Toronto Police Closing Queen’s Park Circle Immediately Ahead of Potential Vehicle Protest

Police say that they’re closing Queen’s Park Circle in response to a number of social media posts relating to a possible demonstration involving “numerous automobiles.”

The precaution comes after one of many organizers of the ‘Freedom Convoy’ in Ottawa posted a video to Tik Tok on Tuesday evening, during which he claimed that some contributors could be travelling to Toronto to proceed their demonstration.

There has to date been no indication of truckers concerned within the Ottawa protest really leaving the nation’s capital and plenty of concerned have beforehand indicated that they plan to remain within the space round Parliament for a chronic interval.

“What we’re doing proper now is definitely getting ready ourselves and basically getting a footprint so we’ve got officers in place,” Insp. Michael Williams informed reporters on Wednesday afternoon. “We’ve seen demonstrations proper throughout the province, notably in Ottawa and Windsor, and I definitely don’t suppose primarily based on what we’ve got seen that we will take this calmly.”

A whole bunch of huge automobiles have been illegally parked on downtown Ottawa streets for practically two weeks now as a part of an indication towards vaccine mandates and different public well being measures to restrict the unfold of COVID-19.

An analogous protest has additionally partially blocked site visitors alongside the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor in current days, leading to important delays.

Talking with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Williams mentioned that the choice to shut Queen’s Park Circle for the second time this week is being made “out of an abundance of warning” moderately than any particular threats.

However he emphasised that the police response is “scalable” and that further highway closures will be applied ought to they be required.

Final week police closed a number of downtown arteries forward of a convoy protest, together with a portion of College Avenue.

“We’re not on the lookout for any kind of confrontation. However we definitely do have plans in place if there’s criminality,” Williams mentioned.

CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF ONTARIO RELEASES STATEMENT

Solidarity protests involving massive automobiles have been going down throughout Canada during the last week, prompting considerations about occupations of public arteries just like the one in Ottawa.

In an announcement launched on Wednesday afternoon, Mayor John Tory mentioned that whereas “peaceable, respectful protests are an necessary a part of the Canadian lifestyle we can’t settle for a state of affairs which sees one group’s rights exercised in a means that rolls over the rights of others.”

To that finish, Tory mentioned that he helps police doing every thing they will to “keep away from the conditions we’ve got seen in different cities.”

“Steadiness is a necessity and can hopefully information us to the fitting place in these sophisticated issues,” he mentioned.

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