Thousands of protesters gathered in Canada’s capital on Saturday to protest vaccine mandates, masks and lockdowns.
Protestors compared vaccine mandates to fascism, one truck carried a Confederate flag and many carried expletive-laden signs targeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Eric Simmons, from Oshawa, Ontario, said all vaccine mandates should be ended.
“They’re not effective, they’re not working. It’s not changing anything. We can’t keep living like this. People are losing their jobs because they don’t want to get the vaccine,” Simmons said.
The convoy of truckers and others prompted police to warn residents to avoid downtown. A top Parliament security official advised lawmakers to lock their doors amid reports their private homes may be targeted.
Trudeau has said Canadians are not represented by this “very troubling, small but very vocal minority of Canadians who are lashing out at science, at government, at society, at mandates and public health advice.″
The prime minister’s itinerary for the day usually says he is in Ottawa if he’s at home, but on Saturday it said “National Capital Region” amid a report he’s been moved to an undisclosed location. One of Trudeau’s kids has COVID-19 and the prime minister has been isolating and working remotely.
Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and the premier of the province of Quebec who is proposing to tax the unvaccinated is popular.
Some are, in part, protesting a new rule that took effect Jan. 15 requiring truckers entering Canada to be fully immunized against the coronavirus. The United States has imposed the same requirement on truckers entering that country.
The organizers of the protest have called for the elimination of all COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates and some called for the removal of Trudeau.
Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole met with some truckers. The protest has also attracted support from former U.S. President Donald Trump and some Fox News personalities.
“We want those great Canadian truckers to know that we are with them all the way,” Trump said at a rally in Conroe, Texas. “They are doing more to defend American freedom than our leaders by far.”
The Parliamentary Protective Service expects as many as 10,000 protesters as part of a weekend-long rally.
“I’m locked into my own country right now,” said Tom Pappin, an unvaccinated man who came from just outside Ottawa. “I can’t go on a holiday. I can’t go to a restaurant, I can’t go bowling. I can’t go to a movie. You know, these are things that it’s just gotten out of control.”
The 52-year-old said attendees are likely to stay parked by Parliament until vaccine mandates are lifted.
The Associated Press contributed to this article