Canada border blockade clearing peacefully as police move in

A tense standoff at a US-Canadian border crossing crucial to both countries’ economies appeared to be dissolving peacefully on Saturday as Canadian police moved in to disperse the nearly weeklong blockade and demonstrators began leaving without resistance.

Many demonstrators drove away from the Ambassador Bridge spanning the river between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, as scores of police approached shortly after dawn. They had spent the night there in defiance of new warnings to end the blockade, which disrupted the flow of traffic and goods and forced the auto industry on both sides to roll back production.

Surrounded by dozens of officers, one man with “Trump 2024” and “Mandate Freedom” spray-painted on his vehicle left in the morning as other protesters began dismantling a small tarp-covered encampment.

This week’s demonstrations at the Ambassador Bridge, downtown Ottawa and elsewhere have targeted vaccine mandates and other coronavirus restrictions. There is also an outpouring of fury toward Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who has called them a “fringe” of Canadian society.

The protests have reverberated outside the country, and police in Paris intercepted at least 500 vehicles attempting to enter the French capital Saturday, in defiance of a police order, to take part in protests against virus restrictions inspired by Canada’s horn-honking “Freedom Convoy”.

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Several convoys were stopped from entering at key Parisian arteries and over 200 motorists were ticketed, police said. Elsewhere, at least two protesters were detained amid a seizure of knives, hammers and other objects in a central square. Some 7,000 officers have been mobilised for the weekend protesters, who are railing against the vaccination pass that France requires to enter restaurants and many other venues.

At the Ambassador Bridge, Daniel Koss was among those who stayed overnight. Shortly before police advanced, he said the protest had succeeded in bringing attention to demands to lift Covid-19 mandates and he was happy it remained peaceful.

“It’s a win-win,” Koss said. “The pandemic is rolling down right now, they can remove the mandates, all the mandates, and everyone’s happy. The government does the right thing, and the protesters are all happy.”

He said he believed most people would disperse in an orderly fashion, “because we don’t want to cause a big problem”, he added.

Pandemic restrictions have been far stricter in Canada than in the US, but Canadians have largely supported them. The vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated, and the Covid-19 death rate is one-third that of the United States.