OTTAWA (Dispatches) -- Canada’s parliament backed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke rarely-used emergency powers to end pandemic-related protests that have blocked streets in the capital Ottawa for more than three weeks.
The Emergencies Act was approved in parliament by 185 to 151, with the minority Liberal government getting support from left-leaning New Democrats.
The special measures, announced by Trudeau a week ago, have been deemed unnecessary and an abuse of power by some opposition politicians.
Earlier on Monday, Trudeau told reporters his government still needed temporary emergency powers citing “real concerns” about threats in the days ahead. “This state of emergency is not over. There continue to be real concerns about the coming days,” Trudeau said.
The act grants authorities broader powers.
The official opposition Conservative Party accuses Trudeau of abusing his powers. Legislator Dean Allison decried what he called “authoritarian military style measures” against the protesters.
Green Party member Mike Morrice, who voted against the motion, said invoking the act was an “inappropriate” response to a failure in policing.
“As many other Parliamentarians have shared, the use of the Emergencies Act sets a worrying precedent for future protests,” he said.
Canada has been in the international spotlight for weeks as thousands of protesters converged on Ottawa and hunkered down for a sit-in. They brought the capital Ottawa to a standstill and blocked border crossings into the United States.
Trudeau claimed that the movement, which started as a home-grown protest, had been infiltrated by foreign elements. He also claimed that the blockades “received disturbing amounts of foreign funding to destabilize Canada’s democracy.”
On Sunday, Canadian police claimed to have retaken the capital Ottawa. They smashed the windows of vehicles parked in the downtown core of the capital to search and tow them away after the city witnessed two days of tense standoffs.
The sweep came on the heels of violent crackdowns by police, deploying chemical irritants, pepper spray and stun grenades against protesters and detaining hundreds of people in several cities.
Quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP), many protesters said they would keep pressing their cause and call for a full lifting of coronavirus restrictions. “The protest will go on forever in my heart,” Nicole Craig said.
The ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests initially started in Ottawa on January 29 by Canadian truckers opposing a vaccinate-or-quarantine mandate for cross-border drivers. They soon morphed into a wider protest, with people joining in with smaller vehicles, including cars, vans and pick-up trucks.