The police surrounded the participants in the freedom convoywho had taken refuge in front of parliament on Thursday night, and were arresting some of its leading figures, while MPs were debating the use of the Emergency Measures Act.
Ottawa police are preparing for “imminent action” to liberate the federal capital from the occupation of protesters, Acting Police Chief Steve Bell told reporters Thursday followingnoon.
The truckers, who have been raining rain or shine on Wellington Street for three weeks, greeted the new police warning with indifference. Children hopped as if nothing had happened in an inflatable structure installed in the middle of the street under the supervision of a woman offering free hugs.
Adults stamped their feet to the rhythm of Tubthumping (Chumbawamba) in the rain, embraced to the tune of We Are the World (USA for Africa) in the snow while others shouted insults at CBC–Radio-Canada cameramen, but praised the work of Fox News special correspondents.
Neither the order to break camp nor the exhaust fumes of heavy goods vehicles in a line of onions on the street disrupted their plan. “Let’s not give an inch”, chanted demonstrators in front of a stage where pastors had paraded during the followingnoon to encourage them. “We are winning… We are winning,” said one of them.
In the background, agents pinned down one of the organizers of the Freedom Convoy, Chris Barber. “Call my wife. Dishes [la vidéo] on social media immediately,” the handcuffed man asked his accomplices before getting into an Ottawa Police Service SUV. The instigator of the convoy fundraising campaign on the GoFundMe platform, Tamara Lich, was also arrested.
Other protesters were arrested by members of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), including two outside the Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council.
Truckers who have occupied the streets of Ottawa since January 28 have honked their horns in protest.
A tractor-trailer painted in the colors of the Alberta company Load Safe Cross Border was escorted from the Fairmont Château Laurier hotel — where it had stopped some time ago — to the exterior of Parliament Hill, by regarding fifteen police officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the OPP… as well as by protesters sometimes draped in a maple leaf, sometimes brandishing a telephone. “To my fellow police officers, please choose your place in history wisely,” one man warned.
Checkpoints
Police will block lanes and erect checkpoints to limit access to the “red zone” to residents, workers or anyone with good reason to go downtown – and deprive protesters of reinforcements during the weekend.
“In the last few days, we have contacted the illegal protesters, we have told them to leave and we have warned them of the consequences of disobeying the rules”, hammered the new leader, Steve Bell, who now relies on staff from the OPP, the RCMP and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ).
SQ agents are ready, if necessary, to be “rapidly repatriated” to Quebec where new demonstrations once morest health measures are on the program this weekend, a Quebec government source told AFP. Homework.
Essential measures, according to the government
Inside the Parliament Building, MPs engaged in debate on the use of the Emergencies Act which will run from 7 a.m. to midnight daily, including Saturday and Sunday, to culminate with a vote Monday at 8 p.m. Senators will follow suit on Monday. The state of emergency will be lifted if a majority of deputies or senators oppose it.
“Today, I call on all members of this House to take action once morest the illegal blockades that are hurting Canadians. I call on all members of this House to stand up for families and workers, to stand up for jobs and our economy, to stand up for the freedom of Canadians and their public safety,” said the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeauin his speech opening the debate on Thursday morning.
The Liberal government has failed to demonstrate the need to resort to the emergency measures provided for in the Emergencies Act, according to the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois.
“The Emergencies Act has been useless in pont Ambassadoruseless at Coutts customs, useless for the seizure of weapons at the same place, useless in Quebec,” said the Bloc leader, Yves Francois Blanchet, in the House. “Ironically, while Quebec don’t want the app of the Emergency Measures Act on its territory, it is the Sûreté du Québec that provides reinforcements in Ottawa. Put that in your pipe, then smoke,” he added.
“It’s time to calm things down. Not just in Ottawa, across the country,” said Conservative MP Luc Berthold.
“I believe the Prime Minister and the government should have engaged in a respectful dialogue,” added his colleague Kerry-Lynne Findlay, which shocked NDP MP Charlie Angus. “When Pat King, a protest organizer, spokesperson, said ‘this is going to be settled with bullets’, a line was crossed. Talk regarding “firing the prime minister” […] should be a problem, and it should be a problem for all parliamentarians”, retorted the elected official, pledging never to “negotiate” with a “person who talks regarding shooting a prime minister”.
He and all the elect of the New Democratic Party will vote in favor of using the Emergencies Act — unless “the whole crisis [soit] settled,” said the New Democrat leader, Jagmeet Singh.
Mr Singh later asked Tory leader Candice Bergen if she “regrets[ait] for having endorsed a movement that proposes to overthrow our democracy”. Mme Bergen had indicated that the demonstrators are “our neighbors” and reminded elected officials of the responsibility to represent all their constituents.
Now that the blockades have been lifted at the border points with the United States of Coutts, Alberta, Emerson, Manitoba, and Windsor, Ontario, only the city of Ottawa is struggling with truckers in its center, Static for three weeks.
Ottawa Center MP Yasir Naqvi argued that ” [sa] community is being held hostage, and this protest is neither peaceful nor legal. »
With Marie Vastel and Marco Belair-Cirino
