Windsor, Ontario Feb 14 (BNA): The busiest border crossing between the US and Canada reopened late Sunday after protests against COVID-19 restrictions closed it for nearly a week, while Canadian officials held off on a larger protest crackdown in the capital. . , Ottawa.
“The Ambassador Bridge is now fully open allowing the free flow of trade between the economies of Canada and the United States once again,” Detroit International Bridge said in a statement. Esther Jenzen, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a later transcript to the Associated Press that the bridge reopened to traffic at 11 p.m. EST.
The crossing normally carries 25% of the total trade between the two countries, and the blockade on the Canadian side has disrupted business in both countries, forcing automakers to close several assembly plants.
Police in Windsor, Ontario, said earlier in the day that more than two dozen people had been peacefully arrested, towed seven cars and five were seized as officers evacuated protesters from near the bridge, which connects the city – and many Canadian auto factories – with Detroit.
Meanwhile, the protest in Ottawa has paralyzed the city center, angered residents fed up with police inaction, and increased pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who chaired a cabinet meeting late Sunday.
A senior government official said Trudeau plans to meet virtually with Canadian provincial leaders Monday morning. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, the Associated Press reported.
Demonstrations reverberated across Canada and abroad, with similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands. The US Department of Homeland Security has warned that truck convoys may be underway in the US.
The Ambassador Bridge remained closed for most of the day although the protest disintegrated as a heavy snowstorm blanketed the area. The mayor of Windsor, Drew Delkins, said the bridge will open as soon as authorities decide it is safe to do so.
Canada’s Industry Minister, François-Philippe Champagne, welcomed the development, saying on Twitter: “Good news. I am pleased to see that the Ambassador Bridge has now reopened.”
US President Joe Biden’s administration on Sunday acknowledged the apparently peaceful decision to protest, which it said had “widespread adverse effects” on “people’s lives and livelihoods” on both sides of the border.
“We stand ready to support our Canadian partners where it is beneficial in order to ensure the normal free flow of commerce can resume,” Homeland Security Adviser Dr. Liz Sherwood Randall said in a statement.
In Ottawa, about 500 miles northeast of Windsor, Mayor Jim Watson said Sunday the city has struck a deal with protesters who have thronged downtown streets for more than two weeks that will see them move out of residential areas within the next 24 hours.
Watson said he agreed to meet with protesters if they confined their protest to an area around Parliament House and moved their trucks and other vehicles out of residential neighborhoods by Monday noon.
The mayor shared a message from one of the protest organizers, Tamara Leech, in which she said the protesters “accept your request” to focus activities in Parliament House. But Leech later denied there was an agreement, saying in a tweet: “No deal. End mandates, end passports. That’s why we’re here.”
In his message to protesters, Watson added that residents were “exhausted” and “on edge” by the demonstrations and warned that some businesses were teetering on the brink of permanent closure due to the unrest.
The numbers of protesters rose to what police said were 4,000 by Saturday, and a counter-demonstration emerged from frustrated Ottawa residents who tried to prevent the convoy of trucks from entering downtown on Sunday.
Clayton Goodwin, a 45-year-old military veteran who was among the opposition protesters, said it was time for residents to stand up against the protesters.
“I am terrified that other veterans will be out there in choosing my science, choosing my service,” said Goodwin, CEO of the Veterans Accountability Commission, a nonprofit advocacy group. “It’s frivolous. The city was free. 92% have been vaccinated. We are ready to support our business.”
Colin Sinclair, another counter-protester, said the protesters had had enough time to hear their discontent and need to move forward – with the police force, if it came to that.
They are occupiers. “People are afraid to go to work, they are too afraid to leave their homes,” she said. “This is not how you hear your voice. This is an inner terror and we want you to get out of our city. Go home.”
The city saw similar expansions to the protest last weekends, and loud music was played as people roamed the city center where anti-vaccine protesters have been camping since late January, to the frustration of local residents.
“I feel like I’m living in a different country, like I’m in the States,” said Shannon Thomas, a 32-year-old teacher. “It really saddens me to see all these people waving Canadian flags and behaving like patriots when this is the most sad and embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Trudeau has so far rejected calls to use the military, but said “all options are on the table” to end the protests. Trudeau described the protesters as the “margin” of Canadian society. Both federal and local politicians said they couldn’t tell the police what to do.
Major General Steve Boivin, commander of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, said Sunday that two of his Special Forces soldiers were supporting the protests in Ottawa and were in the “discharge process”. Boivin said the activism goes against the military’s values and ethics.
A judge on Friday ordered an end to the blockade at the crossing in Windsor and Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency allowing fines of C$100,000 and imprisonment of up to one year for anyone illegally blocking roads, bridges, walkways and other critical infrastructure.
Partial bridge closures began on February 7, and by midweek the disruption was so severe that automakers began shutting down or reducing production. The standoff came at a time when the industry is already struggling to maintain production in the face of pandemic-induced shortages of computer chips and other supply chain disruptions.
“We are protesting that the government is taking away our rights,” said Eunice Lucas Logan, a Windsor resident. We want to remove restrictions. We’ll have to wait to find out.”
The 67-year-old has come out in support of the protest for the past four days. She said she appreciates the police being patient.
On the other side of the country, a major border crossing for trucks between Surrey, British Columbia, and Blaine, Washington, was closed Sunday, a day after Canadian authorities said a few cars broke through police barriers and a crowd entered the area on foot.
On Sunday afternoon, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said four people had been arrested for “mischief” during the protest. Some of the people who stayed overnight had packed their bags and left, but the border crossing and roads in the area remained closed.
The border blockade that began in Coats, Alberta, north of Sweet Grass, Montana, on January 29, also remained in place. Police issued more than 50 traffic tickets on Saturday and continued to issue them on Sunday, RCMP Cpl. Troy Savenkov said.
Savenkov said officers intercepted and disabled three excavators preparing for the protest.
“If they had made their way towards the blockade, it would have exacerbated the unfortunate situation we are facing on the border,” he said.
While protesters criticize vaccine mandates for truck drivers and other COVID-19 restrictions, many public health measures in Canada, such as mask rules and vaccine passports to enter restaurants and theaters, are already waning as omicron levels rise.
About 90% of truck drivers in Canada are vaccinated, and truck drivers’ associations and many operators of large excavators have denounced the protests. The US has the same vaccination rule for truck drivers crossing the border, so it wouldn’t make much difference if Trudeau lifted the restriction.
Epidemiological restrictions have been much stricter there than in the United States, but Canadians have largely supported them. The vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated, and the COVID-19 death rate is one-third that of the United States.
Meanwhile, Biden, in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Sunday before the Super Bowl, struck a critical tone when asked about those likely to object to the mask’s mandate in the NFL Championship game.
“I love how people talk about personal freedom,” he said. “If you are exercising personal liberty, but you are putting another person in danger, and their health is in danger, I don’t take that very well with liberty.”