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I think we all were watching what was happening in France

Wile, 35, who’s working closely with Glen Carritt, the main organizer with the yellow vest convoy, said she was inspired by the movement, watching the protests in France because it showed “people could actually have a voice again.” She attended her first rally in Calgary on Dec. 8, one of the earliest featuring yellow-vest protesters, after seeing it come across her Facebook feed. The vest, for those involved in the beginning, was a way to pay tribute to the French protesters, and show solidarity.

The early event pages for December protests, the Calgary one was created by the Canadian Coalition for Responsible Government — its website pledges to Make Canada Great Again — show some discussion of the vests as a marker, complete with those offering advice on where they can be purchased and sharing links and prices.

Of course, it helped that many people had such safety gear in their trucks already because of their jobs, said Carritt. “They said, ‘You put on your vest and you belong to something.’ And I think Canada attached to that because it was a symbol.”

For Wile and her fellow travellers, hoping to send hundreds, if not thousands, of rigs on a cross-country trip in a show of solidarity with the oil and gas industry — they’ve raised more than $30,000 for fuel with a GoFundMe page — the concerns are mainly economic, from pipelines, to the carbon tax and equalization payments.

“We feel like nobody’s listening to us, and nobody’s working for us,” said Wile. “It might seem silly to people who aren’t part of it, but when you’re part of it, it’s an incredibly emotional experience to feel that somebody else understands your pain.”