By: Thomas I. Likness
Eagle News Service

(Eagle News) — Traffic in downtown Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, is at a standstill as a convoy of trucks and cars protesting public health restrictions remains parked.

The protest began yesterday and continued throughout the night, keeping police in the Parliament Hill area busy.

“Officers encountered several challenges with demonstrators, including sporadic road blockages by trucks, which officers worked to clear,” the Ottawa Police Service said Sunday in a news release. “These high-risk situations were de-escalated and resolved with no arrests.”

Police are telling people to avoid the downtown area, adding they are trying to mitigate the impacts of the demonstration for business and residents of the area.

Traffic in the area has made streets impassable.

They are also dealing with people who vandalized landmarks.

“Several criminal investigations are underway in relation to the desecration of the National War Memorial/Terry Fox statue, threatening/illegal/intimidating behaviour to police/city workers and other individuals and damage to a city vehicle,” police said on Twitter. “Illegal behaviour will not be tolerated and will be fully investigated.”

Ottawa mayor says it’s time to go home

The protest has drawn people from fringe, extreme right wing groups.

Confederate flags and Nazi symbols and slogans were carried by people in the crowds.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson told a CBC news program city residents are fed up and want the demonstrators to leave.

He says they’ve has their protest and it’s time to move on and let the city get back to normal.

Whether they will heed his advice, remains to be seen.
(Eagle News Service)