Is it really as bad as the /r/ottawa reddit post claims? I think things have gotten better recently, but surely everyone agrees that blasting train horns 24/7 in a densely populated residential area isn't "peaceful", right? That misrepresentation alone makes me skeptical about the rest of the truckers' claims of peacefulness. The arson attempt comes to mind. Are the truckers & co. really getting upset about people walking by with masks on? Does anyone know how many truckers camped out in Ottawa are American? Some more predictions: I can almost guarantee that the blockades at the border won't last more than another day or two, because they disrupt corporate commerce. Only blockades targeting city centers and federal buildings will be relatively un-policed. Disruption of government and liberals will be where this movement finds itself, and the small business closures in the area will be considered an expendable casualty.
It's definitely not good for the downtown residents, I simply can't imagine what it's like living with the noise 24/7. We brought ear plugs, which came in handy, but it's not like you can drown out what essentially sounds like an air raid siren blaring right outside your house. Regarding masks - can't really say whether it's as bad as others have reported, since my friends and I decided to go in with a nuclear option (a pair of anti-convoy signs and a communist hammer-and-sickle flag, just to see how far we can push it). This is to say that I don't think it was our masks that were the biggest problem to the protestors. A few did take issue with our insignia and got a little aggressive, at one point encircling our little outfit, but we ended up talking things through and got out alright in the end. As for the Americans, it's hard to tell whether many of them are from the US. What I did notice was that a very large chunk of the protestors on the ground, especially those with kids, are Quebecois, and (perhaps not too surprisingly) there was a good number of Russian speakers in the crowd. There was even a field kitchen set up right across the road from the Centennial Flame, with the tables draped in Russian flags - the cooks told me they were Ukrainians from Montreal. Not to say that the protest is necessarily astroturfed or something - my own parents are there some days, thanks to the antivax sentiment ever so present in the immigrant diaspora - it was just a weird experience to constantly hear your own language at a protest on Parliament Hill.