Hundreds of police officers have cleared downtown Ottawa. It became increasingly clear that the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” was not just about truck drivers tired of Corona, but a well-organized and financially strong movement that was pursuing more radical goals.
A truck is towed under police protection in Ottawa on Saturday.
On Friday morning, in the midst of heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures, hundreds of police officers advanced into the center of the Canadian capital Ottawa. They issued leaflets warning truck drivers and protesters that they risked arrest if they did not voluntarily withdraw from the city center. Some then left the city, which has been in the hands of the “Freedom Convoy” for almost three weeks, but the majority stayed.
Call to storm the Parliament building
However, the police soon followed their words with deeds. First, the two spokesmen, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, were taken away in handcuffs. About 140 more arrests followed later. At midday, heavy tow trucks with number plates and company logos covered drove into the city center and began removing the first trucks. Some demonstrators armed with shovels tried to stop the police evacuation with barricades made of snow, others opposed the uniformed men with children and dogs.
But it soon became apparent that the supporters of the Freedom Convoy didn’t stand a chance against the police in full gear, armed with clubs, weapons and pepper spray. Some activists, also in riot gear, also defended themselves with chemical sprays, some tried to take the guns away from the police officers. But the uniformed men, some of them on horseback, managed to push the crowd back meter by meter. Many truck drivers left Ottawa voluntarily. However, one of the organizers, Pat King, gave the slogan that only bullets could end the protest. He later asked the participants to to storm the parliament building. Eventually he too was arrested. On Saturday afternoon Canadian time, the remaining organizers announced the end of the rally.
The Trucker Association distances itself
The “occupation” began on January 29 as a protest against mandatory vaccinations for truck drivers returning from the United States, but then generalized into an anti-government demonstration. The police were obviously unable to cope with the action. Finally, on Monday, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the application of the emergency law. The next day, Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly resigned. As early as Thursday morning, a large number of police officers were seen being taken to the city center by bus and gathering near the occupied city centre. “We are determined to end this illegal demonstration. We have the resources,” interim police chief Steve Bell told the media.
In order to stop the protests and to prevent other demonstrators from outside the city from taking part, the police set up over a hundred checkpoints around the city center and cordoned off the streets with barriers and fences. Those who did not have a valid reason were not allowed to enter the city center. Access was only granted to those who could identify themselves as residents.
Already on February 12, the police – after several unsuccessful attempts – managed to clear the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit without using violence. The blockade of the border crossing between Canada and the USA had lasted for almost a week and disrupted deliveries for the auto industry in particular. The economic damage is estimated at one billion US dollars.
The “Canadian Trucking Alliance”, the association of Canadian truck drivers, has made itself clear distanced from the «Freedom Convoy» and even supports Trudeau’s application of the emergency law. About a third of Canada’s truck drivers are immigrants, and of course the nationalist-xenophobic tones among the demonstrators don’t sit well with them.
organization, weapons and money
In the last few days had shown more and more clearlythat the “Freedom Convoy” was not just a spontaneous gathering of truckers who are dissatisfied with the Covid-19 regulations. On February 14, a group of protesters armed with a variety of weapons, ammunition and bulletproof vests were arrested in Coutts, where supporters of the Freedom Convoy were also blockading a Canada-US border crossing.
The Canada-US border crossing in Coutts was also blocked by trucks.
More than 50 protesters in Ottawa are under investigation for hate crimes. “Foreign-looking” residents were repeatedly harassed and intimidated. Four participants suspected of plotting to kill police officers were arrested on Tuesday. Police and administrative authorities also fear that if the protest is cleared, there will be violent clashes between the truck drivers and the security forces.
The whole rally was evident from the start well organized. This was also reflected in the financing. Almost ten million dollars were raised in a few days via the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, until the platform closed the account because the operators realized that behind the likeable slogan “Freedom” there were other forces with whom they wanted nothing to do. Almost half of the funds came from the USA, in part from financially strong major donors mostly on the right-hand edge of the political spectrum. In the meantime, the organizers have again raised around five million dollars in cash and bitcoins on other online platforms.
All sorts of dubious characters
In the meantime, it is also clearer who the organizers and key figures in the demonstration are. Most are not truck drivers. Many of them, like spokesman Daniel Bulford, have military and police experience. The central strategist is James Bauder from the Canada Unity Foundation. He is close to QAnon and other conspiracy theories. He considers Covid-19 to be the “biggest political fraud in history”.
Another major group, Action4Canada, claims the Covid-19 pandemic was orchestrated by Bill Gates to microchip the population through vaccinations. Another organization involved, called Hold Fast Canada, claims in this context that several concentration camps have already been set up in Canada.
Tamara Lich, who has increasingly become the public face of the movement, is a political extremist calling for secession and independence from western Canada. She used to be a fitness trainer. Chris Barber, who was arrested with Lich, is one of the few truckers in the top echelon. He likes to show himself with the Confederate flag and compares Canada’s corona policy with the repressive regime in North Korea. Another protagonist, Benjamin Dichter, is a well-known anti-Islam agitator.
Tamara Lich, a spokesman for the protests, has been arrested.
In recent weeks, downtown Ottawa has not only seen numerous Trump flags, but also Confederate flags, Nazi emblems and stickers with Trudeau’s head and the slogan “Wanted for crimes against humanity”. Some held up banners calling for a “Nuremberg tribunal” for the Canadian government after the prime minister had also been compared to Hitler on several occasions.
Compare with January 6th
The “Washington Post” had expressed the fear at the very beginning that the “Freedom Convoy” would become a kind of Canadian “6. January» could become. In any case, one parallel is that the “Freedom Convoy” was initially thought to be a collection of honorable but ultimately harmless truck drivers fighting for their little bit of freedom. The evening music, the drums, the dances, the bonfires, the general folk festival atmosphere tempted some observers to Parallels to 1968 and pull the hippies. The demonstrators themselves also underlined this aspect by happily speaking of love and freedom.
But that was misleading. “A common misconception, including in Canada, is that extremists undermined these demonstrations,” Stephanie Carvin, a national security expert at Carleton University, told the New York Times. “In reality, it was an extremist movement from the start that managed to get mainstream attention.”