Ottawa’s police chief
resigned Tuesday amid criticism of his department’s inaction against the
trucker protests that have paralyzed Canada’s capital for over two weeks, a
federal government official said.

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The bumper-to-demonstration
by hundreds of truck drivers against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions — and
the failure of Police Chief Peter Sloly to break the siege early on — have
infuriated many Ottawa residents.

The government official was
not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of
anonymity.

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On Monday, Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau invoked extraordinary emergency powers to try to end the occupation
there and elsewhere around the country. Across Canada and beyond, the question
in the coming days will be whether it will work.

Canadian Public Safety
Minister Marco Mendicino said it is time for police to begin using their broad
authority conferred under Canada’s Emergencies Act, which allows the government
to ban the blockades and begin towing away trucks.

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“We need law enforcement to
take the reins, to utilize the Emergencies Act and to enforce,” he said late
Monday after Trudeau announced he was invoking the law. “We have given new
powers to police and we need them to do the job now.”

Government leaders have not
indicated when or where the crackdowns on the self-styled Freedom Convoy would
begin. Mendicino said they were still working out the final details on where
the prohibited zones will be.

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The government will be able
to ban blockades at border crossings, airports and in Ottawa; freeze truckers’
personal and corporate bank accounts and suspend their licenses, and target
crowd-funding sites that are being used to support the blockades.

It also can force tow trucks
to move the big rigs out of intersections and neighbourhoods. Up to now, some
towing companies have been reluctant to cooperate because of their support for
the truckers or fears of violence.

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Since late January,
protesters in trucks and other vehicles have jammed the streets of the capital
and obstructed border crossings, decrying vaccine mandates for truckers and
other COVID-19 precautions and condemning Trudeau’s Liberal government.

Trudeau’s decision came amid
growing frustration with government inaction and a day after the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police arrested 11 people at the blockaded border crossing at Coutts,
Alberta, opposite Montana, and seized a cache of guns and ammunition.

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“What the operation revealed
is that you got a very small, hardened core driven by ideology,” Mendicino
said.

The public safety minister
said the nation can no longer tolerate the disruptions and threats.

“We have been fortunate thus
far there has not been mass violence,” he said.

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford,
whose province includes Ottawa and Windsor, the site of a now-disbanded
blockade at the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit, said: “Hopefully the police in the
next few days, hopefully sooner, can move.”

Ford said the siege in
Ottawa is complicated by the presence of children in the protest. “They
have kids there. We don’t want anything to happen to kids. Bring your kids
home,” he said.

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The busiest and most important
border crossing, the Ambassador Bridge, was reopened on Sunday after police
arrested dozens of demonstrators. The nearly week-long siege that had disrupted
auto production in both countries.

Authorities also said
traffic was moving again at the Pacific Highway border crossing south of
Vancouver. The Mounties said officers ordered demonstrators out late Monday and
several were arrested.

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One of the protest
organizers in the capital vowed on Monday not to back down in the face of
pressure from the government. “There are no threats that will frighten us. We
will hold the line,” Tamara Lich said.

The protests have drawn
support from right-wing extremists in Canada and have been cheered on in the
U.S. by Fox News personalities and conservatives such as Donald Trump.

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Over the past weeks,
authorities have hesitated to move against the protesters, citing in some cases
a lack of manpower and fears of violence.

The demonstrations have
inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands. U.S.
authorities have said that truck convoys may be in the works in the United
States.