On Sunday, dozens of riot police descended on this illegal camp beside an Ottawa baseball stadium, seizing diesel and gasoline, stunning protesters.
“That they came in and they were taking the fuel they were showing force by standing there with their weapons.”
This was a targeted strike to choke off the fuel supply to hundreds of truckers reeking havoc near parliament hill.
The owner of the baseball team and the lot questions why it took nine days for police to take action.
As the owner Regan Katz said: “We have from a safety aspect, asked for help from the police to ensure that things are controlled that we never authorized any long term stay or any overnight use.”
The coordinated protest began on January 29th, hundreds of transport truckers rolled into town to protest vaccine mandates.
Criminologist Michael Kempa researches policing: “Look at the sophistication of what they’re setting up in terms of an encampment in downtown Ottawa. It looks like a military operation.”
As Ottawa police service chief Peter Sloly said: “There is likely no policing solution this.”
Different people call the standoff different things. But everyone agrees it was meticulously planned, perhaps because of the experience of some planners.
Tom Quiggin is one of the lead organizers. He used to work for the very government he now calls the opposition.
As he said: “I would say the opposition to this point doesn’t actually have a strategy.
They have a sort of weak goal and that they want the streets cleared, but they have no real idea how they want to get there.
Then there’s Daniel Bulford. Once part of the prime minister security detail the former RCMP officer quit after refusing to get vaccinated.
As he said: “We have been completely open and sharing information about anything that could be public safety or security related.”
According to the site police on guard, there are more than 150 mostly retired officers across the country who don’t support vaccine mandates.
A video posted last week showed some protesting in Ottawa. There have been moments when police outnumbered were pushed back.
And even after somebody’s raid, protesters broadcast their determination to dig in showing in a Facebook video that their camp remained intact, and he said in the video: “People are still in high spirits. Donations are still here.”
“I mean, it, it’s shocking to me that they were under estimated.”
Amaranth Amarasingam says the video coordination and the ability to bounce back, “and they’re kind of preparing for occupation in a sense. So I think they’ve shown that whatever weaknesses were initially, prevalent in the movement, they’re able to kind of fix those quick quickly.”
The ranks of the Ottawa police are being bolstered by mounties and provincial police. Meanwhile, support for the protesters is growing to they’ve raised more than five million dollars on a new crowd funding platform to prolong their encampment.
Resource: CBC News