Ottawa residents are desperately hoping truckers buy into the plan that will get them out of their quiet neighborhoods after 17 days of occupation…but doubt this time is the right one.
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If one of the organizers, Tamara Lich, is correct, vehicles parked in residential areas of the capital will be moved closer to Parliament Hill starting today to spare residents.
“So if I understand correctly, they’re just switching places?” asks, incredulous, Doug McArthur, who has suffered the noise of generators day and night since the beginning.
“I would be very happy if they left our street, because the last few days have been difficult. But I’m not sure it’s really going to happen like that, ”says Susan, whose window in her house overlooks the immobilized convoy on Kent, in Centretown.
Not the first time
Moreover, the injunction which prohibited them from honking was only respected a few days before the din resumed even more, underlines his neighbor Jane, who only wanted to give her first name.
Other residents recall that the demonstrators are also openly defying the ban on refueling trucks, many walking nonchalantly with a can of gasoline in their hands.
To add to the skepticism of these citizens, the convoy has no official spokesperson whose members would respect authority.
“It’s not clear who the leader is. Even though Tamara [Lich] say that, nothing says that they will listen to it and move,” Susan points out.
They block the convoys
Without waiting for the demonstrators to move their vehicles of their own accord, several hundred Ottawans decided yesterday afternoon to gather in front of the arrival of other convoys, a few streets south of the parliament.
“We can’t get rid of the trucks that are already there, but we can at least prevent them from adding more,” says Pamela, in her sixties, who was among the crowd. All we want is to get our quarters back. »