As hundreds of protest truckers converge on Ottawa with a demand to immediately lift all COVID restrictions, it’s caught the attention of foreign anti-mandate sympathizers who are framing Freedom Convoy 2022 as a popular uprising against the pandemic strictures of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The protest convoy that has been gaining steam and headlines over the last week reached Canada’s capital Friday, with a multi-day demonstration expected to grind official Ottawa’s business to a halt.
Big rigs lined Wellington Street Friday evening – a portend of protesters to come, united by a vague message of ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health measures after almost two full years of pandemic precautions.
Truckers’ ‘freedom convoy’ set to rally at Parliament Hill
The remaining truckers and other activists opposed to cross-border vaccine mandates and other public health restrictions are set to roll into Ottawa on Saturday in time for a rally on Parliament Hill.
For the past week, several teams of truckers and supporters across the country have been making their way to the nation’s capital as part of the “freedom convoy,” raising more than $7.8 million from more than 99,000 donations on GoFundMe along the way, as of Saturday morning. Some convoy participants have already been in the city since Friday, lining the streets and waving flags in front of the Hill.
The protest convoy carries a combustible load. Politicians can exploit it — or confront it
With a convoy of protesters gathering in the nation’s capital, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole addressed reporters Thursday evening and called on everyone — protesters and others — to “take the temperature down.”
That’s not a bad notion. A calm discussion about the vaccine mandate for cross-border truck drivers — its purpose, its consequences and the merits of the alternatives — might be useful right now, especially after a long and painful two pandemic years.
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Ontario reports 58 more COVID-19 deaths; hospitalizations continue to drop
Ontario reported another 58 COVID-19 deaths on Saturday as patients hospitalized with the virus continue to drop.
There are currently 3,439 people hospitalized with the virus across Ontario, down from 3,535 yesterday and from 4,026 a week ago.
597 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 82% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 18% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 4,855 new cases of COVID-19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 29, 2022
Canadians eager for post-COVID-19 ‘normal’, but mixed on how to get there: poll
Canadians are eager to return to some version of “normal” after two years of living through the COVID-19 pandemic, but a new poll finds mixed opinions on how to achieve that.
The Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News did find some consensus, with two-thirds of Canadians saying governments aren’t doing enough to get the country back to normal — even if they can’t agree what politicians should be doing.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier made three demands to the federal government – chiefly to repeal the vaccine mandate on civil servants and to rehire all public employees fired because of them.
“The government should reinstate all civil servants, military personnel and other government employees who unjustly lost their jobs,” said Bernier.
The PPC leader also called on federally regulated companies in the transportation and telecom industries to rehire affected employees. Bernier added that if those workers didn’t want to return to their jobs, “they should get severance packages and unemployment benefits that terminated employees normally receive.”
When 15-year-old Ellah Nahum and a few other unvaccinated students showed up at Los Angeles’ New West Charter School on Tuesday, January 18, after winter break, they brought lunches, backpacks, and negative COVID-19 tests, hoping to be allowed in. They’d been negotiating with school administrators since early October, when the school had announced that a vaccine mandate would go into effect in January. Prior to returning to school from winter break, they’d requested a hearing, attempting to find alternative options to getting vaccinated.
When they showed up at school around 7:30 a.m., they sailed through the first checkpoint, run by two newly hired security guards who were satisfied with the girls’ proof of negative test conducted in the last 24 hours. It was the second checkpoint, run by school administrators demanding proof of vaccination, that created trouble for the teens. Several hours later, after tense negotiations between administrators, teens, and their parents, the school called Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to the scene, and cordoned the teens off, denying them chairs and bathroom breaks, according to the girls.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Director alongside two other agency officials, David Morens and Jeffrey Taubenberger, called for the development of new vaccines in a letter published by the New England Journal of Medicine.
A new lethal virus known as NeoCoV has been discovered, and it may be more transmissible – with one mutation – according to a new study by Chinese scientists from Wuhan, though some experts are cautioning that further study is needed. It has not yet made the leap to humans.
These past few months, we have witnessed a confluence of events in which the grandest hopes and desires of the radical left and Oval Office’s installed occupant have been stymied or faced outright defeat. Their desperation should be clear for all to see, summed up in their desire is to govern against the will of the People, campaign against the People’s majority concerns, and inflict psychological (and, in some cases, physical) abuse against all who dissent from their governance and incompetence. To win anyway, leftists are creating a false sense of panic across America.
The last living drafter and signatory of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the highest law of the land, is suing the Canadian federal government over its travel ban for the unvaccinated.
Former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, 79, is the main applicant in a case brought against the federal government by the Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, according to a press release.
“It is becoming more obvious that being vaccinated does not stop people from getting Covid and does not stop them from spreading it,” the former premier said in a statement. “The government has not shown that the policy makes flying safer—it simply discriminates.”
“There is some indication that it is more contagious, especially for the unvaccinated, but that it can also infect people who have been vaccinated to a greater extent,” said SSI’s technical director, Tyra Grove Krause, according to Reuters.
Omicron subvariant BA.2 being watched ‘very closely’ in Canada: Tam
Canada’s top doctor says the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has detected more than 100 cases of a new Omicron subvariant known as BA.2, doubling the number of infections from the virus lineage that were reported earlier this week.
Dr. Theresa Tam said during Friday’s federal COVID-19 update that the BA.2 subvariant was first detected in Canada in November 2021, and has since been “closely” monitored by experts.
Ottawa’s police chief says officials are on guard against “social media actors” and “lone wolf individuals” who might try to infiltrate this weekend’s convoy protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Members of a protest organizers call the Freedom Convoy steadily streamed into the nation’s capital Friday as various groups from across the country prepared to rally against the federal government’s vaccination mandate for all cross-border drivers, which came into effect earlier this month.
At least hundreds more were expected throughout the day and over the weekend, and Ottawa police Chief Peter Sloly says authorities weren’t sure how large the rally would be.
Canada truckers’ vaccine protest spirals into calls to repeal all public health rules
A convoy of truckers and their supporters is set to converge on the Canadian capital in a protest which has spiralled from frustrations over vaccine mandates into calls for the repeal of all public health measures – and even the overthrow of the federal government.
The top official who oversees security for the House of Commons has issued a warning to MPs about the potential risks related to the coming convoy of truckers set to arrive on Parliament Hill as early as tomorrow.
In an email sent to members of Parliament obtained by CTV News, Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell cautioned MPs about the potential for doxxing—finding and publishing people’s personal information with malicious intent—of MPs homes who live in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
Thousands of truckers in Canada have formed a convoy to protest the country’s vaccine mandates. pic.twitter.com/vFmr9GrDyC
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 28, 2022
Ontario reports 68 new COVID-19 deaths; toll for January 2022 now exceeds 1,100
Ontario reported another 68 new deaths due to COVID-19 on Friday, pushing the death toll for the month of January so far above 1,100.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Alexandra Hilkene said four of the deaths reported today occurred on Thursday, 17 occurred on Wednesday and the 46 remaining occurred in the 11 days prior to Wednesday.
607 people are in ICU with #COVID19. 82% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for COVID-19 and 18% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 5,337 new cases of #COVID19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 28, 2022
Period of infectiousness does not appear shorter with Omicron: Public Health Ontario
A new guide developed by Ontario’s public health agency suggests Omicron coronavirus infections are contagious for no less time than those of earlier variants, calling into question the province’s move to reduce self-isolation to five days for vaccinated people.
In a guide about how to best cohort patients in hospital published Jan. 21, Public Health Ontario (PHO) said they do not have any evidence to suggest Omicron is infectious for a shorter period of time.
Up to 2,000 trucks are due on Saturday, but there will be events every day until the convoy receives an answer from the government.
