Lorries block a downtown road as drivers and their supporters continue to protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 15 February 2022;
Credit: Reuters / Patrick Doyle / File Photo
OTTAWA (Reuters) - On Wednesday 16 February 2022, police in the Canadian capital Ottawa started warning lorry drivers blockading the downtown core that they should depart or face arrest, part of a promised crackdown to end a three-week-old protest over COVID-19 restrictions.
"You must leave the area now. Anyone blocking streets ... [is] committing a criminal offen[c]e and you may be arrested", read leaflets handed out by police to lorry drivers. "You must immediately cease further unlawful activity".
Police also started ticketing some of the hundreds of vehicles blocking the downtown core. The tougher approach comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday 14 February 2022 invoked the little-used Emergencies Act, giving the Liberal government more powers to end the protest.
Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly quit on Tuesday 15 February 2022 after criticism that he did not do enough to stop the protests, which began as lorry drivers objecting to cross-border COVID-19 vaccine mandates but has become more of an anti-government movement also directed at Mr Trudeau.
Residents had expressed increasing anger at police who until now have mostly watched the demonstration rather than intervening. A spokesman for the Ottawa force said a total of 33 people had been arrested so far.
Protesters remain camped out on Parliament Hill, weeks after police first allowed hundreds of trucks to park in the riverside core of the city.
The Emergencies Act allows the government to boost local police forces with officers from the national Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
"Politicians don't decide when and how the police should act but we have given them a lot more tools and we hope they will be able to use them ... to ensure this barricade ends", Justin Trudeau told reporters on Wednesday.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki said she met on Tuesday with Steve Bell, the acting chief of the Ottawa police, and the head of police in the province of Ontario, where Ottawa is located. "Our teams are committed and look forward to working together", she tweeted late on Tuesday.
Sources told Reuters that frustration with the failure of police to lift blockades at the United States border and in the capital ultimately drove Mr Trudeau to seek emergency powers.
One blockade in the Manitoba town of Emerson was still in place on Wednesday morning.
