The Parliamentary Protective Service expects 500 protesters to converge on Ottawa this weekend to mark the first anniversary of the Freedom Convoy, which occupied the capital’s downtown area in 2022.
This federal agency responsible for security on Parliament Hill warns that it will reduce certain access to buildings.
The public can still use the center and east gates to access the lawn of Parliament Hill, but not the gates closest to West Block, where the Liberal caucus meets at the end of the week in anticipation of the return to parliament on Monday.
The Parliamentary Protective Service says public tours of parliament have been canceled and Ottawa Police will enforce a vehicle ban on Wellington Street, which runs alongside Parliament Hill.
Ottawa City Council voted this week to reopen Wellington Street to vehicles as early as March, after a full year-long closure.
HGVs had occupied Wellington Street for three weeks last year, until the Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act.
Lack of $141,000 in tickets
A year after the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa, the City says approximately half the value of all tickets handed out at these protests have been received so far.
Between January 28 and February 18, 2022, authorities in Ottawa distributed 3,812 municipal parking tickets and 318 provincial offense notices for illegal parking, including on private property and in no-parking zones.
These fines total $320,545, but just over $141,000 are yet to be collected.
Unpaid fines can result in denial of registration, but they can also be transferred to the property tax bill, garnished from wages, or sent to a collection agency — although it’s unclear whether the City of Ottawa adopted one of these measures.
The nearly three-week protests cost the City of Ottawa approximately $7 million and municipal police $55 million.
The demonstrators who blocked the streets of the city center of the capital wanted to show their opposition to the sanitary measures linked to the COVID-19 – and more generally to the liberal government of Justin Trudeau.
The City of Ottawa has asked the federal government to support these extraordinary expenses, but no announcement has been made to date.