a year later”convoy of freedomArriving in Ottawa, the city says it has paid for about half the value of tickets given out during the protests.
Between January 28 and February 18, 2022, officers handed out 3,812 parking tickets and 318 provincial offense notices for illegal parking, which involves private property and no-parking areas.
Those fines totaled $320,545 – and of that, a little over $141,000 is still outstanding.
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Unpaid fines can lead to license plate denial or fines can be transferred to property taxes, garnished with wages or sent to a collection agency – although it is unclear whether Ottawa took any of these steps. Yes or No.
The weeks-long protests cost the city nearly $7 million and Ottawa police $55 million, as protesters protested COVID-19 mandates and the federal government blocked city streets.
The city has asked the federal government to pick up the tab for those costs but no funding has been announced.
Last year, the government set aside $6.9 million to cover the costs of protests in Windsor, Ontario, where protesters blocked Canada’s busiest border crossing.
The exact amount Windsor will receive is still under discussion, but the city sought millions in compensation for the closure of business on the Ambassador Bridge and the cost of restoring public order.
Similar protests closed border crossings in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and near the town of Coates, Alta., last winter with most of the “Freedom Convoy” protesters camping in the streets near Parliament Hill.
The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergency Situations Act to give extraordinary powers to the government, police and banks to quell the protests.
A public inquiry into the decision to use the law was held for the first time since it replaced the War Measures Act in 1988. The final report of that inquiry should be tabled in Parliament in February.
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