Justin Trudeau and his family have had to leave their home after thousands of people descended on Canada’s capital Ottawa to protest against Covid mandates.
Truckers drove into the city on Saturday as part of a self-titled “freedom convoy” which began as a protest against vaccine mandates, masks and lockdowns.
Some parked on the grounds of the National War Memorial and danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, others carried signs and flags with swastikas and some used the statue of Canadian hero Terry Fox to display an anti-vaccine statement.
Protestors compared vaccine mandates to fascism, one truck carried a Confederate flag and many carried expletive-laden signs targeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The statue of Fox, a national hero who lost a leg to bone cancer as a youngster, was draped with an upside down Canadian flag and a sign that said “mandate freedom.”
Local media reported that Prime Minister Trudeau and his family were escorted out of their home and taken to an undisclosed location in the capital for security purposes.
One of Trudeau’s children has Covid-19 and the prime minister has been isolating and working remotely in recent days.
The convoy of truckers and others prompted police to prepare for the possibility of violence and warn residents to avoid downtown.
A top Parliament security official advised lawmakers to lock their doors amid reports their private homes may be targeted.
Some are, in part, protesting a new rule that took effect on Jan 15 requiring truckers entering Canada be fully immunized against the coronavirus.
The United States has imposed the same requirement on truckers entering their country.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance said a great number of the protesters have no connection to the trucking industry, adding they have a separate agenda to push. The alliance notes the vast majority of drivers are vaccinated.
The organisers of the protest have called for the forceful elimination of all Covid-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates and some called for the removal of Trudeau.
The Shepherds of Good Hope, which has a soup kitchen for the homeless in Ottawa, reported staff and volunteers “experienced harassment from convoy protestors seeking meals from our soup kitchen. The individuals were given means to defuse the conflict.”
