The City of Ottawa Police Service distributed a written notice Wednesday morning to truckers parked downtown ordering them to leave the scene “now.”
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The bilingual letter specifies the consequences to which truckers are exposed by remaining on site, in particular under the Federal Law on Emergency Measures which has applied since Monday evening.
“Anyone blocking the lanes of traffic […] commits a criminal offense and can be arrested , can we read.
Charges and convictions related to the Ottawa occupation could result in a ban on crossing the border into the United States, recipients are reminded.
Officers delivered these notices in small groups without lingering to truckers parked en masse on Wellington Street, in front of Parliament, and on Kent Street.
The operation came the day after the resignation of Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly and poses the clearest threat authorities have made to protesters since the siege began.
On Wednesday morning, truckers surveyed by The newspaper saw it as a fearmongering tactic.
“They are shooting themselves in the foot, because we will not respond to threats. If they want me to go, they just have to lift the vaccination obligations, ”says Mat Mackenzie, a 36-year-old Ontario trucker.
He wasn’t the only one who didn’t take the content of the notice seriously.
Some simply tore up their copy of the letter in front of the policemen seconds after receiving it. Others made a paper airplane out of it or flushed it down a toilet.
“The police are doing their job and we are doing ours: we must stay here and resist to defend our freedoms,” adds Goran Dzelagliga, from the cabin of his truck.
– With Roxane Trudel