A man dances to music at a protest encampment where demonstrators have gathered to decry the country’s COVID-19 restrictions outside the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted)
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Police poured into downtown Ottawa on Thursday in what truckers feared was a prelude to a crackdown on their nearly three-week, street-clogging protest against Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions.
Work crews in the capital began erecting fences outside Parliament, and for the second day in a row, police handed out warnings to the hundreds of protesters to leave. Busloads of police converged on the area.
Ottawa represented the self-styled Freedom Convoy’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 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The protests have shaken Canada’s reputation for civility and rule-following and inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands.
Trudeau was scheduled to address Parliament on Thursday morning, not far from where the protesters were parked.
Early this week, the prime minister invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act, empowering law enforcement authorities to declare the blockades illegal, tow away trucks and punish the drivers by arresting them, freezing their bank accounts and suspending their licenses.
On Wednesday, Ottawa police handed out leaflets warning the truckers to leave immediately or face the consequences, and the city’s police chief declared his intention to break up the protest and take back downtown “in the coming days.” But many of the protesters reacted to the warnings with scorn.
“We want the mandates over for the whole country. End the mandates,” one of the protest leaders, Pat King, said outside the prime minister’s office Thursday morning. As for the rigs parked bumper-to-bumper, he said: “There’s no tow trucks in Canada that will touch them.”
King warned fellow protesters at daybreak that police were about to move. “It’s going down,” he said in a Facebook video. “Truckers, get up. Get on your radios. Get on your horns. One long blast. Let’s go, guys.”
The protests around the country by demonstrators in trucks, tractors and motor homes initially focused on Canada’s vaccine requirement for truckers entering the country but soon morphed into a broader attack on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau’s government.
The movement has drawn support from right-wing extremists and military veterans, some of them armed, and authorities have hesitated to move against them, in part out of fear of violence.
As of Tuesday, Ottawa officials said 360 vehicles remained involved in the blockade in the city’s core, down from a high of roughly 4,000. The occupation has infuriated many Ottawa residents, who have complained of being harassed and intimidated.
Hundreds of trucks were parked shoulder-to-shoulder, some with tires removed to hamper towing. Some were said to chained together.
Police were especially worried about the children who earlier this week were seen playing in the streets and being pushed by parents in strollers through the occupied area.
Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press writer Robert Bumsted in Ottawa and Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon, contributed to this report.
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