Seethe more, keeps us both warm
Dear Mayor,
They've been there for days. Played hockey, did some dancing, shoveled some snow, and picked up trash. If it was an actual 'insurrection" I imagine you would be swinging from a streetlight about now.
Feel free to tender your resignation
EGAN: Finally, some pushback from Ottawa police, fresh reinforcements
"The good news, though, and maybe Sloly should have been more clear about this, is that actual enforcement is beginning to happen."
Author of the article: Kelly Egan Publishing date: Feb 06, 2022
So, this was the weekend of “surge and contain.”
Like many things we’ve heard from Ottawa police Chief Peter Sloly, it wasn’t entirely clear Friday what he was talking about.
It’s certainly true there were more police officers in the “red zone” around Parliament Hill than last weekend. There were seven or eight Sudbury police officers, for instance, walking around in a pack on the sidewalk — “patrolling” it is probably called, or “surging,” as it were, “containing” who knows what.
But there were barbecues on the go on Wellington Street and wood-burning fires in metal containers and Christian tents set up and fuel containers moving here and there and a religious revival going on in word and song — all on the public roadway — and a ridiculous amount of noise.
So, does it matter if there are 10,000 police officers down there — “surging” or not — if there are no consequences for breaking the rules, for days in a row? More on this in a minute.
There was a quite remarkable “special” meeting of the Ottawa Police Services Board on Saturday.
Bless board member Carol Anne Meehan for her plain-dealing. Though she looked at times as though her head might explode, the Gloucester-South Nepean councillor was seeking an explanation from Sloly about why we haven’t seen much push-back from police against even the most obvious infractions.
“Please, I’m begging you. What’s going to be done here?”
Indeed, she put her finger on a city’s frustration when she further added: “How do we know this will ‘blow up’ if we haven’t done anything except monitor and keep the peace?” (This is in relation to Sloly’s repeated warnings about “massive risk” to anything approaching robust enforcement.)
Part of her frustration, no doubt, is Sloly’s habit of donning his professor hat and giving wordy, off-point answers about lacking the correct “justice system framework” or absent “multi-lateral agreements” between governments and some unhelpful blather about an outdated Police Services Act.
Good Lord, all we really want to know is why you can’t get a bunch of big-ass trucks out of the way, or at least ticket them to death, by the hour if necessary. (On that point, by the way, we’re told we don’t have enough heavy-lift tow trucks to get the removal job done efficiently.)
The good news, though, and maybe Sloly should have been more clear about this, is that actual enforcement is beginning to happen and there is, no doubt, a plan being worked on to tighten the perimeter on the core group of trucking protesters.
The instant “shack” that was set up at Confederation Park, for instance, was moved, then taken away altogether on Sunday afternoon. While it may have been headed to the baseball stadium parking lot on Coventry Road, we’ll take anything as progress at this point.
And Sunday morning brought news the police have, in fact, been doing more than passively patrolling.
The force reports that, since Saturday morning, more than 450 tickets have been written for violations related to the trucker protest, which has now been going on for 10 days.
We’re getting smarter with relation to shutting ramps off the 417 so the influx of farm vehicles Saturday did not have disastrous results. New concrete barriers are, at least visually, creating the feeling of “boxing in” the trucks right on the Hill’s doorsteps.
More:
https://ottawasun.com/news/local-news/egan-with-fresh-reinforcements-finally-some-pushback-from-police/wcm/407b464c-5a6a-4281-8885-a52523afdabb