Wednesday, March 1, 2000 Truckers vow to 'cripple' city

By ANDREW SEYMOUR, Ottawa Sun Angry truckers hope a second Parliament Hill protest will help put the brakes on high gas prices.

"It's going to cripple Ottawa," said Dwayne Mosley, a negotiator for the Greater Ottawa Truckers Association and organizer of the Friday rally on Parliament Hill.

Mosley predicts upwards of 350 trucks will swamp downtown Ottawa for a louder and bigger protest than the one staged last week.

On Feb. 22, about 30 dump trucks pulled onto the Hill blasting their horns to send a message that they want relief from the price hikes.

"If we can't control OPEC we should be able to regulate the big three oil companies," said Mosley, who wants the government to appoint an independent ombudsman to look into gas prices.

Ottawa-Centre MP Mac Harb along with Reform and Conservative MPs are expected at the protest. It will begin on Hwy. 416 at about 10:30 a.m. before turning onto Hwy. 417 and heading for the Hill via Kent St.

http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaNews/OS.OS-03-01-0038.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 02, 2000

Answers

Response to Truckers vow to 'cripple' city

UPDATE

Thursday, Mar. 2, 2000

Truck protest on Parliament Hill causes early police response

OTTAWA (CP) -- Plans for a 300-strong truck protest on Parliament Hill today against diesel prices triggered police to announce a series of road closures to try to keep traffic moving in the capital.

Regional and provincial police said Thursday they would escort the trucks into the city and close some streets around Parliament Hill to cope with the protest.

The Greater Ottawa Truckers Association said it would come into the city along Highway 416 and take the Queensway, the main six-lane artery through the centre of Ottawa, down to Parliament Hill.

Not all lanes on the highways would be closed, said Dwayne Mosley, who is organizing the protest.

"We're hoping that we won't cause too much of a traffic tie-up," he said in an interview.

Mosley and others had meetings scheduled with MPs as part of their demonstration and were hoping Prime Minister Jean Chretien would speak to the truckers on Parliament Hill.

"We're going up there to let the prime minister know that we need relief and we need it now," he said.

The group was also scheduled to appear before the Ontario government's fuel tax task force as it holds hearings at the city's court house on its tour of the province.

Independent truck drivers have been holding similar protests across the country.

The National Truckers Association, a recently formed truckers' lobby group, has called for a temporary suspension of a four-cent-per-litre federal fuel tax.

Federal officials have said they would consider helping truckers with the rising costs of doing business but insist the federal tax is low compared to provincial taxes.

Truckers have faced a 60-per-cent increase in diesel fuel costs in the past year. While the price per litre of diesel has stabilized at about 67 cents for past two weeks, gas prices have skyrocketed to more than 70 cents across Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Federal and provincial officials blame the recent hikes in fuel costs on a jump in the price of crude oil -- up to $30.20 US per barrel as of Monday, from $10.50 this time last year.

http://www.canoe.ca/TopStories/truck_mar2.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 02, 2000.