Emergency declared to end Canadian blockades

OTTAWA－Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday declared a public order emergency to support provinces in ending the blockades caused by truck convoy protests.

Trudeau said in a news conference that he invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canada's history to give the federal government extra and "temporary "powers to handle the issue, adding the move targets those areas in need, not the whole country.

"The blockades are harming our economy and endangering public safety," Trudeau told a news conference. "We cannot and will not allow illegal and dangerous activities to continue."

"It is now clear that there are serious challenges to law enforcement's ability to effectively enforce the law."

The act will ensure that essential services, such as towing services to remove trucks, are rendered, said Trudeau. It will also be used to protect critical infrastructure such as borders and airports from the blockades and the government will enable the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to enforce municipal bylaws, though he dismissed suggestions of calling in the military.

As the truck convoy organizers have secured millions of dollars from crowdfunding sites, the measures also include giving banks the power to suspend or freeze accounts of blockade supporters without a court order, and forcing crowdfunding platforms and cryptocurrencies to follow anti-money laundering and terrorist financing laws.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said at the same event that companies with trucks involved in the illegal blockades will have their corporate bank accounts frozen, and their insurance suspended.

She said that under the act, crowdfunding platforms and payment service providers must report large and suspicious transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, the national financial intelligence agency.

The protests, started by Canadian truckers opposing a COVID-19 vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers, have drawn people opposed to Trudeau's policies on everything from pandemic restrictions to a carbon tax. Copycat trucker protests have also sprung up in Israel, France, Australia, and New Zealand.

Protesters blockaded the Ambassador Bridge, a vital trade route between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, for six days before police cleared the protest on Sunday while others have shut down smaller border crossings in the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia.

Xinhua - Agencies