Ottawa’s protesters celebrate as officials declare emergencies and threaten fines

Hours after the second state of emergency was called Friday, protesters held night raves in the besieged streets of Ottawa in between the tractor-trailers clogging the city for the third consecutive weekend.

“I don’t see any emergency here," said Daniel Alexandrov, 24, as he looked around at the emboldened crowd and the police keeping watch. The song “We’re not gonna take it” blared from loud speakers.

“Everybody’s having a good time partying,” he said, noting the jovial crowds despite the cold and light rain.

Alexandrov, a father of one, installs siding on large homes around his hometown near Niagara Falls and came in for the weekend with friends to protest the coronavirus vaccine mandate. “Everybody’s smiling. It feels like, you know, a friendly neighborhood.”

For many Ottawa residents, the last two weeks of gridlock, horn-blaring, intimidation, and reports of vandalism and hate crimes have been anything but friendly. Bus routes have been rerouted. Roads and businesses are blocked. Confederate flags and swastikas have made appearances. Monuments have been defaced. Far-right extremist groups and right wing American media have taken up the cause.

The protest was sparked by U.S. and Canadian rules requiring cross-border truckers to be fully vaccinated. But they have quickly expanded into a movement against pandemic restrictions more broadly, which are mostly imposed by provinces, and against Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, inspired in part by conspiracy theories and vaccine disinformation. The Canadian Trucking Alliance, an industry group, has denounced them, noting that the vast majority of Canadian truckers are vaccinated and that many of the convoy’s organizers are not truckers.

But the protesters are confident in their righteousness. Dismissing polls and scientific studies, they say they are tacitly backed by ‘the silent majority’ — as well as millions of dollars crowdsourced online from donors, many of whom remain anonymous and some of whom have U.S. ties.

With a well-organized web keeping food and jerrycans flowing, they said they are fed up and fueled up for the long haul.

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Friday evening in Ottawa, Dean Kio received a $63 fine for each of his three small trucks he parked in the street outside a hotel where some organizers were staying.

It’s what “freedom costs,” said the 33-year-old from the Niagara region who works in the snowblowing business.

He said he could afford to pay the fines — but also figured he would not have to. He expects truckers to contest the tickets and, backed by lawyers, draw out the process in court. In the meantime, he has kept his vehicles parked in the road.

Many Ottawa residents have criticized the police for allowing protestersto continue to occupy the city’s downtown. Critics have cited cases in which protests by black and indigenous Canadians were met with a far swifter and heavier police response.

The protesters see their occupation not as a criminal enterprise, but as a massive block party in the name of freedom.

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Maurice Vanspronsen, 58, from Beamsville in Ontario has been living out of his truck since Jan. 28, the convoy’s first day. On Friday he was flipping large pancakes for passersby on a gas grill. A young girl happily devoured one.

Vanspronsen owns his vehicle, like most of the truckers here, and has worked for 15 years driving long hauls between Canada and the United States. Now he’s unvaccinated and unable to travel.

He is angry that truckers such as him, once ranked as essential workers, are now “blacklisted,” he said. Here he’s been welcomed.

“The propane just comes, nothing has to be paid for,” Vanspronsen said. “I haven’t had to spend any money on anything since I came.”

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In the blocks leading up to the convoys, Ottawa’s Rideau Center, a large downtown mall, was closed Jan. 29 after it was overrun by protesters without face masks. Many other stores were closed Saturday along Rideau Street, a major thoroughfare with high-end clothing stores, tattoo parlors, and bubble tea shops. Protesters, many draped in Canadian flags, clearly stood apart from mask-wearing residents.

Nearby, truck-clogged Wellington Street was abuzz with blocks of convoys, food stations and makeshift stages. Homemade signs disparaging Trudeau, the scientific community, and covid-19-related mandates lined vehicles and concrete barriers alongside fluttering Canadian flags.

Some protesters posted live feeds on social media as they walked. Others shouted “freedom” or “liberté” in a sort-of call-and-response. Truck horns blared in defiance of a temporary injunction granted Monday to silence them. The smell of fuel filled the air. At one stage, set up with the Canadian Parliament as the backdrop, a woman sang the Canadian anthem, followed by a rendition of Beyonce’s song, “Freedom.”

For Christina Poitras, 40, it was a little liberated corner of Canada.

“It’s so awesome and peaceful and everyone’s so nice,” Poitras said Friday. She was visiting for the second weekend with her three kids, parents and husband, a sheet metal worker. “I chitchat with new people.”

Poitras is from Eureka, about a 45-minute drive from Ottawa, where she home-schools her three children, aged 11, seven, and two. She is opposed to the coronavirus vaccine and the wearing of face masks. She said she is worried her children could miss out on typical kid activities, such as playing on sports teams, because of her stances.

“They don’t get to go to restaurants and movies,” she said. Here they can roam free.

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That freedom has a cost for others, including Ottawa residents like Bobby Ramsay.

Ramsay, 47, has spent every afternoon of the last four days set up among the truck convoys offering to engage with demonstrators. He’s come with a sign with a blunt message: “You are hurting the residents of Ottawa. Please go.”

Most conversations, he said, have been overall friendly.

“I came to bring the message that there are quite a lot of people living in the protest areas that because of the convoy’s presence have unfortunately been experiencing some malicious behavior,” he said.

He cited residents complaining about people defecating in their gardens, harassing those wearing face-masks or following women. He said some residents have felt unsafe, afraid to walk around at night because of racist and intimidating language of some demonstrators.

He said he understands the frustration with restrictions and the pandemic itself. It’s “real,” he said. “But Ottawa shouldn’t be collateral damage.”

Vanspronsen has heard this sentiment but is not deterred. For him, that’s another cost of his “democratic right to voice an opinion.”

“It’s unfortunate with the harassment,” he said. “But there are always bad apples in every basket … There are a lot of seriously frustrated people."