Convoys against mandates in other Canadian cities support of Ottawa truck protest

EDMONTON - Like lots of these gathered close to the Alberta legislature to assist a convoy of vans that inched their method via Edmonton’s downtown streets for a number of hours on Saturday, Kyla Keulers has been to protests in opposition to COVID-19 well being restrictions earlier than.

However there have been so many extra individuals at Saturday’s occasion, and so many truck horns honking, that she felt optimistic issues are about to vary — that their protests will lastly make a distinction.

“I feel persons are actually waking up and we’re all uniting,” stated Keulers, standing beside a stroller together with her three-month-old son inside.

“I would like to have the ability to select and I would like my youngster to have the ability to select, and it’s simply ridiculous what the federal government thinks it may possibly get away with.”

The occasion, which a provincial spokesman stated attracted a number of thousand individuals, was considered one of quite a few convoys that had been held along with a nationwide convoy in opposition to vaccine mandates for cross-border truckers that rolled throughout Canada this previous week and arrived in Ottawa on Saturday.

“I feel there’s lots of people who’ve been silenced as a result of we’ve been bullied into silence,” stated Megan Crowther, who attended the Edmonton protest together with her 4 youngsters, her mother and father and pals.

“We are able to’t get onto a practice, a airplane, a bus. We’ve misplaced our proper to have a job. Individuals are shedding their houses,” she stated.

Different protesters overtly espoused debunked conspiracy theories concerning the virus and the vaccines used to fight it.

Additional south on the U.S. border in Coutts, Alta., RCMP stated a number of hundred, probably as much as 1,000 autos, took half in one other protest, ultimately blocking Freeway 4 to the U.S. border crossing in each instructions.

Cpl. Curtis Peters, an RCMP spokesman, stated there was no entry to the border on the Canadian facet and that U.S. officers had been turning visitors round on the opposite facet.

He stated no arrests had been made by late Saturday afternoon, however that Coutts itself was blocked off in case emergency autos wanted to get in.

“We’re partaking in dialogue with them and inspiring them to rethink that,” Peters stated from Coutts late Saturday afternoon.

Police in Vancouver posted on Twitter shortly after 1 p.m. saying heavy visitors all through the town as a result of “deliberate trucker convoy protest” could result in disruptions.

Victoria police additionally tweeted that a big protest was disrupting visitors across the provincial legislature, whereas movies posted to social media confirmed a bunch of vans and different autos in Prince George honking in assist of these rallying in Ottawa

Nova Scotia issued a directive geared toward prohibiting these protesting in opposition to COVID-19 measures from blocking the Trans-Canada Freeway close to the New Brunswick boundary.

The province stated the directive additionally utilized to individuals who stopped or gathered alongside the freeway in assist of the 2022 Freedom Convoy, the Atlantic Maintain the Line occasion, or others who arrange to intrude with visitors.

In the long run, although, a storm compelled the freeway between the provinces to close, and visitors was diverted away from the boundary at Amherst, N.S.

This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Jan. 29, 2022.

—With information from Brenna Owen in Vancouver and Brett Bundale in Halifax.