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Key US-Canada bridge reopens as Ottawa protest persists

Published:Monday | February 14, 2022 | 10:03 AM
Don Stephens, 65, a retired graphic designer, holds a sign on Parliament Hill to support trucks lined up in protest of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions in Ottawa, Ontario, on Saturday, February 12, 2022. Stephens said he’s come into Ottawa twice to show support for protesters there. He views them as representatives of a “silent majority that had been longing to have their voice heard.” (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) — The busiest United States-Canada border crossing was open Monday after protesters demonstrating against COVID-19 measures blocked it for nearly a week, but a larger protest in the capital, Ottawa, persisted as city residents seethed over authorities' inability to reclaim the streets.

Demonstrations against virus restrictions and other issues have bottled up several crossings along the US-Canada border and hurt the economies of both nations. They also inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands.

US authorities have said that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

Police in Windsor, Ontario, arrested 25 to 30 protesters and towed several vehicles Sunday near the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor — and numerous Canadian auto plants — with Detroit.

The bridge, which carries 25% of all trade between the two countries, reopened to traffic late Sunday night.

After protesters began blocking bridge access on February 7, automakers began shutting down or reducing production at a time when the industry is already struggling with pandemic-induced shortages of computer chips and other supply-chain disruptions.

“Today our national economic crisis at the Ambassador Bridge came to an end,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said on Sunday.

About 470 miles northeast of Windsor, the protest in Ottawa has paralysed downtown, infuriated residents who are fed up with police inaction and turned up pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau planned to meet virtually with the leaders of Canada's provinces on Monday morning, as well as with lawmakers.

The city had appeared to have reached a deal in which protesters, who have jammed downtown streets for more than two weeks, would move out of residential areas, but those prospects soon faded.

Mayor Jim Watson said Sunday that he agreed to meet with demonstrators if they confined their protest to an area around Parliament Hill and moved their trucks and other vehicles out of residential neighbourhoods by noon Monday. He shared a letter from one of the protest's organisers, Tamara Lich, in which she said demonstrators “agree with your request” to focus activities at Parliament Hill.

But Lich later denied there was an agreement, saying in a tweet: “No deal has been made. End the mandates, end the passports. That is why we are here.”

In a letter Watson wrote to protesters, he said residents are “exhausted” and “on edge” because of the demonstrations, and he warned that some businesses are on the brink of permanent closure.

In Surrey, British Columbia, police arrested four demonstrators Sunday, and officers in Alberta said they intercepted and disabled three excavators that were being brought to a border blockade in the town of Coutts.

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