Justin Trudeau spoke on Monday, February 14, about the anti-sanitary measures challenge which entered its third week and is still paralyzing the federal capital Ottawa, in particular.

On this occasion, the Canadian Prime Minister said he was considering resorting to the Emergency Measures Act after a week of blockages of a strategic border axis linking Canada to the United States by opponents. 

While the police managed on Sunday to reopen the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor, Ontario, to the American city of Detroit, Michigan, the Canadian Prime Minister discussed in the morning with provincial Premiers the possibility of use this provision which can be invoked in the event of a "national crisis". 

The Emergencies Act has only been used once in peacetime, by Justin Trudeau's father, during the October 1970 Crisis. measures of war".   

The government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau had invoked it to send the army to Quebec and take a series of emergency measures, after the kidnapping by the Front de libération du Québec of a British commercial attaché, James Richard Cross, and of a Quebec minister, Pierre Laporte.

The latter had been released after negotiations, but the minister had been found dead in the trunk of a car.  

"With this law, the government can requisition goods, services, people. The government can tell people where to go, where not to go. There are really few limits to what the government can do," explained Geneviève Tellier, professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa.   

Arrests and seizure of weapons     

On Monday, Canadian police seized weapons, ammunition and arrested 11 people on the Coutts border blockade in Alberta (west), a crossing point with the United States that has been paralyzed for a week.

Authorities seized 13 long guns, handguns, several sets of body armor, a large amount of ammunition.  

The Prime Minister of Ontario - the most populous Canadian province in which the cities of Ottawa and Windsor are located - announced on Monday morning the upcoming lifting of almost all health measures, including the vaccine passport.  

But in Ottawa, opponents of sanitary measures still occupied the streets of the city center and in particular still Wellington Street, in front of the Canadian Parliament.

Some 400 trucks are installed, supported by a well-established organization: tents to warm up, campfires, food stands...  

Nothing seems to weaken their determination, despite the risk for them, since the establishment of the state of emergency on Friday, of receiving a fine of up to 100,000 Canadian dollars (69,500 euros) or even a year in prison. .    

Leaving "is not in my plans", explained Monday morning to AFP Phil Rioux, three-day beard and blue eyes at the wheel of his truck.

"It's by maintaining the pressure that we have a better chance of achieving our goal," explains the 29-year-old Quebecer. 

The lifting of all health measures is demanded by many protesters, even if the movement was born, at the end of January, from the opposition of truckers, who must be vaccinated to cross the border between Canada and the United States.     

popular pressure     

Meanwhile, anger is mounting in the Canadian population at the slow reaction of the authorities, especially on social networks, where the action of the police is strongly questioned.   

"At first I supported them but now it's enough," said Beatriz Sagastume, an Ottawa resident forced to walk to work.  

Like several counter-demonstrators this weekend, she is calling for a way out of the crisis and believes that it is up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to solve the problem.    

This unprecedented Canadian mobilization continues to be emulated elsewhere in the world.

After similar protests in Australia and New Zealand, in Israel thousands of cars and trucks converged on Jerusalem from several cities across the country.   

In Europe, after converging on Paris on Saturday, part of the convoys of opponents of health restrictions, known as "freedom", arrived in Brussels, where the demonstration was banned.

The Belgian authorities blocked about thirty vehicles which were preparing to converge on Brussels.   

In Strasbourg, the authorities warned that no demonstration would be authorized near the European Parliament, meeting in plenary session. 

With AFP 

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