(NewsNation Now) — Windsor, Ontario’s mayor vowed to break up the blockade of truckers choking off the bridge between his city any Detroit.
In an appearance on NewsNation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert,” Mayor Drew Dilkens called the protest illegal.
“The hallmark of our joint democracies is the ability to express yourself, the ability to demonstrate and protest. That is OK,” Dilkens said. “What is not OK is choking off the busiest border crossing between our two nations — the lifeline for an essential part of our economies here.”
The protest against the country’s vaccine mandate is in its fourth night, and Dilkens is heading to court Friday afternoon to prevent it from reaching a fifth.
If he obtains an injunction, he says police will be empowered to break up the protest, though stressed he did not want violence.
He also said the government has tried to reach compromises with the truckers but they were not able to strike a deal.
“A sensible resolution could be allowing a lane of traffic to move in each direction to the international border crossing, and we’ll give them a lane on each side to continue their protest,” Dilkens said.
The protest is potentially costing hundreds of millions of dollars of damage per day to both economies. Automakers in Detroit canceled production shifts because materials couldn’t come across the bridge.
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, said it would take until early next week to resume production, even if the blockade was cleared by Friday.
“I get that that’s been tough, and I do have some sympathy,” Dilkens said. “But at the end of the day, I have to balance one’s right to protest and to demonstrate with the the rights of the economy and the businesses here … the families that need to work.”
The demonstrators say they feel they have nothing to lose.
“Everybody here is struggling, most of us don’t have work, most of us hitchhiked,” Kelsey Spencer told NewsNation in Ottawa. “Some of us drove. We’re all here for a better cause. We know Canada is better than this.”
But Dilkens believes the damage to the economy is too grave to ignore.
“This protest at this location cannot be allowed to go on forever,” he said.