Canadian demonstrators led by truckers angry over COVID-19 restrictions defied police and kept occupying a key bridge on Saturday, while thousands more rallied in the capital as a two-week-old protest showed no signs of abating.
In Ontario, where authorities have declared a state of emergency, the provincial supreme court had ordered truckers to end their blockade of the strategic Ambassador Bridge, which links the city of Windsor in Canada to Detroit, Michigan, in the US.
The protest has forced major automakers in both countries to halt or scale back production, and Washington on Friday urged Ottawa to use its federal powers to end the blockade.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised “an increasingly robust police intervention,” adding that borders cannot remain closed and “this conflict must end.”
Canadian police, backed by armored vehicles, began clearing the bridge, taking down tents erected in traffic lanes and persuading some drivers to move their trucks, but by Saturday evening, after hours of facing off against the demonstrators, the police had not completely cleared the span.
Most of the cars and trucks blocking it were removed, but hundreds of people refused to budge.
Windsor Police Service spokesman Jason Bellaire said that the aim was to clear the bridge peacefully, but he could not say if it would be cleared by the end of the day.
There were no immediate reports of arrests on Saturday.
The Ambassador Bridge is vital to the US and Canadian auto industries, carrying more than 25 percent of merchandise exported by both countries. Two other US-Canada border crossings, one in Manitoba province and one in Alberta, remain blocked by protests.
In Ottawa, crowds of thousands packed the streets of the city center, the epicenter of the movement, blaring horns, playing music, dancing and drinking hot coffee.
Very few police were on hand.
“I’ve been supporting the cause from the beginning,” 38-year-old Marc-Andre Mallette said.
“I’m not vaccinated and I’m not dead,” added Mallette, a sewer worker from the town of St Armand, near the US border.
Truckers originally converged on Ottawa to press their demand for an end to a vaccination requirement affecting truckers crossing the international border.
Yet the movement has spread, as the protesters — mostly insisting they want to protect their freedoms, but some displaying swastikas or Confederate flags — now seek an end to all vaccine mandates by federal or provincial governments.
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