EDMONTON—Harry Bajwa walks up to a McDonald’s drive-thru window, pans the camera to the left, then the right, showing the cars on either side of him, and tells the server at the window he’s hungry.

“We’re not allowed to,” says the McDonald’s employee. “I know, I would totally do it, but the freakin’ boss is here and she’ll get mad at me.”

Eventually, the manager shows up at the window and turns him away, telling the long-haul trucker they can’t serve walk-ups in the drive-thru.

“Really, I am very upset,” Bajwa told the Star.

The videotaped encounter in Alberta, posted to social media this week, has been met with indignation from some of the 6,000 members in the Canadian Truckers Group on Facebook — and it’s just one of many posts about the same issue that have been showing up almost daily during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

As the country has imposed strict guidelines around social distancing and restaurants, long-haul truckers have been struggling to find basic services like food, showers and bathrooms.

Many have posted their struggles in various trucking groups online, saying they’re having a hard time bolstering the supply lines of the war against COVID-19 while they’re unfed, not properly caffeinated and unkempt.

Since the videotaped incident, McDonald’s Canada has changed their policy to be more accommodating to truckers.

Meanwhile, in the Canadian Truckers Group, there’s a photo of a truck jamming into an impossible drive-thru — most simply don’t fit an 18-wheeler — people ranting about being turned away from restaurants and fast-food establishments, and advice on which restaurants are making special exceptions for truckers across Canada.

There’s also Ian Iverson’s story.

The long-haul trucker who’s been in the game for 27 years was in Saskatoon this past week — he can’t pinpoint the date — and walked up to a Tim Hortons restaurant. He was on his way to the United States and had a hankering for a coffee.

He pulled on the door and found that it was locked. So he turned away, ready to get back on the road, when a woman inside stopped him.

“The lady who owns it happened to be sitting there,” he told the Star. “She said she would go through (the drive-thru) and get what I wanted.”

“I offered to give her some cash and she said she owned the restaurant and that coffee was on her.”

He saw the drive-thru was open, but knew he couldn’t go through with his massive truck and usually customers can’t walk up as it’s against many restaurant policies, even during a pandemic.

The experience still caught Iverson off guard.

“For her, she’s probably way down in sales, and the restaurant’s closed, but the drive-thru’s open and she’s probably trying to keep as many people working as she can,” he said.

“So, it’s not about a $2 cup of coffee. It’s about somebody doing something nice.”

The Star attempted to contact the Tim Hortons franchise owner in Saskatoon, but didn’t get a response.

Sunny Matharu, a long-haul trucker who lives in Winnipeg also noticed his colleagues struggling as they drove across the country. So, after a 1,000 km trip back from Alberta last week, during which he had a hard time finding food himself, he parked his truck and decided to do something.

“I was home by 4 p.m. on Friday, I took a shower, went off right away,” he said. “I need something to cook.”

Matharu called some friends and started preparing meals. He said he loves cooking because “I see a smile on someone’s face when they eat, it gives me satisfaction.”

He made chickpeas with salad and rice with cumin, drove down to a truck stop on Portage Ave., just outside Winnipeg and ended up serving 200 truckers free food that weekend.

“Canada gave me a lot, so why shouldn’t I pay back?” said Matharu, who moved to the country from India in 2012.

He called driving through deserted cities and towns “strange” and said he wants to continue handing out food to truckers to help keep their spirits up.

“It’s a very small role, I know that, it’s a huge world,” he said. “This is a hard time and we should help each other where we can.”

Behind the scenes, organizers are mobilizing.

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Carrie Tompkins has 32 years under her belt as a trucker, and while the Strathmore, Alta., resident only does short-haul trucking now, she says she’s working to help her long-haul colleagues find services.

“Here’s the part nobody wants to talk about: You can feed them, and you can fill them full of water,” she quips, adding “It’s gotta come out.”

So she’s been compiling information. From Vancouver Island to Newfoundland, she says she’s been in touch with places that will serve truckers.

Many large truck stops in North America are still open with bathrooms and showers, but some smaller ones have shut down due to the pandemic. Truckers say that even before this, Canada lacked truck stops in general.

But with the COVID-19 crisis in full swing, even finding a bathroom can be hard, when many restaurants aren’t serving customers inside.

“Both sides of the border — Canada and U.S. — drivers are absolutely furious because they’re driving for 48, 72 hours and can’t find open showers,” Tompkins said.

Truckers may bring a whole new meaning to the term self-isolation.

“When you’re sharing an eight by eight box with another human being that eats and drinks and passes gas and you don’t have a shower for 72 hours, you know each other better than two people should.”

Working with Tompkins and other community members is Syed Hussaini, with TruckO, a company that provides resources for truckers, but which Hussaini says has “completely redirected focus on this.”

The plan is to gather information for all the open restaurants and service spots so they can add them to an easily accessible website, which they hope to have rolled out by the end of March.

“It allows drivers to input all location info on the go,” Syed said in a Facebook message. “Right now, it is scattered across all (Facebook) groups and accessing that info is very inefficient for drivers.”

Tompkins said the landscape is changing by the hour, though, and it’s hard to consistently keep track of what’s open and closed as various provinces change the public health rules.

On Thursday, McDonald’s Canada said in a statement emailed to the Star that they “heard from trucking associations and emergency vehicle drivers” about getting some grub while many restaurants were drive-thru only.

“Starting today, we have implemented a process through our MyMcD’s App to service transport trucks, fire crews and oversized essential service vehicles,” read the statement.

“Between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., drivers operating transport trucks, fire crews and oversized essential service vehicles can now place a mobile order via MyMcD’s app when they arrive.”

Restaurant Brands International Inc., the holding company that owns Tim Hortons, Burger King and Popeyes, said in an emailed statement that “walk-ups to our drive-thru service just aren’t safe.”

But the statement goes on to say that “many restaurants with a drive-thru lane have set up a process that allows guests to place a mobile order and call the restaurant to retrieve their purchase just inside the front door.”

For Tompkins, while making sure truckers have services is about safety since “tired and grumpy, and not fed” drivers could make mistakes while driving — it’s also about basic human dignity.

She recalled driving down to the U.S. during the Teamsters strikes in the 1990s, where thousands of workers stopped working, and there were truck stops shut down then, too.

“The smell of a Louisiana truck stop parking lot on a hot day in July? When drivers are locked out of facilities?

“It’s terrible.”

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