The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) has arrested two people for mischief following a protest that drew hundreds on Parliament Hill Saturday morning, Sept. 20.
The “
Draw the Line” protest in downtown Ottawa was one of several held across the country, including in major cities such as Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, and
Montreal. Protesters called on the federal government to accede to a series of demands, including to “tax the ultra-rich,” advance indigenous rights, “end the era of fossil fuels,” grant permanent resident status for all migrants, and implement an arms embargo against Israel.
According to organizers on their rally website, the protests were a response to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government showing recent support for
liquefied natural gas projects, proposing spending cuts in public services, tightening immigration policy, raising military spending, and “arming Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”
Demonstrators in Ottawa gathered in front of Carney’s office on Saturday morning. Many of them held Palestinian flags and wore keffiyeh scarves associated with the pro-Palestine movement. While marching down Wellington Street—en route to the
U.S. Embassy on Sussex Drive and the
Canadian Tribute to Human Rights monument near city hall—protesters were also seen carrying signs advocating for full immigration status for all, climate change, and “Land Back” for indigenous people.
The protests, organized by a coalition of activist groups, also involved protesters painting a large red-and-white mural on the road surface on Wellington Street in front of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The mural
read “people, peace, planet, not profit.”
The OPS posted on
social media later in the afternoon that two people were arrested for mischief and that Wellington was temporarily closed to “facilitate the clean-up of paint left by demonstrators.”
