Ottawa’s Interim Police Chief Steve Bell told reporters that authorities had arrested at least 100 people for various offenses, including mischief, as of Friday afternoon. They included several convoy organizers and boosters. Police said they also had towed 21 vehicles.
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Bell said officers were carrying out a “methodical and well-resourced plan” and would work until “the residents and community have their entire city back.” Police on Friday afternoon said in a tweet that some protesters were assaulting officers and trying to remove their weapons.
The arrests marked the start of an operation to crack down on the demonstrations against coronavirus restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that have spurred the resignation of Ottawa’s police chief, eroded faith in public institutions and prompted the prime minister to invoke never-before-used emergency powers.
Ottawa’s former police chief called the blockades a “siege.” A local councilor said the demonstrations that have snarled the roads around Parliament — where protesters largely had free rein, blaring their horns at all hours and setting up bouncy castles and an inflatable hot tub — were a “carnival of chaos.”
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On Friday afternoon, a group of demonstrators gathered around a makeshift stage on Wellington Street, a blockaded thoroughfare in front of Parliament, to sing “O Canada” and “Sweet Caroline.” A DJ said that when the police arrived, he would be “calm,” and assured the crowd that none of them were doing anything illegal.
Under the Emergencies Act, a 1988 law invoked for the first time by Trudeau this week to quell the unrest, the protest area on Parliament Hill and in the surrounding parliamentary precinct has been declared a prohibited public assembly. The House of Commons canceled its Friday sitting because of the police operation.
Inside the area where the core of the remaining truckers and demonstrators were holed up, the mood was a mix of somber, celebratory and defiant. Protesters shoveled snow to create barricades in the street and block in their vehicles. Others were indignant and surprised that police were moving against their illegal encampments.
Two women in front of Parliament walked around with coffee cups and discussed their tactic for smuggling in new sympathizers: Add their names to hotel reservations so they could get past the roughly 100 checkpoints that police had set up on Thursday.
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Patrick Philon, 33, was pulling two carts of yellow jerrycans filled with fuel to distribute to truckers Friday morning.
“I brought it in by foot,” said the man from Spanish, Ontario. “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.”
Armed police began dismantling the blockades — now in their third week — on the eastern perimeter of the protest zone before moving west toward Parliament Hill. They were backed by armored tactical vehicles, officers on horseback and police in tactical gear and gas masks from across the provincial border in Quebec.
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Lines of police squared off for hours at several intersections, slowly pushing back against crowds and going truck-by-truck to arrest drivers. A hovering drone and two armed officers on a rooftop loomed above one intersection. Several big rigs left on their own.
Trumpets, drums, and shouts of “shame on you,” “hold the line” and “this is our tax money at work” echoed through the crowd. At one point, a lone counterprotester walked through demonstrators, yelling, “Go back to Mar-a-Lago” and “Donald Trump loves you guys!”
As police made a push forward, five people bowed their heads in a circle, praying to Jesus. After police moved in on a truck behind their line to extricate the driver, protesters turned to who would be next: A middle-aged man sitting in his red truck with a Bible quote on it. Supporters shook his hand and thanked him.
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Several convoy leaders, including Tamara Lich, a woman involved in separatist politics in Alberta; Chris Barber, a far-right agitator; and Daniel Bulford, a former officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, are among those who have been arrested.
On Friday morning, several demonstrators huddled around a cellphone, listening closely to the latest Facebook from Pat King, an extremist figure who has said the “the only way this is going to be solved is with bullets,” as he urged people to head to Parliament “and start doing your protest stuff.”
Several hours later, King appeared to have been arrested during another live-stream. He was listed as a regional organizer for the convoy, though other convoy organizers later sought to distance themselves from him.
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Canadian authorities say a “significant element” of funding for the convoy has come from the United States, where some Republican politicians and right-wing media have taken up the cause.
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 shower and do laundry.
Among police, 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.
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It was one of several U.S.-Canada border crossings that has been blockaded. Police say all have been cleared.
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.” He said that a subset of the demonstrators want to overthrow the government.
On Friday afternoon, Freedom Convoy 2022 acknowledged the arrests of several of its organizers.
“This is a grass-roots movement and others will fill their roles,” read a statement from the group. “We will continue to hold the line. We refuse to bow to abuses of power.”
But hours later, Benjamin Dichter, a convoy organizer with a history of Islamophobic comments and who was listed as a press contact on the statement, tweeted that he had left Ottawa.
He said he would be on Tucker Carlson Friday night.
