Police issues ultimatum to Canada truck protestors: leave city or be arrested

Demonstrators blocking Ottawa streets for the past 20 days have been given an ultimatum by the police: leave or be arrested.

In the meantime, US state leaders have called on the government to end the requirement for vaccines across the border that sparked the protests.

Meanwhile, officials announced a peaceful end to the latest of several protest blockades at border crossings between Canada and the US.

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“You must leave the area now,” Ottawa police said in a notice distributed to truckers outside parliament.

According to the statement, anyone who blocks streets or assists others in doing so will be arrested, found, and their trucks seized.

Police also warned that anyone who was charged or convicted for taking part in the illegal demonstration could also face travel bans to the United States.

Hundreds of trucks continued to occupy streets in the parliamentary precinct even as the notices were passed out, blaring their horns in defiance of an extension Wednesday of a court order against the noise.

There are still a lot of trucks holding the line, said trucker David Shaw, 65. If arrested, he added: “I’ll keep coming back.”

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Jan Grouin, a fellow protester, decried Justin Trudeau’s decision to impose a state of emergency, saying it was “a little overreacting maybe to think that we are terrorists.”

Ottawa interim police chief Steve Bell said a methodical and well-resourced plan would be implemented over the coming days “to take back the entirety of the downtown core and every occupied space.”

“Some of the techniques we are lawfully able and prepared to use are not what we are used to seeing in Ottawa,” he said. “But we are prepared to use them… to restore order.”

Greg Gianforte, the governor of Montana, asked Canadian and US leaders in a letter signed by 16 Republican US governors to exempt truckers from having to take vaccines and abide by quarantine requirements when crossing the border between the two countries.

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They were joined by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who endorsed the truckers’ convoy.

“The timing of your decision to terminate the vaccine and quarantine exemptions could not have been worse, as North America already faces grave supply chain constraints,” said the letter addressed to US President Joe Biden and Trudeau.

“These constraints, combined with increasing inflation, place significant burdens on the residents of Canada and the United States.”

(With inputs from agencies)