Halifax protest outside Canada Post plant leads to 6 arrests
Police say six people were arrested during protest at Almon Street location
Police arrested six people Sunday night who were protesting outside the Almon Street offices of Canada Post in Halifax.
On Monday police announced the six people are facing charges of mischief and obstructing a peace officer.
"There were a bunch of us that were having a peaceful picket," said Suzanne MacNeil, president of the Halifax and Dartmouth District Labour Council in an interview Sunday evening.
MacNeil said her husband, Tony Tracy of the Canadian Labour Congress, was among the six who were arrested shortly after 9:30p.m.
Halifax Regional Police said in a news release that they were called to Monaghan Drive in Halifax around 7:30 p.m. for a report of five backed-up vehicles and a group of protestors blocking the road.
Police said the situation posed "a serious public safety threat" and "could have resulted in an injury to a member of the public."
Police said officers asked the group to move, but when the people did not do so, six of them were arrested.
"We weren't letting the mail trucks into the plant. The police showed up and decided that they didn't want us there anymore," MacNeil said.
The protests are the latest in a series of what Canada Post calls "illegal pickets" following the Trudeau government's back-to-work legislation.
"We maintain that what we were doing was peaceful and nobody was getting hurt," MacNeil said.
In a video posted on Facebook members of the Halifax Regional Police can be seen asking the protestors to get off the street and move to the sidewalk near the Almon Street sorting facility.
"I think it's pretty heavy-handed and it's happening in the context of the government passing some egregious legislation to end a strike at Canada Post," MacNeil said.
MacNeil said no postal workers were among those who stood in the rain Sunday night to block mail trucks.
"We decided it was up to us to pick up the pickets for them," she said.
The picketers who were charged were scheduled to appear in Halifax Provincial Court Monday.