Blockades on Canada-US border continue as protests swell

WINDSOR, Ontario (AP) — Hours after removing their vehicles blocking a key U.S.-Canadian border bridge, protesters opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates continued to block traffic outside in the bitter cold early Sunday, while in the capital Ottawa, police were forming a new command center with provincial and national authorities that they said would help them respond better to a larger demonstration that has paralyzed downtown.

The tense standoff at the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, eased somewhat Saturday when Canadian police persuaded demonstrators to move the trucks they had used to barricade the entrance to the busy international crossing. Early Saturday evening, crews set up concrete traffic barricades along the highway.

But protesters reconvened nearby — with reinforcements — and were still choking off access from the Canadian side, snarling traffic and commerce. About 180 remained late Saturday in the sub-freezing cold.

In Ottawa, the ranks of protesters swelled to what police said was 4,000 demonstrators. The city has seen that on past weekends, and loud music played as people milled about downtown where anti-vaccine demonstrators have been encamped since late January.

The protests at the bridge, in Ottawa and elsewhere have reverberated outside the country, with similarly inspired convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that truck convoys may be in the works in the United States.

An ex-Cabinet minister in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government took the unusual step of calling out her former federal colleagues as well as the province and city for not putting an end to the protests.

“Amazingly, this isn’t just Ottawa. It’s the nation’s capital,” Catherine...