Two weeks of protests in Canada’s capital over a cross-border vaccine mandate requiring truckers to be vaccinated upon crossing has produced dozens of investigations and numerous arrests — leading to a state of emergency declaration.
Efforts to stage similar protests in the U.S. are emerging, with the Department of Homeland Security issuing a memo warning police partners of demonstrations in the United States.
The demonstrations and protests reflect widespread pandemic fatigue around the world but have also stirred controversy.
Here are five takeaways on the protests.
Ottawa is under siege
The protests in Canada’s capital city led Ottawa mayor Jim Watson to declared a state of emergency on Sunday, reflecting the “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents.”
The protests have interfered with traffic and sleep, with truckers using their horns to push back at the Canadian government.
“We’re in the midst of a serious emergency, the most serious emergency our city has ever faced, and we need to cut the red tape to get these supplies available to our police officers and to our public works staff,” Watson told the CBC in an interview after the order was issued.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a strong rebuke of the demonstrations on Wednesday, telling parliament that demonstrators were attempting to blockade Canadians’ democracy, their economy and their daily lives.
“Blockages, illegal demonstrations are unacceptable, and are negatively impacting businesses and manufacturers,” Trudeau said, adding that the nation “must do everything to bring them to an end.”
Reports suggest around 400 trucks remain in central Ottawa.
The protests reflect pandemic fatigue in Canada and beyond
The protests started as a response to vaccine mandates for truckers entering Canada.
Similar protests are sprouting up elsewhere across the globe as people in other countries frustrated over COVID-19 restrictions seek to rally.
Since the beginning of the Ottawa protests, demonstrations have appeared in Australia, New Zealand, France and New York, among other various locations.
Nearly two years into the pandemic, many Americans no longer have many restrictions on their lives.
But indoor mask mandates are in effect in a number of U.S. cities, with vaccine mandates required in some cities and at some private businesses.
Those rules have led to frustrations for those opposed to mandates — including the minority of the country that remains unvaccinated.
Schools have also been a site for friction over mask mandates.
There’s talk of similar US events
Efforts to stage protests in the U.S. are emerging online and quickly gaining support.
The Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement agencies on Tuesday that protesting truckers could potentially disrupt the Super Bowl and President Biden’s first State of the Union address.
In a memo, the agency said they have received reports of truck drivers potentially planning to block roadways in major U.S. cities in protest of the vaccine mandates. It also notes that the planned convoy is expected to stretch from California to Washington, D.C., while adding that protesting truckers from Canada might join.
The memo also notes a rise in social media posts with the accompanying hashtags #ShutDownSuperBowl and #SuperBowlTrafficking.
A Facebook group called “The People’s Convoy” is planning the “March for Freedom Convoy to DC 2022.” Group organizers posted they expect truckers will arrive in Coachella Valley in Indio, Calif March 4 “to defeat the unconstitutional mandates.”
Around 100 truckers in Alaska assembled late last week to signal support for the Ottawa demonstrations, while another group demonstrated in Fairbanks, according to The Anchorage Daily News. One driver told the paper it is his belief that the COVID-19 vaccine should be a choice instead of a requirement.
“We have to have the shot stamps on our medical cards in order to go out of state, and we don’t want them,” driver Jeremy Speldrich said. “Mandates should be our choice, whether you want the shots or not.”
Conservatives in US are backing the movement
The Ottawa protests have drawn widespread support from American conservative figures.
Prominent conservatives ranging from former President Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.), have signaled support.
“The left’s worst nightmare is coming true,” Huckabee wrote in a Facebook post January, commenting on a media article about convoy protests in the U.S.
There have also been reports about some demonstrators in Ottawa seen carrying signs and flags with Nazi swastikas near the National War Memorial.
But the majority of protestors have been more mainstream. Trudeau has referred to the extremist element involved in the protest as a “fringe majority.”
It’s unclear how it ends
As officials seek to contain the sprawling demonstrations, lawmakers elsewhere are grappling with the economic effects of Canada’s demonstrations and with their own constituent’s pandemic fatigue.
Protestors demonstrating over the vaccine mandate on Monday evening blocked the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, causing supply chain disruptions at one of the busiest land border crossings on the U.S.-Canada border.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the Biden administration is monitoring the blockade “very closely,” noting that it “poses serious risks to the supply chains for the auto industry.”
In Ottawa, as police prepare protestors for arrests, a judge has offered residents a modicum of relief from some of the noise.
Ontario Superior Court judge Hugh McLean granted a temporary injunction on Monday that bans horn honking and allows authorities to arrest or remove people who violate the order.
Lawmakers in the U.S. are showing signs of loosening pandemic related restrictions, as several governors have announced they are lifting their state’s respective mask mandates. At least eight governors are lifting mask requirements in the coming weeks.