EXPLAINER: A look at what's behind at the protests in Canada

TORONTO (AP) — For five days, a blockade of pickups, cars and a handful of commercial trucks has choked off traffic at the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing between Canada and the United States. There are blockades at two other crossings as well. And for two weeks, downtown streets in Canada's capital have been snarled by a convoy of semis and other vehicles as protesters rail against COVID-19 restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Here's a look at the ongoing protests that have gripped Canada, disrupting international commerce and prompting Washington to pressure Ottawa to end the border siege.

HOW DID THE PROTESTS START?

Much of it can be tied to anger against Trudeau, a Liberal Party politician who has been prime minister since 2015 and is loathed by many conservatives, particularly in the western province of Alberta, the most conservative in the country.

In 2019, well before the current protests, demonstrators drove a convoy of hundreds of trucks from western Canada to Ottawa in opposition to the Trudeau government's new carbon tax, an environmental measure they said would hurt the oil industry. Many wore yellow vests in solidarity with a French protest movement that same year against perceived economic injustice.

This year's “freedom convoy” began in January with the first vehicles also setting out from the western part of the country and protesters from elsewhere joining in.

WHAT DO THEY WANT?

Convoy organizers said they were moved to protest by a federal government requirement that truck drivers be fully vaccinated if they want to avoid a 14-day quarantine upon re-entry from the United States. However it's a bilateral measure with the U.S. imposing the same rule on Jan. 22 — meaning that even if Canada ended the restriction, it would make...