Tow truck drivers may face arrest for refusing to help move trucks involved with Canada’s Freedom Convoy in Ottawa and border areas after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the nation’s Emergencies Act on Monday.
“Tow-truck operators, who have been reluctant to cooperate with the police, will also now be compelled to work with law enforcement agencies to clear Ottawa’s streets and the border crossings at Coutts, Alberta. If they don’t cooperate, they could face arrest,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The development comes as Trudeau doubled down against Freedom Convoy protesters on Monday, invoking emergency powers to stop those opposing his COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truck drivers.
“We’ll always defend the rights of Canadians to peaceful assembly and to freedom of expression. We’ll also do whatever is necessary to reinforce the principles, values, and institutions that keep all Canadians free – and that’s what we’re doing with the Emergencies Act,” Trudeau tweeted on Tuesday.
We’ll always defend the rights of Canadians to peaceful assembly and to freedom of expression. We’ll also do whatever is necessary to reinforce the principles, values, and institutions that keep all Canadians free – and that’s what we’re doing with the Emergencies Act.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 15, 2022
Trudeau claimed the powers would “help get the situation under control.”
I want to be very clear about what we are – and are not – doing by invoking the Emergencies Act, and how taking this step will help get the situation under control. In case you missed our announcement earlier today, watch this: pic.twitter.com/htGmZH09Jd
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 15, 2022
“The Act, if invoked, will provide the federal government extraordinary 30-day time-limited powers enabling the prohibition of public assembly, travel, and the use of specific property. It would allow Ottawa to designate protected places and force privately-owned tow truck companies to provide their services to the city,” Rebel News reported.
The act has never been invoked, although its precursor, the War Measures Act, was invoked by Trudeau’s father when he was prime minister in the 1970s.
According to Canada’s CTV News, several tow truck companies have sided with the Freedom Convoy and have refused to tow anyone associated with the protest. Now these drivers could face consequences.
The chaos has also escalated in another major way this week as Ottawa’s chief of police Peter Sloly resigned on Tuesday.
“Since the onset of this demonstration, I have done everything possible to keep this city safe and put an end to this unprecedented and unforeseeable crisis,” Sloly said in a resignation letter.
BREAKING: Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly has resigned according to a senior source close to the situation.
— Brian Lilley (@brianlilley) February 15, 2022
“We have acquired new resources and enforcement tools, and stood up the new Integrated Command Centre. I am confident the Ottawa Police Service is now better positioned to end this occupation,” he added.
Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro predicted Trudeau’s attempts to malign and discredit the Freedom Convoy protesters as extremists are going to fail and “backfire” during a recent appearance on Fox News. The Daily Wire previously reported:
“Individuals are trying to blockade our economy, our democracy, and our fellow citizens’ daily lives. It has to stop,” the prime minister said. “People of Ottawa don’t deserve to be harassed in their own neighborhoods. They don’t deserve to be confronted with the inherent violence of a swastika flying on a street corner or Confederate flag.”
Shapiro said that Trudeau’s repeated attempts to dismiss the protesters as a “small, fringe minority” and lump them all in with extremists, racists, and Nazis are bound to fail.
“This sort of tactic, which Trudeau is picking up from the American Left, is likely to be wildly unsuccessful,” Shapiro said on Fox News. “Everybody can look at this convoy and see that they are not flying Nazi flags en masse, that these are not radical right-wingers. This attempt to paint everybody who is opposed to the authoritarian tactics of the authorities on COVID as Nazis and far-right crazies – it’s going to backfire. It has backfired.”
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