OTTAWA (Washington Insider Magazine) – In Ottawa, almost 3-week siege by truckers opposing the nation’s COVID-19 regulations, a showdown looked to be brewing, as authorities in the capital told drivers to immediately leave or face arrest.
After activists abandoned their final remaining truck roadblock outside the US border, the large trucks stationed outside Parliament constituted the movement’s final stronghold.
For the very first time in more than 2 weeks of turbulence, all border gates reopened, putting the focus on the capital, as vehicles boldly tore up placards ordering them to return home.
Officials in yellow “police liaison” jackets moved from site to site, knocking on homes and delivering truckers flyers alerting them that under Canada’s Emergencies Act, they might be punished, lose their licenses, and have their automobiles seized. Vehicles were also issued tickets by the police.
Just before Wednesday, police sent a 2nd round of more specific warnings, outlining the charges and punishments that individuals who stay may face. Officers may be sent in shortly to remove the hundreds of trucks, according to the city’s temporary police chief.
Protest organizers were preparing for a big day on Wednesday.
According to ABC NEWS, the advisories came 2 days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used the emergency decree to attempt to suppress the protesters.
Trudeau, the 50-year-old who has consistently channeled the celebrity status — if not exactly the political gravitas — of his father, Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister a generation earlier, is facing one of his most significant tests yet.
Some politicians are criticizing junior Trudeau for not acting more forcefully in the face of the demonstrations, while others accuse him of overstepping his authority in obtaining emergency powers.
Demonstrators in trucks have been clogging the city’s streets and obstructing border crossings since late January. The self-styled Freedom Convoy’s protests began as a protest against Canada’s vaccine mandate for truckers coming into the country but quickly evolved into a general attack on COVID-19 safeguards and Trudeau himself.
Stephanie Carvin, a national security lecturer at Carleton University in Ottawa and a former member of Canada’s domestic intelligence service, stated authorities in the capital are in a difficult situation. She claims that some of the demonstrators are radicals and that attempting to remove or arrest them will result in violence.
