The lawless truck convoy determined to end Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions by blocking traffic along the Canadian-U.S. border was largely cleared off a key bridge with relative ease on Saturday—after a court order calling for the protest to disband.
Despite that progress in restoring order, protesters on foot remained in the area, with more streaming in—underscoring the fluidity of the situation that has sowed chaos in Ottawa and disrupted supply chains.
The protesters along the Ambassador Bridge—many draped in the Canadian flag and holding signs that read “Fuck Trudeau”—have spent days protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions and disrupting the economic flow with the U.S.
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The bridge, which connects Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, is the busiest U.S.-Canadian border crossing and carries 25 percent of trade between the two nations.
Canadian police and protestors stood off at the Ambassador Bridge Saturday, though the demonstrators initially began to disperse just before noon.
Cole Burston/GettyThe 16th day of what morphed from a convoy into an occupation began with a police barricade along the bridge’s entrance and officers threatening those who refused to leave with arrest.
The crackdown was met with car and trunk honks and screams from demonstrators, some of whom actually compared the relatively peaceful scene to the deadly Tiananmen Square Massacre in China in 1989.
Aside from issuing orders to leave, officers remained largely silent as demonstrators hurled pleas and insults at them. Windsor Police also put out updates on Twitter, warning that vehicles that remained could be towed.
While authorities flanked by military personnel managed to push protesters farther from the bridge by noon, others joined by foot later in the afternoon, according to the Detroit Free-Press.
Protester Daniel Koss told the Associated Press he was happy the scene did not spin out of control, which he believed would have overshadowed the issue of COVID restrictions.
“It’s a win-win,” Koss said. “The pandemic is rolling down right now, they can remove the mandates, all the mandates, and everyone’s happy. The government does the right thing, and the protesters are all happy.”
The Canadian protests were largely praised and encouraged by conservative media outlets in the U.S. Fox News and NewsMax anchors praised the truckers and claimed authorities were trying to “censor” them. MyPillow CEO and professional provocateur Mike Lindell told the Right Side Broadcasting Network Saturday he planned to deliver pillows to the truckers, though he did not say when or how many for fear of “obstructionists.”
Naturally, the truckers received a shoutout from former President Donald Trump during his Jan. 29 rally.
“The Canadian truckers ... are doing more to defend American freedom than our own leaders by far,” Trump said. “We want those great Canadian truckers to know that we are with them all the way.”
The protest’s near-end followed a Canadian judge’s Friday order allowing the bridge to be cleared. Ontario Premier Doug Ford also declared a state of emergency with fines of 100,000 Canadian dollars and a year in prison for those who continued to break the law.
