Anti-vaccine protest takes ugly turn in Ottawa; protestors attempt setting apartment on fire [details]

On January 29, hundreds of trucks descended in Canada's capital city of Ottawa in a well-planned, generously-sponsored, organised march towards the vaccine mandate. What started off as a peaceful protest has taken an ugly turn with Mayor of Ottawa declaring a state of emergency on Monday.

While the Vancouver mayor told truckers to stay out of the city since they had a 95% vaccination rate, but in Ottawa things reportedly took an ugly turn when the residents in the nearby areas of protests started shouting at protestors, asking them to go quiet or go back.

One of the tenants at an apartment building on Lisgar St. even claimed that a protestor tried to start a fire in his building. The same was even confirmed by Glen McGregor, a political correspondent at CTV National news. He said, "There was an attempt to light a fire in the lobby. The building has CCTV footage and has called police." he further said, "No real damage and no injuries. This will fall somewhere between criminal mischief and arson; which police tend to take pretty seriously."

Raw Story also reported him as saying that while there was no evidence that suspects in the attempted arson were protestors but tenants of the building thought so.

A Twitter user Matiaz Munoz also shared screenshots of the surveillance video claiming that two people brought firestarter bricks into the lobby of the building at 5a.m. "I have been hesitating to post this publicly, but I feel I must for the safety of downtown Ottawa residents. Here are the facts: Last night two arsonists brought a full package of firestarter bricks into our building's lobby at 5am. The building is located at Metcalfe & Lisgar."

Munoz continues saying in the post that they were able to see the building's video footage of the event. "These two men got into the lobby, and began lighting the full package. The building is old and has wood panelling on the walls. It is also located at the epicentre of the convoy protests in Ottawa's core. One of them taped up the door handles so no one could get in or out. This is the most insidious part of the experience besides the lighting of the fire."

He also said that some of his neighbours saw protestors and became very aggressive and angry at the tenants in the hours leading up to the fire. Things could have ended very badly but luckily for the Good Samaritan walking by the door outside, who saw the fire. "Luckily the door opened after some struggle with the taped handles, he got in and was able to extinguish the flames."

Meanwhile, the mayor declares emergency

In response to more than a week of truckers' protests against Covid restrictions and protocols, Jim Watson, the mayor declared a state of emergency and called the "situation completely out of control." He also said that the city was "losing this battle."

Calling the protests, a threat to the safety and security of residents, Watson, while speaking to Canadian radio station CFRA, also called out the protestors for their insensitive behaviour. "Protestors are behaving insensitively by continuously blaring horns and sirens and setting off fireworks and turning it into a party." While the exact details of the measures to be imposed have not yet been divulged, but police are likely to step up enforcement, arrests and cutting off supplies.

...and the protests started in Ottawa

In November 21, Canada made it mandatory for cross-border essential workers, including truck drivers, to produce proof of vaccination to travel across the border from January 15. Accordingly, unvaccinated Canadian drivers entering from the US are required to undergo mandatory Covid-19 tests and two weeks of self-quarantine.

A day before the mandate to come into effect, a GoFundMe page was set up for the purpose, which has raised around CAD$9.9 million to take demand that Federal government cease all mandates against people.