“China eats weird animals disease”

As I write this article, it is the morning of Thursday, February 3rd and I am in Ottawa. I just came into the office after walking down Wellington Street, where rigs, Honda Civics, Ford F-150s, and RVs are parked, and people of all ages and all backgrounds are advocating for a return to normal life.

Canadians taking a pit stop: Lunch is served! Civic minded Canadians enjoying patriotic outdoor cuisine and smiles at this family friendly event. pic.twitter.com/Okc3OK4F9d

— Unacceptable Rowan (@canmericanized) February 5, 2022

With a robust police presence, cordoned-off streets and surveillance cameras, Toronto girded Saturday for its own version of the trucker-led protests that have roiled central Ottawa for a week.

Hulking farm tractors and smaller trucks began arriving for the demonstration at Queen’s Park on Friday afternoon. Police barricades prevented them from getting near the legislative building, leaving the activists to park alongside the Royal Ontario Museum.

With the Beijing Olympics set to begin, a group of international scientists is once more calling for a “comprehensive international investigation” into the origins of COVID-19.

It’s the latest in a series of strongly worded letters demanding more transparency from the Chinese government, once again stoking a contentious debate that’s been ongoing throughout the pandemic’s many months.

The letter — signed by 20 scientists from the U.S., U.K., Germany, New Zealand, France, Australia, India and Japan — echoes what have become broad international calls for a more thorough examination, unfettered by geopolitics, into where COVID-19 came from. It also underscores continued criticism from both the U.S. and international bodies over the Chinese government’s lack of cooperation.

Call it a protest. An occupation. A siege.

… Sloly described the protest as a well-funded, well-organized movement that includes multiple command posts — in Ottawa, across the country and even overseas — that finally compelled his force to adjust, one week after the protest started.

“We are literally learning lessons every day,” he said.

One of those lessons-learned is that this protest is so big and so scary, police aren’t even confident it could be controlled if they tried to break it up.

More rallies protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions will get underway today in Ottawa and several other major cities in Canada.

A second weekend of protests by the so-called “freedom convoy” will take place in the country’s capital, with as many as 300 to 400 trucks expected to try and enter the downtown core, according to police estimates, along with up to 2,000 people on foot and another 1,000 counter-protesters.

Truckers in France are reportedly planning to emulate the Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ by mobilizing groups of big rigs to protest vaccine mandates and other Covid-19 restrictions set by Paris. According to a BFM TV report, demonstrators plan to “paralyze” the French capital next week before joining a wider “European convergence” in Brussels.

I live in downtown Ottawa, right in the middle of the trucker convoy protest. They are literally camped out below my bedroom window. My new neighbours moved in on Friday and they seem determined to stay. I have read a lot about what my new neighbours are supposedly like, mostly from reporters and columnists who write from distant vantage points somewhere in the media heartland of Canada. Apparently the people who inhabit the patch of asphalt next to my bedroom are white supremacists, racists, hatemongers, pseudo-Trumpian grifters, and even QAnon-style nutters.

h/t Sanwin

Local towing companies are rejecting Ottawa police requests for help towing ‘Freedom Convoy’ trucks out of the downtown core, according to a senior police source.

The source told CTV News Ottawa that even if police decided to tow the trucks from the downtown streets they have been clogging up for the past week, they wouldn’t have enough tow trucks to do it.

Police outreach to tow truck companies across the city has been rebuffed, the source said.

Ontario’s hands-on premier has taken a hands-off approach to the weeklong protest that has snarled downtown Ottawa, the second-largest city in his province.

How will that change if something similar happens in Toronto?

Demonstrators are set to converge on the legislature on Saturday in support of the Ottawa protesters. Premier Doug Ford appears to be crossing his fingers that they don’t bring anywhere near the level of disruption as experienced in the downtown of the nation’s capital.

• GoFundMe supports peaceful protests and we believe that was the intention of the Freedom Convoy 2022 fundraiser when it was first created.
• We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.