making the necessary sacrifices, into the clear air. This is why most of them are still lost in the dark and the noise, and to follow the metaphor a ways, wondering how they got so much seagull poop in their hair.