“Out of control” was what the mayor of Ottawa called the situation of the truck driver protests inside the Canadian capital, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency.
Hundreds of trucks and protesters continued last Sunday to paralyze the center of Canada’s capital in demonstrations that have been taking place since January 29th.
The city center has been blocked for more than a week with protests against restrictions imposed to contain the pandemic and, according to Reuters, a state of emergency has been declared by the mayor in order to try to control the situation in Ottawa.
“It represents a serious danger and a threat to the safety of residents in the face of demonstrations and underlines the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of governments”, began by saying the mayor, Jim Watson.
“We are losing the battle, (…) we have to recover our city”, concluded Watson.
Freedom Convoy
The great strength of this demonstration is the “Freedom Convoy” movement, which initially aimed to protest against the decision of the authorities to demand, since mid-January, that truck drivers be vaccinated in order to be able to cross the border between Canada and the United States. However, it quickly turned into a movement against sanitary measures in general and the protesters will continue the protest until the restrictive sanitary measures are lifted.
The movement has spread, although on a smaller scale, to Canadian cities such as Toronto, Quebec City and Winnipeg.
In Ottawa, where the situation is more intense, the police will soon be reinforced with about 250 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a federal police force.
However, around 450 fines have been issued since Saturday morning, including for excessive noise and fireworks, with the Ottawa police noting that there had been behavior by protesters during the night that posed a risk to public safety.
It should also be noted that around 100 investigations into crimes related to the protest were opened.
