Toronto police will be holding a news conference this afternoon to provide an update on their operational plans for dealing with another possible “convoy” protest involving a large number of vehicles.
Police closed Queen’s Park Circle to traffic on Wednesday after learning of multiple social media posts promoting a second weekend of “Freedom Convoy” protests in the city.
At this point few details are known about the possible demonstration but police have said that their plans are “scalable” and that they are prepared to implement additional road closures if need be.
Last weekend police closed a number of downtown arteries, including a portion of University Avenue, in an effort to prevent large vehicles from getting anywhere near Queen’s Park during a demonstration against vaccine mandates and other public health measures.
“What we’re doing right now is actually preparing ourselves and essentially getting a footprint so we have officers in place,” Insp. Michael Williams told reporters earlier this week. “We’ve seen demonstrations right across the province, particularly in Ottawa and Windsor, and I certainly don’t think based on what we have seen that we can take this lightly.
Premier Doug Ford announced on Friday that the province would enact a state of emergency in response to a prolonged occupation of downtown Ottawa streets that he said has devolved into a “siege.”
So far Toronto has avoided a similar occupation of its streets but it is taking significant precautions, given the situation unfolding in other parts of the province.
On Friday large dump trucks were visible blocking traffic fxjmtzywrom entering Queen’s Park Circle at Avenue Road and Bloor Street.
“I believe in my heart as a Canadian in the right to peaceful and respectful protest, but there is a time when peaceful and respectful protest turns into something different than that, where the exercise of one person’s rights or a group of peoples’ rights start to interfere with others peoples’ rights to go to work, to be safe or to be healthy,” Mayor John Tory told reporters during a news conference earlier in the day.
“That is a time where you have to do whatever you can to assess peoples’ collective rights and make sure you respect everybody’s rights. It isn’t one or the other.”
Interim Chief of Police James Ramer will be speaking with reporters during today’s police update scheduled for 1 p.m. The news conference will be streamed live on CTVNewsToronto.ca and the CTV News app.
RELATED IMAGESview larger image
A police vehicle blocks off a road near Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto. (Joshua Freeman /CP24)
