by Garrison Wester
At the beginning of the year 2022 there was a major protest done in the city of Ottawa, Canada. A group of people went to Ottawa on January 29th to voice their strong opinion on why you should not have to have the vaccine to have to cross the U.S. and Canada border. The people who were within the group felt that the Covid-19 vaccine should not be forced upon you, and it should be your own choice.
The protestors are a group of people who drive trucks. They drove their trucks to Ottawa and when they got there, they blocked roads. Some of the people were even saying that they would not leave until the health guidelines were changed. The blocking of roads within the capital city caused chaos and disorder. There were many businesses that had to close for a while including museums, libraries, the National Art Caenter, the Rink of Dreams, s well as Covid-19 vaccination clinics. A journalist in the New York Times interviewed mayor Jim Watson, who said that, because of the protest, “residents feel like prisoners in their own home.”
For the most part, the protest remained peaceful, but there were a few times where unnecessary actions took place. One incident was a video of one of the protestors dancing on top of Canada’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Another incident was when a group of protestors went to a homeless shelter and started to demand the people give them food and even gave threats to the workers. The protestors were also harassing people that were walking in the streets of the capital. Towards the beginning of the protest, the police were not getting involved, but as things went on, they had to step in and do something since things were starting to turn more violent than necessary. There were incidents where the protestors would put children between themselves and the police so they wouldn’t try to do anything to them. The city ended up being put under a state of emergency and that is when the government started to handle the situation.
The police ended up arresting over one hundred violent protestors. Some of the protestors were being defiant and not complying with what the officers were telling them to do. There was an arrest where the police found smoke grenades and fireworks in the suspect’s car. Some of the protestors were throwing smoke grenades and they ended up being arrested. Tickets also started being issued, and there were nearly 450 tickets written. As all of this was going on there were also towing companies starting to take away the trucks that were blocking the streets so people could start using those roads again.
After three long weeks of disturbance the roads were finally cleared, but there are still lingering effects of the protest. As you can see, the group of protestors wanted to make their voices heard on how their freedom is being taken away through the vaccine mandates but while they were trying to achieve that, things turned violent and went downhill quickly for them.
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