The entire core of downtown was blocked off by police and whatever all those brown uniforms are that say police, but obviously are not a civilian force. They in fact did, what the truckers were accused of doing. Blocking streets completely and making the downtown core inaccessible. In fact the protestors did none of those things for the whole three weeks.
The streets always had a lane open for emergency vehicles, and people could come and go from hotels with at least as much ease as a normal day in Montreal or Toronto. Certainly NYC.
We were there doing interviews and at the various protest areas and at no point was commerce interfered with. Well that’s not quite true. The mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, ordered all businesses to close in order to inconvenience the protestors. So yes, commerce was affected, but had they done what the truckers asked, open up and not ask for passports or made people mask up, they would have had the best 3 weeks in years.
No doubt authorities blame the protest for the loss of business. The first sign of the authoritarian state is that it operates on lies, and works very hard to protect those lies. Usually at the expense of the citizenry in every way expense could be measured.
Today, on my way to photograph the giant gate blocking Sussex from Rideau st. a petite Romanian woman approached us and said, “I’m from Romania. I have lived your future. See you in 50 years”.
I knew what she meant. But she turned to explain anyway. “Fifty years” she said, “is how long it will take before you get your basic freedoms back”.
