The Beginning of the End for the Ottawa Convoy?

Ottawa – Tensions are running high in Ottawa as hundreds of police officers in riot gear make a coordinated push to dismantle the trucker convoy that arrived in the city in late January. Police arrested at least two leading organizers of the convoy, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, on Thursday night. But today, law-enforcement officers are engaged in a much larger-scale action, surrounding the encampments and methodically moving in to make arrests and disperse protesters, and even positioning armed officers on nearby roofs. It’s by far the most aggressive show of state force against the convoy to date.

This morning, large numbers of police officers — arriving on foot, on horseback, and in armored cars — began amassing around the convoy. By 11 a.m., lines of police officers on multiple sides of the encampments had begun to push inward, cutting off the main entrances and shrinking the reach of the convoy. They were met with loud and angry shouts of indignation from the truckers, who assembled to meet them on the other side of the line. But with some exceptions — at certain junctures, the officers’ advances pushed into a crowd of protesters who refused to move, leading to a sort of pushing match between the convoy crowd and the line of police — there were few physical altercations. Those who did resist police advances were promptly arrested and hauled out.

The mood at the scene was bittersweet. The three-week-long protest has been an odd, almost surreal intersection of song, dance, prayer, and protest, expanding from its initial purpose as an expression of anger at the federal and provincial vaccine requirements to a cathartic outpouring of pent-up anti-pandemic energy. It’s still a recognizably right-wing movement, but only in the broadest of senses. As Michelle Goldberg, a left-wing NYT columnist who wrote a broadly positive assessment of the Ottawa convoy after visiting today, wrote: “The thrust of the Ottawa protests is clearly reactionary, but there were plenty of people on the streets who seemed genuinely baffled by the media’s description of them as part of a far-right movement. They’d been infuriated and in some cases unmoored by Canada’s pandemic restrictions, which have been stricter than America’s.”

That has attracted an odd intersection of people, from truckers and right-wing activists to hippies to even a few Marxists on the margins. (And of course, a healthy dose of young people who just want to party).

In the face of all this, the dismantling of the convoy — which still has yet to reach the main stage at the time of this writing — was met with a positive but resigned attitude. Truckers maintained an upbeat tone, gathering for a final stand near the war memorial. (“We made it this far, brothers!” one yelled.) Everywhere, protesters exchanged hugs, handshakes, and boyish grins. A few were seen tearing up. 

On the main stage, a lawyer gave attendees instructions on what to do if and when they were arrested, telling them to be peaceful and cooperative. Protesters with shovels built bunkers around the heart of the convoy with the snow that fell last night. 

Music continues to play on the main stage, but there is a sense on the ground that this is the final showdown. Thousands of protesters are supposed to stream in for weekend festivities tonight, but most have yet to arrive, and police have set up checkpoints on all the major entrances to downtown to block new arrivals. Many of the core organizers are aware that their arrests are now imminent. One trucker in front of me is giving a woman his sister’s email address, so that she can be alerted. “Just in case anything happens tonight,” he says with a smile.