(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) In a brutal abuse of authority and with the full force of government tyranny, Ottawa police locked down the entirety of Canada’s capitol city on Thursday, amassing a swarm of officers, demanding identity papers, erecting nearly 100 checkpoints and denying access to large chunks of the city in a move to crush the Freedom Convoy protests.
The strong-arm tactics were unleashed after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke out the sledgehammer earlier this week, invoking the nation’s Emergencies Act giving nearly unlimited and unchecked authority to government powers, enabling authorities to tow away trucks from what has been declared an illegal blockade, suspend operator’s licenses, cancel insurance policies, prohibit travel, issue crippling fines and imprison anyone who doesn’t comply.
The stomping of freedom and liberty was in full swing Thursday.
Police rained a shower of written notices on the truckers and their supporters, declaring that if they didn’t leave town they faced arrest and potential financial calamity from fines.
In addition to essentially declaring martial law in Ottawa, police also arrested two of the Freedom Convoy’s organizers, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who were taken into custody with unknown charges pending, reported the CBC.
Here is video of the arrest of convoy organizer Chris Barber #cdnpoli #ottnews pic.twitter.com/WrQTDHCAQb
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) February 17, 2022
Protestors, who are standing strong in the face of personal peril and relentless character attacks by Trudeau and his government, have remained a peaceful if noisy and sometimes disruptive presence.
“We understand your frustration and genuinely wish there was another way for us to get our message across,” Barber said earlier this week, addressing any inconvenience the protest has caused.
“But the responsibility for your inconvenience lies squarely on the shoulders of politicians who have [preferred] to vilify and call us names rather than engage in respectful, serious dialogue,” he said.
The dialogue came in the form of handcuffs and a jail cell, which echoed threats interim Ottawa police chief Steve Bell leveled as his armed officers took over Ottawa.
“We absolutely are committed to end this unlawful demonstration,” Bell declared.
“I can tell you it will be a very different picture in the downtown core this weekend than it has been from the previous three weekends.”
Lich, one of the protest organizers led away in cuffs Thursday, said she was resigned to the fact that she was going to jail, adding her personal bank account had been frozen.
She’s not alone.
Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystai Freeland, who also serves as finance minister, said Thursday that at the government’s direction financial institutions are freezing the accounts of people associated with and supporting the Freedom Convoy protests.
Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland: “The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen.” pic.twitter.com/iA69DbRJl1
— True North (@TrueNorthCentre) February 17, 2022
In keeping with the Trudeau narrative that has smeared the protestors as occupying forces that threaten democracy, without having any supporting evidence, Freeland cited terrorist financing laws that have allowed the government to wrest financial information from crowdfunding platforms like GiveSendGo in anticipation of freezing more funds.
The draconian actions are designed to drain protestors of buying the basic necessities to survive, with the hope of essentially starving them out of existence or at least out of town.
While Trudeau’s goon squads were meting out their form of justice, the prime minister was selling lies in Parliament, floundering to defend his dictatorial demands.
Even though Trudeau triggered the Emergencies Act on Monday, and it went into immediate effect, the House of Commons and the Senate must vote to approve or deny it.
The pro-freedom faction isn’t giving up without a fight.
“This act is already invoked and is the new law of the land. We can only vote Monday to stop it,” said interim Conservative Party leader Candice Bergen, who accused Trudeau of imposing an overreaching vaccine mandate “with no scientific evidence to support it.”
“Throughout the last three weeks, the prime minister has failed to take meaningful action to deescalate the protest here or use any tools he may have had available,” Bergen said.
“Instead, he has jumped straight to the most extreme measure.”
While acknowledging that the protests have caused disruptions and that trucks needed to be moved, she said that, “we need to lower the temperature across the country and the prime minister clearly wants to raise it.”
“At every turn, he has stigmatized, wedged, divided, and traumatized Canadians,” Bergen said.
“And now, without a single meeting with the truckers, without talking through one of their concerns, without apologizing for his insults, and listening to what people have to say, without using any other tool at his disposal, he has used this overreach, this Emergencies Act, and it’s wrong.”
For proof, ask the women, children and pro-freedom truckers who are being stripped of their finances, either corralled and herded out of town, thrown in jail, or left in the streets to starve.