Frustrations are boiling over in Canada’s capital as a protest by truckers against COVID-19 vaccine mandates has clogged downtown Ottawa for a week and shows no sign of ending, with many residents angry at police for not breaking it up.
Dozens of trucks in the so-called “Freedom Convoy” have been blocking streets since Friday, forcing the closure of the main shopping mall in the area and local businesses, and disturbed residents with constant horn honking.
The city’s police force has stood idly by as protesters filled jugs of diesel to top up their rigs, which they keep running to provide heat in sub-zero temperatures, rather than cutting off the fuel supply.
“For six days and nights, residents living in downtown Ottawa continue to experience unprecedented violence on their local streets,” said city councillor Catherine McKenney in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday.
“They are being … harassed and terrorized,” McKenney said, citing complaints of air horns, erratic driving, open fires and “widespread public urination and defecation,” while asking for more police support.
The government will not use troops against the truckers, Trudeau said on Thursday.
Police chief Peter Sloly said his officers could neither deny the truckers their right to demonstrate, nor was he in a position to negotiate an end to the protest.
“I do not have a mandate under the Police Services Act to negotiate with the tens of thousands of people who come to Ottawa to exercise their charter of rights to free speech,” he said.
The protesters have said they will not leave Ottawa until the federal government lifts COVID-19 vaccine mandates and all pandemic restrictions, even though most of those restrictions are controlled by provincial governments.
Ottawa residents, meanwhile, say their rights are being trampled by the protesters. Some convoy participants have been photographed with racist flags and accused by residents of vandalizing pro-LGBTQ businesses.
Cornerstone Housing for Women, an emergency shelter, said in a statement that “Women and staff are scared to go outside of the shelter, especially women of color.”
The Rideau Centre mall has been shuttered since last Saturday when hundreds of protesters not wearing masks as required indoors during the pandemic, swarmed the building. The closure has cost C$19.7 million ($15.6 million) in lost revenues, the Retail Council of Canada estimates.
As frustrations mount, citizens are confronting the protesters, and there is talk of a counter protest on Saturday.
In a tense moment posted on social media on Thursday, a resident was seen yelling at protesters to leave. “What freedom have you lost?” he asked truckers, adding he was losing his mind from lack of sleep.
Earlier this week, three women were heralded as heroes in shawls after a photo of them blocking a truck on a residential street while giving a thumbs down sign went viral on social media.
“That was the only way to communicate that we don’t want them to terrorize us and we don’t want them to occupy our streets,” Marika Morris told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
MORE PROTESTERS EXPECTED
“The protesters should now go home. This is a very disruptive situation for Ottawa citizens,” Trudeau said on Thursday.
But organizers expect hundreds more to come over the weekend.
Critics have said the response to the mostly white convoy participants is “soft” compared to how police deal with protests by Indigenous and Black Canadians.
“It’s OK if angry white men do it because they are politically aligned with you, but it’s not OK if Indigenous people peacefully protect their own rights,” Indigenous lawyer and professor Pam Palmater told APTN News.
Canada’s national police force have repeatedly stepped in to remove Indigenous protesters blocking access to a gas pipeline project in northern British Columbia.
($1 = 1.2658 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Julie Gordon, Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; editing by Grant McCool)
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
