Truckers hold their ground despite threats of crackdown

Lt Col Charlie Brown Sooner or later someone is going to have to break. Hopefully sooner.

Thank you my friend Lt Col Charlie Brown for posting the perspective from stripes.com contributing associated press authors Rob Gillies, Wilson Ring and Robert Bumsted

The Attack on the Canadian Trucker Supporters is Left-Wing Fascism - Dinesh D'Sousa - Published February 18, 2022
https://rumble.com/vv9bbo-the-attack-on-the-canadian-trucker-supporters-is-left-wing-fascism.html

Images
1. Police hand out a notice to protesters in Ottawa, on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. Hundreds of truckers clogging the streets of Canada’s capital city in a protest against COVID-19 restrictions are bracing for a possible police crackdown. (Justin Tang /The Canadian Press via AP)
2. A man dances to music at a protest encampment where demonstrators have gathered to decry the country’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions outside the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. (Robert Bumsted/AP)
3. A man dances to music at a protest encampment where demonstrators have gathered to decry the country’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions outside the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. (Robert Bumsted/AP)
4. A trucker participating in a protest against Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates and pandemic restrictions looks out the window of his big rig parked near the Canadian parliament building in Ottawa on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Robert Bumsted/AP)


Background from the link {[stripes.com/theaters/americas/2022-02-17/trudeau-protests-must-end-truckers-brace-crackdown-5057376.htm]}
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Hundreds of truckers clogging the streets in Canada's capital stood their ground and defiantly blasted their horns Thursday as police poured in for what the protesters feared could be an attempt to break up their nearly three-week demonstration against the country's COVID-19 restrictions.
Busloads of police officers arrived near Ottawa's Parliament Hill in the morning, and workers put up extra fences around government buildings in what seemed to signal an impending confrontation.
Many of the protesters in the self-styled Freedom Convoy were unmoved by warnings from police and the government that they were risking arrest and could see their rigs seized and bank accounts frozen.
"I'm prepared to sit on my ass and watch them hit me with pepper spray," said one of their leaders, Pat King. As for the trucks parked bumper-to-bumper, he said: "There's no tow trucks in Canada that will touch them."
Amid the rising tensions, truckers outside Parliament blared their horns in defiance of a court injunction against honking, issued for the benefit of neighborhood residents.
Ottawa represented the movement's last stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S., inflicted economic damage on both countries and created a political crisis for Trudeau.
The protests have shaken Canada's reputation for civility and rule-following and inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands.
"It's high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared in Parliament, not far from where the more than 300 trucks were parked.
"They are a threat to our economy and our relationship with trading partners," he said. "They are a threat to public safety."
Early this week, the prime minister invoked Canada's Emergencies Act, empowering law enforcement authorities to declare the blockades illegal, tow away trucks, arrest the drivers, suspend their licenses and take other measures.
On Thursday, Trudeau and some of his top ministers took turns warning the protesters to leave, in an apparent move by the government to avert a clash, or at least show it had gone the extra mile to avoid one.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government began freezing truckers' accounts as threatened. "It is happening. I do have the numbers in front of me," she said.
Ottawa police likewise handed out leaflets for the second straight day demanding the truckers end the siege, and also helpfully placed notices on vehicles informing owners how and where to pick up their trucks if they are towed.
The city's interim police chief said that only those who live or work downtown would be allowed in the area.
The occupation has infuriated many Ottawa residents.
"We've seen people intimidated, harassed and threatened. We've seen apartment buildings that have been chained up. We have seen fires set in the corridors. Residents are terrorized," said Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.
The protests by demonstrators in trucks, tractors and motor homes initially focused on Canada's vaccine requirement for truckers entering the country but soon morphed into a broader attack on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau's government."

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Absolute Authority or Common Sense? Freedom or oppression? Binary choices or compromise? I hope our neighbors negotiate this crisis without tragedy.