As a six-day-old blockade of North America’s busiest trade corridor ended on Sunday, Canadians voiced questions on policing tactics used to quell the demonstrations in the border city of Windsor and in Ottawa where protests have entered a third week.
While the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario has reopened, other border blockades persist, including in Coutts, Alberta, and Emerson, Manitoba, as well as the Pacific Highway border point in British Columbia.
In Ottawa, reports the New York Times, truckers have snarled traffic, disrupted normally peaceful residential neighborhoods, and undermined the local economy. They have cut off access to the country’s Parliament, Supreme Court, and the prime minister’s office.
The “Freedom Convoy” protests, started by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, has now turned into a much broader protest for people opposing the policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government and covering everything from pandemic restrictions to a carbon tax.
Added to all that is going on – a counter-protest has arisen over social media images of police mingling with a sea of protesters in Ottawa, helping some put a fallen tent back up, and one video showing an Ontario Provincial Police officer telling demonstrators “I support you guys 100 present,” according to Reuters.
Frustrated by what they said was police inaction, hundreds of counter-protesters on Sunday blocked vehicles trying to join the protest in downtown Ottawa, creating further chaos.
“We need to come together as people and say this will not stand,” said one demonstrator in front of the city’s police headquarters who said he was an Ottawa resident, but declined to give his name, fearing reprisals.
“We need the police to actually support the oath that they took to support this community and if they can’t do that, then they should resign.”
The jurisdictional overlap between federal, provincial, and local policing has been blamed for the response by police in Ottawa. A federal minister described a lack of law enforcement in the capital as “inexplicable.”
“I will tell you the country needs the police to do their job,” said Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair, who previously led Toronto’s police force, speaking to a local TV channel on Sunday.
“We need them to enforce our laws, to restore peace and order at our borders and in our cities, and we need them to use the tools that are available to them.”
Discussions to invoke the Emergencies Act
Over the weekend Trudeau held Incident Response Group meetings to discuss the next steps to address the “illegal blockades.” Today, the Prime Minister is meeting with Canada’s premiers to discuss the crisis.
CTV News Canada is reporting the meeting could lead up to an invocation of the Emergencies Act to end the protests that are described by Blair as being a “significant national security threat.”
The current iteration of the Emergencies Act passed in 1988 and has never been used. The last time these federal emergency powers were invoked under the then-War Measures Act was during the 1970 FLQ October Crisis when Trudeau’s father was the prime minister.
The invocation of the act confers enormous temporary powers on the federal government, allowing it to do what is necessary to restore public order. This could also be considered a rather ticklish situation for Trudeau, as the act allows the government to Emergencies Act in the name of restoring public order.
