Oct. 30 – More than 50 protesting Canadian truckers blocked traffic Monday on Highway 5 near Ottawa, Quebec, reported the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.

The blockade was organized by the Outaouais Independent Truckers Assn., part of a 5,000-member, Quebec-wide alliance demanding a law that would spell out work conditions for independent truckers and guarantee the same wage scale as unionized truckers.
The truckers also want the Quebec government to protect drivers from a clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement that would deregulate the trucking industry. Laws setting driver wages will be struck down by Jan. 1, 2000, and the truckers say it will put them out of work.
Truckers started pulling out about 1:30 p.m., and traffic was back to normal by about 2:30.