OK! Let’s update things. I just went for a walk around. The red arrows are police advancements. The have taken the intersection of Rideau and Sussex, but little else. The black scribbles are fronts put up by protesters. Thread…
Quebec riot police are the front line. The trucks behind them have been taken by police.
But you can also see there’s a big line of protesters, with trucks, and some more barriers they have in place.
IF the police bust through this and get another 20 metres, they can make a big advance, all the way past the War Memorial along Rideau to the edge of the prime minister’s office. Look at the big empty space between the two black lines on my map:
Once you get to the pmo, you’re on Wellington. That’s where a snow wall exists now, but they left room for trucks to leave, so maybe it’s more symbolic, if anything.
Meanwhile, despite only being about two blocks away from the standoff with police in riot gear, the party in front of Parliament rages.
It’s Uptown Funk.
I want to talk about another road, Kent Street, which is plugged for block and blocks and blocks with trucks. (The black rectangle are #NB’ers from Saint Quentin).
There is virtually no police presence here. There is a cookout, with a pig on a spit. People seem unaffected.
I also found a few more #NB licence plates on trucks that I had not seen before, although they were snow covered and unoccupied. I’m going to try and track them down.
Final thought: Police have made some ground, although very little in the context of the entire protest. That said, trucks are definitely emptying out on their own, but to the point that this speeds up to a great degree? Maybe. Or maybe not.
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For those watching at home, I’ve made a map. The red arrows are current police advancements. The black line is where some protesters have now fallen back to to build a barricade. That black rectangle is where the two #NB’ers from Grand Manan were parked, but have now gone home.
First, I don’t live in the core, so it took a long time to get to ground zero. Road blocks everywhere. One police check even turning back a guy with Parliamentary Press Gallery credentials. So you just go to the next perimeter point and hope for a friendlier cop.
Several large paddy wagons are positioned on secondary streets. Police on every corner.
Peter Doull, a retired trucker from Grand Manan who spent 37 years on the highway and the last 21 days parked in front of Parliament Hill, and his son, James Doull, a diesel mechanic and fisherman, say they're leaving today.
They say it's due to a “family emergency."
“It’s critical, I’ve got to go,” Doull said, declining to elaborate. “It is what it is.
“I think we accomplished what we wanted to. But I think there still will be people who will try to stay here weeks on end.”
OK! Story filed. Let’s go do another protest walk through.
Missed it? Here’s my story on Trudeau kicking off the Emergencies Act debate: tj.news/telegraph-jour…#NB
Oh boy, immediately greeted by this guy on Bank Street. “They call my Mr. Freedom,” he says. He says he’s from Niagara.
Definitely a larger police presence today. But they’re largely just doing that, being a presence, walking here and there, stopping, milling about. This Bank and Wellington Streets.