By midafternoon, at least 70 people had been arrested, mostly on mischief charges, and more than roughly two dozen vehicles had been towed, including all of those blocking one of city’s major streets, authorities said.
Tow truck operators — wearing neon-green ski masks, with their companies’ decals taped over on their trucks to conceal their identities — arrived under police escort and started removing the hundreds of big rigs, campers and other vehicles parked shoulder to shoulder near Parliament.
The capital and its paralyzed streets represented the movement’s last stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S.
With police and the government facing accusations that they let the protests get out of hand, Trudeau on Monday invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act.
Ottawa police had made it clear for days that they were preparing to retake the streets at any moment.
Dan Holland, a protester from London Ontario, packed up his car as police closed in.
Trudeau portrayed the protesters as members of a “fringe” element, and Canadians have largely embraced the country’s COVID-19 restrictions, with the vast majority vaccinated, including an estimated 90% of the nation’s truckers.
The biggest border blockade, at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, disrupted the flow of auto parts between the two countries and forced the industry to curtail production.