The police operation that easily succeeded in dispersing demonstrators on motorcycles against health measures this weekend in Ottawa demonstrates that it was not necessary to invoke emergency measures this winter, says the Bloc Québécois.
” Three days later, [ce nouveau convoi contre les mesures sanitaires] was already finished because everyone did their job. And, miracle, we didn’t need emergency measures, Mr. President. So the $1,000 question: what was the Emergency Measures Act for this winter, after all? asked Bloc Québécois parliamentary leader Alain Therrien during question period on Monday.
A group opposing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions was back in Ottawa starting Friday night in a two-wheeled rally called “Rolling Thunder.” As during the Freedom Convoy which disturbed Ottawa for three weeks this winter, heavy vehicles and pickup trucks also took part in the anti-government parade which took place until Sunday, and punctuated by some clashes with the forces of the ‘order.
Ottawa police officers were very present in the city center even before the arrival of the first demonstrators, and handed out hundreds of tickets on the sidelines of the event. The operation marks a stark contrast to the strategy adopted during the Freedom Convoy in February, when simple warnings were distributed almost three weeks after the blocking of the streets of the federal capital began.
Proof of the uselessness of the measures
According to MP Alain Therrien’s description of the weekend’s events, “when the [manifestants] attempted to move into the security perimeter to block off the city center, they were immediately arrested. There was no slippage, the shops remained open”.
According to the Bloc Québécois, this effective operation constitutes the very proof that the federal government could have acted more quickly to avoid the excesses observed by the Convoi de la liberté under regular laws, in particular through better coordination of the various police forces.
Conservative MP Raquel Dancho also took up the torch of her party to argue the pointlessness of having invoked emergency measures this winter. She ironically pointed out that the elected officials themselves had to cross the Freedom Convoy to get to work.
“Either there was no real threat and [les libéraux] compensated for their incompetent management of the demonstration, or they knowingly put us all in danger, ”she chanted on Monday.
The Federal Minister of Public Security, Marco Mendicino, stood up each time to recall the reasons for invoking emergency measures. “In this time, we needed it,” he replied in French, recalling that other blockages have taken place elsewhere in the country at border points with Canada.
The Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party of Canada voted against invoking the Emergencies Act when Parliament was consulted on the issue on February 21. The Trudeau government thus wanted to put an end to the blocking of heavy goods vehicles of the Freedom Convoy. Only downtown Ottawa was still occupied by protesters at this time. The vote was won thanks to the support of the New Democratic Party (NDP).
The Emergency Measures Act applied for nine days, starting on February 14. It was mainly used to force the collaboration of towing companies and to freeze protesters’ bank accounts.
Fines and arrests
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) welcomed on Saturday that “many convoys” around Ottawa have given up going to the city center because of “the operational approach of the police”.
Its agents and those of other police forces present issued no less than 761 parking tickets and 10 tickets for various offenses, such as excessive noise, obstructing public roads or urinating in public. About 40 vehicles were towed away, and three people were arrested, two of them for not respecting their conditions of release.
A woman has been arrested for assaulting police, and a man who allegedly tried to ram a police officer on a motorcycle faces multiple charges, including dangerous driving, refusing to provide a sample, assaulting a police officer. peace and armed aggression.