Canadian police moved in to clear protest camps blocking the national parliament in Ottawa, threatening to escalate the use of force to end weeks of demonstrations against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions.
Ottawa police said they deployed “a chemical irritant” to subdue protesters, who had been launching gas cannisters at them as they advanced. They arrested 47 people Saturday, for a total of about 150, and towed 38 vehicles over the last day.
No serious injuries have been reported either among law enforcement or protesters, according to the Ottawa Police Service’s official Twitter feed.
Saturday marks the second day of police action to clear Canada’s capital of the protests that have blockaded the downtown area for more than three weeks and inspired similar actions at border crossings with the U.S.
Employing members of the municipal, provincial and federal police forces, the action is one of the largest of its kind in Canada’s history and comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to put an end to the crisis.
“We’re all on pins and needles for the safety of those who are on the streets,” Marco Mendicino, Canada’s federal minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, said in a press conference Saturday morning. “We’re all relieved there has been a very minimum amount of confrontation and violence, and we certainly hope that will continue to be the case going forward.”
The federal government also used its emergency powers to freeze at least 76 accounts representing $2.5 million associated with the blockades, Mendicino said.
The action’s progress along Wellington Street is significant as it’s where Canada’s national government sits, including the prime minister’s office, though the protest encampment stretches throughout the city’s downtown. Officials have said the operation to clear it could carry on for days more.
