Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has decided to invoke emergency powers to quell the protests by demonstrators who have paralyzed Ottawa and blocked border crossings in anger over the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, a senior government official said Monday. The prime minister met virtually with the leaders of Canada’s provinces and planned to address the nation late in the afternoon. The senior government official who confirmed Trudeau’s decision said emergency powers would be invoked for all of Canada. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. For more than two weeks, hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters in trucks and other vehicles have clogged the streets of Ottawa, the capital, railing against vaccine mandates for truckers and other COVID-19 precautions and condemning Trudeau’s Liberal government. Members of the self-styled Freedom Convoy have also blockaded various U.S.-Canadian border crossings, though the busiest and most important — the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit — was reopened on Sunday after police arrested the last of the demonstrators and broke the nearly week-long siege that had disrupted auto production in both countries. In recent days, the prime minister rejected calls to use the military but said “all options are on the table” to end the protests, including invoking the Emergencies Act, which gives the government broad powers. “This is the biggest, greatest, most severe test Trudeau has faced,” said Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa professor and national security expert. In other developments, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they arrested 11 people at the blockaded border crossing at Coutts, Alberta, opposite Montana, after learning of a cache of guns and ammunition. Police said a small group within the protest was said to have a “willingness to use force against the police if any attempts were made to disrupt the blockade.” Authorities seized 13 long guns, handguns, sets of body armor, a machete, a large quantity of ammunition and high-capacity magazines. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney also said protesters in a tractor and a heavy-duty truck tried to ram a police vehicle at Coutts on Sunday night and fled. “This is extremely concerning,” he said. “There is, at least in that case, a small cell of people who wanted to take this in a very dangerous and dark direction.” But Kenney said he told Trudeau it would not be a good idea to enact emergency measures in his province. “I am concerned that there is a certain kind of person, if the federal government proceeds with this, who will be further inflamed,” he said. Over the past weeks, authorities have hesitated to move against the protesters around the country. Local officials cited a lack of police manpower and fears of violence, while provincial and federal authorities disagreed over who had responsibility for quelling the unrest. Invoking the Emergencies Act would allow the federal government to declare the Ottawa protest illegal and clear it out by such means as towing vehicles, Wark said. It would also enable the government to make greater use of the Mounties, the federal police agency. An earlier version of the Emergencies Act, called the War Measures Act, was used just once during peacetime, by Trudeau’s late father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, to deal with a militant Quebec independence movement in 1970. Invoking emergency […]
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