Climate protesters arrested after blocking Ottawa traffic to call for national firefighting agency

A protest group calling on the government to combat climate change says three of its members were arrested Monday morning during a sit-in on the Plaza Bridge over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.

Protesters with the group On2Ottawa were blocking morning traffic on Wellington Street, down the road from Parliament, to call on the federal government to develop a national firefighting agency to deal with wildfires.

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Ottawa police confirmed the arrests in an email to CTV News Ottawa Monday afternoon and said two people are charged with mischief. Other charges could be laid. On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, police said that the road reopened at around 9:40 a.m.

Some experts have called for a national firefighting agency this summer. Firefighting typically falls under provincial jurisdiction, but the Canadian Armed Forces have been deployed to some of the hardest hit areas to help local crews on the ground battling wildfires. Foreign firefighters have also been called to Canada to help.

According to a news release from the On2Ottawa group, members plan to engage in civil disobedience in Ottawa over the next three weeks to bring attention to their demands.

It has been an unprecedented wildfire season in Canada this summer. Recently, the city of Yellowknife, NWT was evacuated and blazes are devastating northern British Columbia. Earlier this year, Ottawa was blanketed in smoke for several days because of forest fires burning in Quebec.

"I have become increasingly distressed over time as people, and the government, have continued to treat the climate crisis as if it is not one. We know that societies can change radically to deal with emergencies, and I am willing to do whatever it non-violently takes to get there," said protester Ivan Ferguson in On2Ottawa's news release.

The group is behind other high-profile protests including when a topless woman disrupted the Juno Awards in March. A month later, that same woman splashed red paint on the Prime Minister's Office in Ottawa and handcuffed herself to the entrance before being arrested.