(Coutts) Traffic was slowly picking up Tuesday morning at the Coutts border crossing in southern Alberta, as Monday night anti-vaccine protesters blocked the road again.
Posted at 3:51 p.m.
Corporal Curtis Peters, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Alberta, said Tuesday noon that a lane had been reopened, but that travel remained “extremely difficult” at the American border, and that the situation could change quickly. .
On Monday evening around 10 p.m., the RCMP had tweeted that the north and south lanes on Highway 4 were completely blocked by protesters. RCMP were asking motorists to avoid the area.
Trucks and other vehicles began parking on Highway 4 near Coutts 10 days ago, in solidarity with similar protests in Ottawa and across the country. The demonstrators contest the compulsory vaccination imposed on cross-border truckers – and want, more generally, the lifting of the health measures put in place to counter COVID-19.
After the blockade near the Coutts border crossing, a second blockade appeared further north on the same Highway 4. These blockades blocked the passage of cross-border travelers and truckers for days, jeopardized millions of dollars of trade and impeded the access to basic necessities and medical services for residents of the region.
Last week, protesters agreed to open a single lane in each direction, so that cross-border truckers could pass with their goods.