The Canadian government will not use troops against truckers whose nearly week-long protest of vaccine mandates has brought traffic in central Ottawa to a halt, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said yesterday.
More than 200 trucks and other vehicles have been blockading downtown roads in the nation’s capital since last Friday in what is an unprecedented protest by Canadian standards.
Organisers say that drivers plan to hold similar protests in Toronto and Quebec City later this week.
Ottawa residents are angry that local police are largely watching the demonstrations rather than moving in to break them up.
The city’s police chief on Wednesday indicated guns were being smuggled into the protest and said using the military was an option, but Trudeau dismissed the idea.
“There is no question of sending in the army,” he said.
Some demonstrators want an end to a federal coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers while others insist that Trudeau be removed from power on the grounds he exceeded his authority.
A few people on Ottawa streets have brandished Nazi flags, harassed minorities and threatened reporters.
“That is unacceptable. It’s time for these people to go home,” Trudeau told reporters.
Ottawa police, who have made just three arrests so far, issued 30 traffic tickets on Wednesday.
The truckers are planning protests later this week in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, and Quebec City amid growing frustration about almost two years of restrictions imposed to fight Covid-19.
Quebec premier Francois Legault said authorities would not tolerate any mayhem.
Quebec mayor Bruno Marchand told a radio station that “there are lessons to be learned from Ottawa”.
Trudeau’s Liberals look set to benefit politically from the protests, which have split the official opposition Conservative Party.
Legislators ousted leader Erin O’Toole on Wednesday, citing his poor performance in an election defeat last September and his initial, lukewarm support for the protests (see report on this page).
Former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and other Parliamentarians later posed with truckers, a move Ottawa mayor Jim Watson branded “an absolute disgrace”.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Chris Alexander said he was ashamed by the “disgraceful and inexcusable” acts by some legislators.
Trudeau dismissed the idea he be ousted a few months after winning a third consecutive election against the Conservatives.
“Having a group of people who disagree with the outcome of an election who want to ... bring in an alternative government is a non-starter in a responsible democracy,” he said.
Police have said that most protesters who recently packed the streets of Canada’s capital and jarred locals with loud honking trucks have left, but the stragglers are “determined” and “volatile”.
Around 15,000 rowdy protesters converged on Ottawa’s downtown over the weekend, according to a police estimate, bringing the city to a virtual standstill.
While their numbers dwindled midweek, they are expected to surge again, possibly into the thousands this weekend, as well as spread to other parts of the country.
“Most demonstrators have left. What remains is a highly determined and highly volatile group of unlawful individuals,” Ottawa Deputy Police Chief Trish Ferguson told a briefing.
Three people have been charged in relation to the protest, while 25 investigations are ongoing.
By Wednesday, after forcing most downtown Ottawa businesses – including a major mall, schools and Covid-19 vaccine clinics – to shutter, the protesters’ numbers had dwindled to a few hundred, and they were mostly contained to the parliamentary precinct.
However, a solidarity blockade in the western province of Alberta was flaring up and had clogged Highway 4, a major artery for commercial goods between the nations.
Police moved in Tuesday evening to try to dislodge the 100 or so truckers on the Alberta-Montana border, but as a few left, more arrived.
“We had three or four vehicles voluntarily just say, ‘Yeah, okay, I’ve had enough and I’m out of here,’ and they began to leave. Then several vehicles ... broke through a checkpoint that we had set up,” RCMP Corporal Curtis Peters told AFP.
Some of them, he said, drove tractors and other farm vehicles through fields to get around the police checkpoint.
Meanwhile, another protest is reportedly planned for Quebec City in the coming days.
The capital’s police chief Peter Sloly said that the authorities “are now aware of a significant element from the United States that have been involved in the funding, the organising and the demonstrating”.
“They have converged in our city, and there are plans for more to come,” he said, without providing details.
An online GoFundMe campaign has raised more than C$10mn ($8mn) in support of the protests.
However, on Wednesday, GoFundMe paused the fundraiser, saying on the “Freedom Convoy 2022” page that it was “under review to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations”.
In a separate blog post, the platform said it has strict protocols around how funds are used and that it would contact the organiser for the freedom convoy page and also collaborate with local law enforcement.
Several US figures, including Donald Trump Jr and Elon Musk, have tweeted their support for the protesters.
A demonstrator clears snow from the street as truckers and supporters continue to protest coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine mandates in Ottawa.
