It was over the weekend that Ottawa police and other forces gathered to forcibly and violently disband the ongoing pro-freedom groups, part of the trucker convoy, that resided in the Parliament Hill area over the past several weeks.
One of the measures that the Canadian government is using to discourage further demonstrations is promising long-term punishments to those participating in blockades, vowing that the investigation "will go on for months to come."
In a recent media interview, the mayor of Ottawa floated the idea of confiscating vehicles from freedom protesters and selling the property.
"This is costing a small fortune for the taxpayers of Ottawa," the city's Mayor Jim Watson began by saying. "That's one of the reasons why under the Emergencies Act, I've asked our solicitor and our city manager: How can we keep the tow trucks and the campers and the vans and everything else that we've confiscated, and sell those pieces of equipment to help recoup some of the costs that our taxpayers are absorbing? So that's one of the provisions of the Emergencies Act, and we have been a beneficiary of the Emergencies Act. As they debated on the Hill, I asked the members of Parliament to consider...It's helped us a lot on things like confiscating vehicles, not having to swear in peace officers through the RCMP, and so many other things that have been very helpful over the course of this period..."
One of the questions the media asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a speech on Monday was what additional authorities did the Emergencies Act grant that local officials didn't have already. He responded by saying it helped with getting tow truck companies to forcibly tow protester vehicles, despite previous objections from such businesses with getting involved in the matter.
The Canadian government is expected to vote over the Emergencies Act on Monday night. The debate on the topic was canceled last Friday as that was the day that Ottawa police initiated a widespread crackdown on protesters in the first place. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has since promised to litigate the matter as critics called Trudeau a "tyrant" for enacting the move in the first place.
Amid the clamp down on freedom protesters, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney spoke with GB News earlier on Monday to discuss how he and other Canadian provincial leaders plan to challenge Trudeau's "emergency" declaration.
"It's not called for, it's disproportionate, it's unnecessary," Kenney says, noting he's a law and order conservative but governments can deal with this without the "extraordinary" measures the Emergencies Act provides.
— Andrew Lawton (@AndrewLawton) February 21, 2022
Besides the confiscation of property, the Canadian government has doubled down on the freezing of bank accounts in relation to trucker convoy leadership.
At a glance, over 200 accounts have been frozen, 56 vehicles have been traced back to their owners, and 253 Bitcoin addresses flagged in a campaign that has stopped $3.8 million in transactions, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) deputy commissioner of federal policing Mike Duheme said at a news conference.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland seemed to have mocked questions about frozen bank accounts by one reporter by responding: "The way to get your account unfrozen is to stop being part of the blockade and occupation."
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