[EN IMAGES] The barricaded parliament: towards an imminent intervention by the Ottawa police

OTTAWA | Parliament Hill is barricaded in the pouring rain, in preparation for an increasingly evident police intervention on the 21^and day of occupation.

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High metal barriers began to be erected as early as 6 a.m. Thursday morning around the Parliament, Senate and Supreme Court buildings.

• Listen to André Durocher’s column at the microphone of Benoit Dutrizac on QUB radio:

The esplanade of the Parliament, where thousands of people have gathered over the past three weekends, is increasingly difficult to access, some doors have been blocked by bars and the few besiegers who are still there are urged to evacuate.

• Listen to Philippe-Vincent Foisy’s editorial, every day from 7:30 a.m. to QUB-radio :

Unaccustomed to being restricted in their movements, the besiegers watched the show, phone in hand, to film the scene.

“You are on the wrong side of history!” shouted one of them, decked out in a flag.

One of the leaders of the group, Pat King, roamed the area telling truckers to lock themselves in their vehicles. Several trucks were chained together and others had their tires removed. The tension is more and more palpable.

Although the tension was more and more palpable, the refueling continued, the fuel cans circulating on trolleys between the trucks as usual.

On Wednesday evening, another organizer, Tamara Lich, posted an emotional video on social media in which she said she expected to be arrested on Thursday. Crying, she delivers an emotional goodbye to her supporters calling on them to remain peaceful.

• Listen to Benoit Dutrizac’s interview with Claude Bonnet and Chantal Fortin, two Ottawa residents on QUB radio:

Meanwhile, employees of the University of Ottawa and those of certain departments located downtown were receiving an email urging them to work from home until further notice and not to travel to the city.

More and more police

Increasingly numerous, the police in fluorescent raincoats distribute Thursday morning a new “notice to the participants of the demonstration” to inform them that they are illegal and that they therefore expose themselves to “serious sanctions”. A second pamphlet informs them of the procedure to follow in the event of their vehicle being towed.

On Wednesday, the agents had distributed without much effect two pamphlets of the kind surrounded by a blue line. Today’s sheet is circled in red.

Steve Bell, Ottawa’s interim police chief, promised Wednesday to liberate the city.

“Some of the techniques that we are allowed to employ and are prepared to employ are not commonly seen in Ottawa. But we are prepared to use it if necessary to reach the safest resolution and to restore order,” he said.

The morale of the troops undermined by the temperature

After the pouring rain, the snowstorm that has hit Ottawa since yesterday could demoralize the troops as much as harm the work of the police, experts believe.

“Your morale when you’re cold, wet and starting to get hungry, it drops quickly, especially if they manage to cut off supplies to the convoy. At some point, they may be convinced and have the cause at heart, it can really undermine morale, ”says André Gélinas, former detective sergeant at the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). If the rain did not seem to bother the demonstrators, who continued to dance in front of the parliament, dressed in plastic ponchos, the storm of 20 to 30 cm of snow announced by Environment Canada could come to change the game.

“The weather plays in favor of the police from a tactical point of view. If I was a policeman, I’d let them get wet for quite a while. It will lead people to leave more quickly in a peaceful way, “said LCN Michel Juneau-Katsuya, national security expert and former executive of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Difficult movements

The accumulation could, however, put a spoke in the wheels of police operations by making it more difficult to evacuate trucks.

“With 30 cm of snow, it can complicate travel, comments André Gélinas. And people live there. They have a camp and some ability to resist the environment. In a classic event, when the conditions aren’t good, it’s sure to be a matter of time before people leave. »

But the besiegers, who have already faced rain, ice and snow since arriving 21 days ago, say they are ready for the elements. Warm in trucks, trailers and canvas shelters, they have become accustomed to clearing snow and de-icing their environment.

“The snowstorm? It does not change anything. Look, the streets are cleared better when you take care of them. The other sidewalks are a disaster,” said Chris “Beeman,” an Ontario beekeeper who takes part in the occupation.

Roxane Trudel and Anne-Caroline Desplanques

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