FOG BLOG CANADA LOG: POLICE STEP UP PRESENCE ON ANNIVERSARY OF FREEDOM CONVOY IN OTTAWA!

Ottawa police, bylaw officers maintaining increased presence downtown Sunday for anniversary of start of convoy protest

"It's about regrouping, reuniting, it's about honouring the people that started all of this." The Ottawa Police Service continued with a stepped-up presence of police and bylaw officers downtown on Sunday to keep an eye on events marking the one-year anniversary of the convoy protest arriving in Ottawa. A year after the convoy first rolled into Ottawa, it was a far smaller crowd that rallied on Parliament Hill, with a few of the participants spilling onto still-closed Wellington Street Saturday to celebrate the anniversary of the start of what turned out to be three weeks of parked trucks and protest. Police vehicles blocked off nearby streets at certain points during the weekend, while others were lined with “no stopping” signs.

On Saturday, two people were arrested and there were 117 parking and 47 Provincial Offences Act tickets issued, police said, as well as 19 vehicles towed.

On Sunday, police said that as of 4:30 p.m. 75 parking tickets and 20 provincial offence notices had been issued, and four vehicles were towed

There were about 200 people at the event Saturday, according to city councillor Riley Brockington, who posted information he said he obtained from Ottawa police. The crowd appeared to be even smaller on Sunday.

Police said that a “small convoy” entered Ottawa Sunday afternoon and was “subsequently redirected out of the city.” On Saturday, protesters chanted “freedom” and waved Canadian flags and placards, some, as happened a year ago, assailing the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the “New World Order.”

The event was billed by “Freedom Family” on Facebook as a celebration of the anniversary of the trucks’ arrival aimed at “re-igniting the Love, One-ness, Unity, and Appreciation” for what began a year earlier. Mathieu Venne, a landscaper from Val-des-Monts, Que., said, “I was right here,” as the protest began a year earlier and on Saturday took a microphone to speak on Parliament Hill.

“I’m the one that put my name on the permit on the hill,” Venne said, adding that organizers were trying to “change our image that people have of us.”

He said that they wanted the event to run smoothly — and that he was working with police liaison officers to make it happen — then head home on Sunday night.

“It’s about regrouping, reuniting, it’s about honouring the people that started all of this,” Venne said, even if some of those people now face criminal charges.