Canadian official says ‘significant element’ from US involved in anti-vaccine mandate protests

Protests against Canada’s COVID-19 measures have drawn a “significant element” from the U.S., Ottawa police said Wednesday.

“They have converged in our city, and there are plans for more to come,” Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly said, according to The Washington Post.

The police chief said participants in the protests, including locals, were “putting our city and our residents, our partners and our officers at great risk.”

Police said some protesters had received financial backing and other support from across the border, the Post reported.

What started as a “Freedom Convoy” protest against a vaccine mandate for truckers has developed into a broader demonstration against against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s policies, reaching the capital of Ottawa.

Protests have blocked Canadian streets and shut down businesses the past six days. Reports indicated that one lane of traffic in each direction along part of the U.S.-Canada border in Alberta had been opened after protesters blocked traffic there since Saturday, according to the Post. 

Canadian officials have condemned the protesters’ blockade. 

“What may have begun as a peaceful assembly quickly turned into an unlawful blockade,” Alberta’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday in a statement.

Ottawa’s police said the protests have prompted “several criminal investigations” into “threatening” and “illegal” behavior such as defacing the National War Memorial and intimidating police and others including staffers at a local soup kitchen, the Post added.

“We are trying to be responsible, lawful, ethical and measured,” Sloly said. “The longer this goes on, the more I am convinced there may not be a police solution in this demonstration.”

The protests began over an announcement made last year when the U.S. and Canada mandated COVID-19 vaccines for truck drivers, a policy that went into effect last month.

But on Saturday, the Canadian Trucking Alliance said many people at the protest, which had developed into a broader demonstration, “do not have a connection to the trucking industry.”