EDMONTON, Alta. – Raising awareness of the plight of cattle haulers and farmers was the motive behind the cross-country cattleliner trek that Canadian Alliance MP Goldring (Edmonton Centre East) helped organize.

The trek left Vancouver Sept. 2 and was set to arrive in Ottawa Sept. 17.

“Trail Boss” Timothy Wishewan, Paul Orlicz and Travis Primeau have been piloting the vehicle.

The cattleliner essentially became a rolling petition, stopping several times along the way, so that Canadians would be able to sign the trailer and write messages on its walls.

“We’ve got great initial support for this effort,” Orlicz said, before departing from B.C.

“Now we can give Canadians a chance to tell Ottawa how important this is.”

Organizers were hoping to have collected three million signatures by the time they arrived in Ottawa.

They also asked that other livestock haulers show up with their cattleliners on Parliament Hill Sept. 17, when they planned to drop off a load of 20 cows for a quick graze.

“I’d like to have a herd of 50,000 cattle on Parliament Hill – I think it sends a loud message,” said MP Goldring.

Goldring told Truck News the cattleliner had already accumulated more than 300,000 signatures, and there were countless paper petitions circulating as well, as of press time.

“We’ve had very good reception everywhere and the petitions are spread all over. They’ll be coming together on the Hill,” said Goldring.

“The people have not only been supportive with fuel (donations), but we had a problem with the tires on the cattleliner and Kal Tire in North Battleford put a new set of tires on. That’s absolutely incredible.”

One person drove 100 miles to add his name to the cattleliner when it reached Yorkton, Sask., said Goldring.

The Canadian Alliance MP accused the feds of negligence in negotiating an end to the beef ban.

“We need to shake our heads, go to the table internationally and set up some good agreeable standards for health, for containment and for shipping so we know how and what to do when a problem does occur and you have a protocol to handle it,” blasted Goldring.