Ok: what could the feds do to release tension, concretely? They had no ability to undo any mandates, since 90% of them came from the provinces, not the feds. Likewise, the trucker thing was coming from the US.

I guess they could have maybe done some changes in tone -- but they may also have been seen by the population as giving into what were frankly seen by most as fringe radicals.

And finally, the actual leaders of the convoy would not have been interested. This wasn't their first rodeo. They wanted to bring the govt down, and not because of COVID but because of everything -- they had previously been in Ottawa trying to pull a similar thing around "pipelines" and carbon tax.