Canada protests against Covid measures gain steam
OTTAWA, Canada — More demonstrators poured onto the streets of Ottawa and other Canadian cities on Saturday demanding an end to Covid vaccine mandates, as protests against pandemic restrictions entered their second week.
In the capital, demonstrators huddled around campfires in bone-chilling temperatures and erected portable saunas and bouncy castles for kids outside Parliament, while waving Canadian flags and shouting anti-government slogans.
Their chants of "freedom" were met with cries of "go home" by a smaller group of counter-protestors fed up with the takeover of the capital.
The atmosphere, however, appeared more festive than a week earlier, when several protesters waved Confederate flags and Nazi symbols and clashed with locals.
The demonstrations, which started out as protests by truckers angry with vaccine requirements when crossing the US-Canadian border, have morphed into broader protests against Covid health restrictions.
Police were out in force and put up barriers overnight to limit vehicle access to the city center, as many thousands of protestors -- including two on horseback -- joined truckers already jamming Ottawa streets.
Similar protests were happening in Toronto, Quebec City and Winnipeg — where a driver was arrested for slamming into demonstrators. Four people were treated for minor injuries, police said.
A man was also charged with assault for throwing a smoke bomb at the Toronto rally.
And in southern Alberta province, truckers continued to block a major border crossing to the US state of Montana.
No end in sight
"This remains an increasingly volatile and increasingly dangerous demonstration," Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly told a news conference Friday.
With public anger rising — thousands of residents have complained of harassment by protesters, and an online petition demanding action has drawn 40,000 signatures — Sloly vowed to crack down on what he called an "unlawful" occupation of the city.
But he offered no timeline.
Reached for comment by AFP, protest coordinator Jim Torma said the protesters would not back down.
"They're not going to hide us," Torma said. "We're going to be in (politicians') faces as long as it takes" to force an end to public health restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19.
Kimberly Ball, who with her husband drove five hours from a small town west of Toronto to join the Ottawa protest, told AFP, "It's about our freedom."
Holding back tears, she said, "A couple of people we know, friends, lost their jobs because of these (vaccine) mandates" and her own parents have disowned her for not getting a jab.
Ball has had Covid and said she questions whether the vaccines are safe and effective.
She is, however, in the minority in Canada, where 90 percent of adults are fully vaccinated.
A 'fringe minority'?
The Freedom Convoy started on Canada's Pacific coast in late January and picked up supporters along the long trek to the capital — as well as more than 10 million Canadian dollars (US$8 million) in online donations.
The number of protesters in Ottawa had peaked last Saturday at several thousand before dwindling to a few hundred by midweek, officials said.
The protest has received support from tech magnate Elon Musk and former US president Donald Trump, who in a statement Friday called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a "far left lunatic" for imposing "insane Covid mandates."
The Canadian prime minister has said the protesters represent only a "fringe minority," though polls show one-third of Canadians support the call to lift all Covid restrictions.
The leaders of two Western provinces, Jason Kenney of Alberta and Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, this week added their voices to the anti-mandate push.
"There are many jurisdictions around the world that have adopted more common-sense travel protocols than we have now in place in Canada," Kenney said.
Moe, meanwhile, announced an imminent lifting of all pandemic restrictions in Saskatchewan, despite pushback from doctors.
Vaccine mandates for travelers are set by the federal government, but most other Covid measures are the responsibility of provincial authorities in Canada.
"What's necessary is your freedom," Moe said in a video address. "What's necessary is getting your life back to normal."
Ottawa residents, however, have had enough of the chaos the protests have brought to their streets.
"The truckers have been terrorizing us for seven, eight days now," said university student Saffron Binder. "The occupation must end."
"I just want them to leave," echoed Abby McKinnon at the counter-protest.
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