Trudeau & family flee to secret location over anti-vaccine mandate agitation

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family have fled their home in the nation’s capital Ottawa for a secret location as up to 50,000 truckers gathered to protest against the country’s vaccine mandate and COVID lockdowns.

Thousands of truckers and other protesters converged on Parliament Hill on Saturday to call for an end to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other public health restrictions, according to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

The large-scale protest, dubbed as ‘Freedom Convoy’, comprised kids, the elderly and disabled people. Some even carried signs with aggressive and obscenity-laced rhetoric directed mostly at the Canadian prime minister, The Globe and Mail newspaper reported.

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Hundreds of big trucks, their engines rumbling, sounded their air horns non-stop at the protest. The police said nearly 10,000 people were expected to attend, while media reports stated that by Saturday evening the force did not have an official estimate of the crowd’s size.

Trudeau’s office has not commented on his location for security reasons and the Canadian Parliament’s Sergeant-at-Arms warned that demonstrators could show up at the homes of officials, CBC News said.

The PM has defended the vaccination mandate, pointing out that 90 per cent of truck drivers are already jabbed. He described the truckers’ views as anti-science, anti-government and anti-society, and said they posed a risk not only to themselves but to other Canadians as well. He also told the media that he was concerned the protest would turn violent, but said the convoy represented a “small fringe minority” who “do not represent the views of Canadians”.

The movement received support on Thursday from Tesla founder Elon Musk, who tweeted, “Canadian truckers rule.”