(LifeSiteNews) –– Citing the 2022 Freedom Convoy, the Liberal government is using money from last year’s federal budget to significantly increase police presence on Parliament Hill.
Last Friday, Liberal Public Safety Minister David McGuinty announced that federal funds of $50 million over a five-year time frame will be used to give Ottawa Police “even more resources to keep our downtown safe, ensuring real-time responses to any emergencies.”
The new dedicated police detachment will be made up of 49 employees, and will be fully staffed in three years’ time, noted Ottawa’s Police Chief Eric Stubbs. It will take over from the current Parliamentary Protective Service for most of the area around Canada’s House of Commons.
As reported by the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Liberal MP Yasir Naqvi said the new police detachment is needed to counteract any future protests like the Freedom Convoy, whom he claimed “occupied” downtown Ottawa.
“I don’t want to sugarcoat it, but I think you all remember how challenging and difficult a period it was during the almost month-long occupation of downtown Ottawa,” he told reporters last Friday.
Naqvi claimed that his community “has not forgotten that [Freedom Convoy,]” adding that the government is “investing in our downtown core in the parliamentary district so that we don’t live through that ever again.”
As for McGuinty, he claimed that the new police detachment will be used to “safeguard and secure the right to protest and the right to visit and the right to be there, that’s a fundamental element of our democracy.”
In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.”
During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.
While Trudeau has now been replaced as Liberal Party leader by Mark Carney, the latter is on the record as having been in favor of the freezing of bank accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters and their supporters.
