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Canada-US Bridge Blockade Affecting Local Economy

(CBS Detroit) -- Friday marked the fifth day of the nation's most lucrative trade route remaining closed as Canadian protestors blockade the Ambassador Bridge.

It's forcing truckers to drive to a different, smaller, border crossing about two hours outside of Detroit.

"It doesn't take a lot to shut the bridge down," said Bruce Heyman, former U.S. ambassador to Canada. "This moves from a legitimate protest over a vaccine mandate to now putting the economy and lives at risk."

Brian Hitchcock owns a trucking company outside Lansing. He's parked trailers that would normally make daily runs between Detroit and Canada. It's 40% of his business, which he says was already struggling due to vaccine mandates.

"The mandate was affecting it anyways because we were having a shortage of drivers that were vaccinated, so we were falling behind every week. So this just magnified it," Hitchcock said.

As the economic fallout grows, the pressure is mounting on Canadian leaders.

"I have been on the phone with our Canadian ambassador with the White House. I am imploring them to get this resolved," said Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The so-called "Freedom Convoy" also continues to clog the streets of Canada's capital, Ottawa.

And the protests have now spread globally, from a blockade outside the New Zealand parliament to a trucker convoy making its way across France.

In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security is now "surging staff" to their incident command post in Los Angeles following a warning about a possible trucker protest during Superbowl Sunday.

One estimate put the lost wages just for Michigan residents because of the five-day blockade at about $51 million.

Canadian authorities are now calling these blockades illegal. The community of Windsor just across the bridge is seeking an injunction to try to force the protestors to move, and police are bringing in reinforcements.

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