Sun 06 February 2022:
Thousands of people protesting vaccine mandates have marched in cities throughout Canada, as protests over COVID-19 restrictions spread from the nation’s capital.
On Saturday, police reported some 5,000 people demonstrated in Ottawa, with hundreds more in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, as well as Quebec City, Fredericton, and Winnipeg.
“We’re all sick and tired of the mandates, of the intimidation, of living in one big prison,” Robert, a Toronto protester who did not give his last name, told the Reuters news agency.
“We just want to go back to normal without having to take into our veins the poison which they call vaccines.”
The “Freedom Convoy” began as a protest against a Canadian vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers, but it has since evolved into a rallying point against public health policies and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government – despite the fact that it is only responsible for a few of the policies, which were mostly imposed by provincial governments.
Protesters have been shutting down Ottawa’s downtown core for the past eight days.
Ottawa truckers with the Freedom Loving Convoy. So contagious it spread many cities in Canada and across the world. PROUD OF YOU TRUCKERS! pic.twitter.com/6txIuPosvh
— Globalist Cult at WAR with HUMANITY!! (@DStanghini) February 5, 2022
Thousands gather for a second weekend at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada to support the Truckers for Freedom Convoy, bucking the denunciations of the Trudeau administration to protest for an end to COVID lies and mandates.pic.twitter.com/Du9JQrZ9FN
— Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) February 5, 2022
According to police, the well-organized blockage was partially funded by sympathizers in the United States.
Demonstrators crowded around campfires in bone-zero conditions outside the legislature on Saturday, erecting makeshift saunas and bouncy castles for children while waving Canadian flags and yelling anti-government slogans.
A smaller number of counter-protesters fed up with the week-long takeover of the capital chanted “go home” in response to their calls of “freedom.”
The mood was more joyous this time, with dancing and fireworks, than it had been a week before, when many demonstrators displayed Confederate flags and Nazi emblems and battled with locals.
Two men on horseback galloped through town, one waving a flag in support of Donald Trump, the former US President.
Trump has spoken out in support of truckers against “the harsh policies of far-left lunatic Justin Trudeau who has destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates”.
However, Trudeau, who has described the demonstrators as a “fringe minority,” ruled out the use of troops against the truckers in the capital earlier this week. Meanwhile, Jim Torma, the protest coordinator, told the AFP news agency that the demonstrators would not back down.
“They’re not going to hide us,” Torma said. “We’re going to be in [politicians’] faces as long as it takes” to force an end to public health restrictions.
Demonstrators gathered in Quebec City, Fredericton, and Winnipeg, with rallies planned in Regina, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, and the Coutts, Alta., US border crossing.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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