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Nadine Ellis-Maffei said the police visit was like the ‘thought police and Big Brother’ knocking at her door
A Canadian woman has slammed police for making an unannounced visit to her home in response to her Facebook posts supporting the Freedom Convoy protests.
Nadine Ellis-Maffei posted video last Thursday showing an Ontario Provincial Police officer knocking on the door of her home near Peterborough to hand her a card and a pamphlet after seeing her post to a Facebook group.
Ellis-Maffei had written on social media that she was considering attending the protest in Ottawa. She said she had not been part of any demonstrations at that point.
‘Because of the protests happening province wide, yes we have been monitoring the protest. So there’s a protest coming up, I’m simply providing information about a peaceful protest,’ the officer said in the video taken last Thursday by Ellis-Maffei.
‘I was flabbergasted,’ the mother of three, who operates a farm in Ontario’s Peterborough County, told the Toronto Sun. ‘I still can’t believe it.’
Ellis-Maffei compared the incident to the ‘thought police and Big Brother’ from the dystopian novel 1984.
An Ontario Provincial Police officer knocked on the door of her home near Peterborough to hand her a card and a pamphlet after seeing her post to a Facebook group
‘I thought this was a free country,’ she said, explaining that she had considered attending one of the protests, but didn’t think it was appropriate for the police to visit her over her social media posts.
‘To say I’m furious is an understatement,’ she said in a Facebook post about the incident. ‘This is not ok. Ever!!!’
‘What you see here in my video is not an OPP officer politely coming to my home to give me inform about how to peacefully protest,’ she added.
‘This is a violation of my privacy in every way, intimidation tactics and a huge waste of my tax dollars. It will not be tolerated.’
Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau is considering using his extraordinary powers under the Emergencies Act to establish ‘no-go’ zones in Ottawa to dispel the remaining protests in the nation’s capital.
Ontario Provincial Police confirmed the video to the Sun but declined further comment, and it’s not clear how many similar visits the service made in response to social media posts.
An Ontario Provincial Police officer knocked on the very door of Nadine Ellis-Maffei’s farmhouse last week to hand her a pamphlet after seeing her post to a Facebook group about the Freedom Convoy
Canadian police on Wednesday warned demonstrators opposed to Covid rules who have been clogging Ottawa streets for nearly three weeks to leave or face arrest, fines and seizure of their trucks, according to AFP.
Federal authorities, meanwhile, negotiated a peaceful end to the last of several recent blockades by protesters of border crossings between Canada and the United States.
‘You must leave the area now,’ Ottawa police said in a notice distributed to truckers outside parliament.
Anyone blocking streets or assisting others in doing so will be arrested and face charges, the statement said.
Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau is considering using his extraordinary powers under the Emergencies Act to establish ‘no-go’ zones in Ottawa
A shirtless protestor participates in a blockade of downtown streets near the parliament in Ottawa on Wednesday as a demonstration led by truck drivers continues
Police also warned that anyone charged or convicted for taking part in the illegal demonstration may, in addition to criminal penalties, be barred from travelling to the United States.
As the notices were handed out, AFP journalists saw hundreds of trucks continuing to occupy streets in the parliamentary precinct, intermittently honking horns — despite an extension Wednesday of a court order against the deafening noises, obtained by an area resident fed up with the disruptions.
‘We’re still a lot of trucks holding the line,’ trucker David Shaw, 65, told AFP. If arrested, he added: ‘I’ll keep coming back.’
Fellow Trucker Jan Grouin, 42, decried Trudeau’s decision earlier this week to impose a state of emergency, calling it ‘a little overreacting maybe to think that we are terrorists.’
