Canadian police crack down on supporters of anti-COVID restrictions protesters

The Canadian Police on Sunday commenced crackdown of supporters of anti-COVID restrictions protesters in the country, essentially, in the district of Ottawa, where truck drivers had occupied the streets towards the end of January 2022. The police, after the Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, had declared state of emergency in Ottawa on Sunday to reclaim the city from the protesters, had threatened to adopt new measures to stop people from helping the protesters sustain their sit-in mass action in the city.

The Canadian Police had tweeted on Sunday night that “Anyone attempting to bring material supports (gas, etc.) to the demonstrators could be subject to arrest.”  The police also disclosed that the force has made several arrests in the city.

Residents of the city were said to have been complaining of ceaseless sound of air horns by the truck drivers, and also being harassed, insulted, or blocked by the protesters in the city. Mayor Jim Watson had expressed that the situation had got out of control before declaring a state of emergency on Sunday.

However, the truck drivers and their supporters are not deterred. They have vowed to sustain the protest, insisted that “the protests will continue until the Covid-related restrictions are lifted.”

The mass protests spread to Toronto, Quebec City and Winnipeg on Saturday.

The Quebec City Police had also acknowledged that about 30 big trucks were blocking a major artery; threatening that the truckers had been warned they would face fines if they did not move soon.

The police later on Sunday indicated on Twitter that all the trucks had left but that protest organizers promised to return in two weeks, once the ongoing Quebec Winter Carnival was over.

The protesters have since January paralyzed activities in the major cities of Canada and are not yielding to threats by the various levels of government in Canada.

Meanwhile, many countries in Europe are beginning to scrap all forms of COVID restrictions, including reversal of the vaccine mandate,  while re-assessing COVID-19 as flu, identified not to be as deadly as being propagated by the COVID and vaccines promoters.