"'This is not my city,' said Ellie Charters, 45, crossing the street before a line of shoulder-to-shoulder tractor cabs, their metal grills festooned in flags, handmade signs and stuffed toys."

"Ms. Charters, a local resident, called the party scene a 'sanitization' of the protest’s darker motives. From the start, the protest, initially organized to oppose a vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers, has attracted the company of far right, anti-government and other fringe groups in Canada.... Many demonstrators... demanded Parliament be dissolved, and Mr. Trudeau be removed from office. But when many of the thousands of protesters who first arrived in Ottawa went home, several hundred truckers held firm. They parked their vehicles and refused to leave — and the police could do little to force them out. Now, the protesters who have dug into Ottawa’s core for nearly two weeks are giddy with their sense of collective purpose and, so far, perceived success. However, many of the residents who live in nearby apartment buildings and renovated heritage homes don’t see it as a celebration but as an unruly, disrespectful and even dangerous occupation. How could a group of ostensible anti-vaccine protesters, many wonder, descend upon their city and manage to take it over?... Many protesters say they are here in peace. Some get on their knees and pray outside Parliament.... But there is a definite edge — like that end-of-the-night feeling at a tailgate party, when some of the crowd might have had too much to drink, and things could go sideways..... Many locals said they felt abandoned by the police..... 'Why weren’t they enforcing the law at all? The police aren’t doing anything,' said Ms. Charters, a community activist..."

From "'This Is Not My City': Protesters Turn a Quiet Capital Upside Down/The Ottawa protesters are giddy with their sense of collective purpose. But local residents see the demonstration as an unruly, disrespectful and even dangerous occupation" by Catherine Porter (NYT). 

It's like the takeover of Portland, Oregon in 2020. How long did that go on and how did it end? And the old Occupy movement. These things demonstrate how close we are to chaos. I understand that these protests are against the excessive imposition of order by the government, but for a lot of people, they prove the opposite, how much we love order. The order we rely on is mostly invisible. It becomes visible in its absence.