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The police have failed to reopen the Ambassador Bridge despite the eviction of the trucks
The thermometer marks more than two digits below zero, the wind chill is even colder and snow falls. Nothing invites you to be in the streets but in Ottawaand elsewhere in Canada, protests that began with a trucker convoy three weekends ago to get up against vaccination mandates have continued to grow. At the same time, those who oppose the protesters also raise their voices and the discontent of those who criticize the authorities, at all levels, for the lack of action to end the crisis is palpable.
The Ambassador Bridge, the vital infrastructure for trade between Canada and the United States from which the vehicles that had kept it paralyzed were evicted on Saturday morning, continued at night without being open before the arrival in the surroundings of hundreds of people on foot, who joined the protesters who remained. Windsor Police do not have a planned schedule of when will you be able to fully vacate and reopen.
Nothing in the capital seems to change either. As has happened in the previous two weekends, a “significant influx of protesters” according to the police, who spoke of 4,000, arrived at the center, which continues to be paralyzed by the presence of trucks and vehicles.
This time, however, they were not the only ones taking to the streets. In Lansdowne Park, 3 kilometers from the area of Parliament that has paralyzed the so-called “freedom convoy”, several thousand people participated in a counter-demonstration. “We’ve been quiet but it’s encouraging to see a lot of people outside despite the cold,” said Yves, a professor at the University of Ottawa. “If most of us do not express ourselves, we enter slippery ground. We have given too much space to people who are intolerantpeople who believe they have absolute rights.”
Voices in defense of vaccines
That demonstration was full of banners claiming the city and the streets, calling for “make Ottawa boring again”, but also defending vaccines and masks or denouncing the ultra currents that are perceived under protest.
“Truckers are a minority, they have a lot of people from the extreme right behind them,” said Jane, a woman about to turn 70, who pointed to the millions of dollars donated for the protests that have allowed truckers and those who support them with their vehicles don’t spend money on food or fuel with which they keep the engines running. “A lot of people are not aware of who is pulling all the strings,” she lamented.
The demonstrators also broke the image of a purely peaceful protest that those who lead and support the convoy strive to give. They repeated stories of aggressiveness, of individual attacks, of citizens who have been intimidated… “As soon as you express a different opinion, they stop being so friendly”, assured the teacher, “and they talk about defending their rights but they do not respect others”. A few hours later, two supermarkets had to be closed early after failing to contain people who entered without the mask, still mandatory indoors in Ottawa.
Discontent with the police and authorities
In the counter-demonstration it was also easy to find discontent with the police and with the authorities, both municipal and provincial, and also at the federal level. “We feel that the police, the city and the politicians are not taking care of us
They’re having a sleepy role, giving big speeches, pointing fingers at each other… but what we need is leadership”, said Sarah, a 39-year-old woman.
This Saturday it was announced that the Ottawa police, the Ontario police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have created an integrated command but in the capital it is insisted that to see more actions they must still wait for the arrival of reinforcements. The first Minister, Justin Trudeauconvened this Saturday a meeting of the Incident Response Group to discuss “more immediate actions” to put an end to “illegal blockades and occupations”, and announced another meeting on Sunday. But the protests continued.
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