Financial institutions have begun freezing customers’ accounts and reporting them to police over suspicions that the holders are participating in protest occupations and blockades, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Thursday.

“We now have the tools to follow the money. We can see what is happening and what is being planned in real time,” Freeland said on Parliament Hill.

She refused to say how many accounts had been frozen, claiming the need for operational security as authorities prepare to break the remaining convoy protest in downtown Ottawa.

“It is an ongoing process,” she said in French. “It’s a process that will accelerate and be stepped up if the blockades and occupations continue.”

Partial return to normal: Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said that all Canada’s land border crossings with the United States are open again, after protests blocked ones in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario and stopped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods from moving back and forth.

“The removal of these blockades has restored the strength of our economy. They’ve ensured that the safe and free passage of goods between Canada and the United States is secure,” he said.

But, he said, police yesterday headed off what they believed was a new convoy heading for the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont.

Who they answer to: As Freeland and Blair spoke, the House of Commons was debating whether the Liberal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, which gave it the power to ban protests that impede traffic and to order a full range of financial institutions to suspend business with anybody they think is involved in one, is justified.

The law lets the government impose special measures quickly, but requires that Parliament agree that there’s a genuine national emergency or else the measures vaporize.

The Liberals appear to have the NDP’s support. The party’s leader Jagmeet Singh criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for letting the protests get out of hand, but said Trudeau’s failure makes the Emergencies Act necessary. That’s enough to get their moves ratified by the House of Commons in a vote scheduled for Monday evening.

What’s next: Despite a vicious late-night meeting at Ottawa city hall Wednesday over the handling of the protests that first descended on the capital nearly three weeks ago, police made shows of force in the “red zone” all day Thursday.

With a major winter storm bearing down, they oversaw the installation of kilometres of crowd-control fencing around the area and warned that nobody without provable business in the city centre would be allowed in. The city’s interim police chief said the force finally has a plan and the resources it needs to end the protest.