Truckers hold their ground despite threats of crackdown
OTTAWA, Ontario • Hundreds of truckers clogging the streets in Canada’s capital stood their ground and blasted their horns Thursday as police poured in for what the protesters feared could be an attempt to break up their nearly three-week demonstration against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Busloads of police officers arrived near Ottawa’s Parliament Hill in the morning, and workers put up extra fences around government buildings in what seemed to signal an impending confrontation.
Many of the protesters in the self-styled Freedom Convoy were unmoved by warnings from police and the government that they were risking arrest and could see their rigs seized and bank accounts frozen.
“I’m prepared to sit on my ass and watch them hit me with pepper spray,” said one of their leaders, Pat King. As for the trucks parked bumper to bumper, he said: “There’s no tow trucks in Canada that will touch them.”
Amid the rising tensions, truckers outside Parliament blared their horns in defiance of a court injunction against honking, issued for the benefit of neighborhood residents.
Ottawa represented the movement’s last stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S., inflicted economic damage on both countries and created a political crisis for Trudeau.
The protests have shaken Canada’s reputation for civility and rule-following and inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands.
“It’s high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared in Parliament, not far from where the more than 300 trucks were parked.
“They are a threat to our economy and our relationship with trading partners,” he said. “They are a threat to public safety.”
Early this week, the prime minister invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act, empowering law enforcement authorities to declare the blockades illegal, tow away trucks, arrest the drivers, suspend their licenses and take other measures.
On Thursday, Trudeau and some of his top ministers took turns warning the protesters to leave, in an apparent move by the government to avert a clash, or at least show it had gone the extra mile to avoid one.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government began freezing truckers’ accounts as threatened. “It is happening. I do have the numbers in front of me,” she said.
Ottawa police likewise handed out leaflets for the second straight day demanding the truckers end the siege, and also helpfully placed notices on vehicles informing owners how and where to pick up their trucks if they are towed.
Police are followed by yelling protesters Thursday as they attempt to hand out a notices to protesters in Ottawa. Hundreds of truckers clogging the streets of Canada’s capital city in a protest against COVID-19 restrictions are bracing for a possible police crackdown.