Police make arrests, escalate efforts to end Canada’s ‘Freedom Convoy’

Police said some protesters were “surrendering” and “being arrested” during a Friday morning operation as authorities began enforcing bans on demonstrating in the downtown core.

“I implore anyone that’s there: Get in your truck and we will navigate safe passage for you to leave our city streets,” Ottawa interim police chief Steve Bell said at a news conference Thursday.

Ottawa arrests two ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest organizers as police chief vows to ‘take back’ city

Police on Thursday evening cordoned off large swaths of downtown Ottawa and set up checkpoints around illegal encampments, where for three weeks big rigs and demonstrators opposed to public health mandates and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau largely had free rein.

Inside the secure zone, where the core of the remaining truckers and demonstrators are holed up, the mood was somber but defiant. Protesters shoveled snow to create barricades in the street and block in their vehicles.

Along Wellington Street at an encampment in front of Parliament, several pop-up food stands served hot drinks and warm food to protesters, among them several children. Two women walking around with coffee cups discussed their tactic for getting in new protesters: They would add their names to hotel reservations so they could get past the checkpoints.

Patrick Philon, 33, from Spanish, Ontario, was pulling two carts of yellow jerry cans filled with fuel to distribute to truckers Friday morning.

“I brought it in by foot,” he said. “The police have all ways in pretty much blocked ... so that’s what we have to do. We’re Canadian. We ain’t scared. We’re dirty, sweaty. Trudeau should try it sometime.”

He said police “have been really nice.”

Police arrested Tamara Lich and Chris Barber on charges of “aiding and abetting mischief.”Pressure to crack down has been mounting since Monday, when Trudeau invoked the never-before-used 1988 Emergencies Act, which grants the federal government broad powers to respond to the crisis for up to 30 days. Critics say Trudeau overreached.

Parliament canceled a scheduled debate on the act Friday because of the police operations in the area.

What is the Emergencies Act, which Trudeau invoked against Canada’s trucker protests?

Shortly before her arrest Thursday, Lich mingled with protesters in the snow in front of Canada’s Parliament and urged people to “hold the line.” Lich is a well-known organizer among anti-lockdown and Islamophobic movements in Canada.

Videos circulating on social media showing Barber, another public-facing voice for the convoy, being handcuffed on an Ottawa street Thursday. Barber, one of few truck drivers among top organizers, has a large following on TikTok, where he propagates far-right views.

Protesters maintain that their demonstration is peaceful and not illegal. No other key organizers have been arrested, Dagny Pawlak, a spokeswoman for Freedom Convoy 2022, said by text message Thursday night.

Since a convoy of truckers angry at cross-border vaccine mandates rolled into Ottawa Jan. 28, their demands have come to encompass a wide range of issues. Some demonstrators want the repeal of all public health mandates. Others want Trudeau to resign or face treason charges. Still others have ties to extremist groups.

Canadian authorities say a “significant element” of funding has come from the United States, where some Republican politicians and right-wing media have taken up the cause.

Which U.S. communities sent money to support the Canadian trucker protests?

Barbara Perry, a criminology professor at Ontario Tech University, said the demonstrations have been “a real shot in the arm” and “booster” for the far right.

The convoy has “grown into a quite amorphous movement, but there was always the potential that it would attract elements of the far-right because some of the original organizers have lengthy ties to far-right movements, illiberal movements and anti-authority movements in Canada,” she said.

The protests have been highly organized, with military-style logistics hubs keeping food, fuel and other resources flowing to the encampments, where each block has its own captain and night patrol. Volunteers open up their homes and hotel rooms for participants to come for a shower and laundry.

But while the arrests of Lich and Barber mark a major escalation by law enforcement, their removal may not have a major impact on core protesters camped out in their vehicles, many of whom have told The Washington Post that they do not identify with one specific leader or organizer.

“We are all under the impression we are going to get arrested,” Justin Aiello, 23, a construction worker from Montreal, said Thursday. “We are okay with that as it’s for a good cause.”

Beleaguered Ottawans losing faith in leaders, want 'siege' to end

Officials have been keen to avoid a repeat of previous weekends, when the crowds swelled.

They have also sought to de-escalate, citing in part the presence of children among the convoys.

“If you are heading up to Ottawa … bring bouncy castles or bubble soccer bumpers, consider contributing to the fun!” a Facebook page associated with Freedom Convoy 2022 posted Thursday, as the Children’s Aid Society of Ottawa warned protesters that they could be separated from their children if arrested.

Under the Emergencies Act, bringing a minor to the protests is a criminal offense.

The children of the ‘Freedom Convoy’: Kids with protesting parents complicate police response

Police are also worried about the potential for violence from demonstrators if enforcement is ramped up. Relations between the two until now have been largely friendly, although police have reported cases of being swarmed by protesters when issuing tickets or confiscating illegal fuel deliveries.

Concern remains over whether some of the convoy participants are armed. The stakes rose Monday, when police arrested 11 people and seized guns and ammunition at a border blockade in Coutts, Alberta. Some protesters left to avoid violence. Police charged four people with conspiracy to commit murder.

Canada’s public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, said Thursday that some involved with the Coutts blockade had “strong ties to a far-right extreme organization with leaders who are in Ottawa,” the Canadian Broadcast Corporation reported.

The Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s deputy director, Elizabeth Simons, said one of the men arrested in Alberta has links to the far-right Diagolon movement, who’s de facto leader, Jeremey MacKenzie, has been in and out of Ottawa.

Police say they’ll end the ‘occupation’ of Ottawa’s streets. Here’s what to know as events unfold.

Pierre-Yves Bourduas, former deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a federal and national police force, said that the lack of enforcement the past three weeks “sent a message to the occupiers that you don’t need to concern yourselves” with the law.

He said police strategy in the coming hours and days would be adaptive “based on intelligence who are the main mover and shakers [and] who is there just to make a point.”

“In Canada we are always trying to find a peaceful resolution,” he said.

Meanwhile, Canadian lawmakers had begun Thursday to debate Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, which parliament must approve within seven days of being issued.

The act is expected to pass.

Supporters say the government needed to take such an extreme measure to stop an unprecedented threat to the Canadian economy and its democratic institutions. Critics say the government did not meet the legal standard for invoking the act and has set a dangerous precedent for a federal power grab.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said Thursday that it will sue the government for invoking the measure, a move it said “seriously infringes” on Canada’s Charter rights.