Yes agree. Thank you for that. I have no doubt that the people who are critical of the response would never tolerate the same “peaceful protest” occurring in their city or neighbourhood.
I grew up in Ottawa and subsequently lived and worked there for a total of ten years in the '90s and early 2000s so I know how small its non-residential downtown is. I suspect that a lot of observers just assume that some dead downtown was squatted in for a while.
Yeah, pretty much anyone who is using the “peaceful protestors” or “Tyrannical Trudeau” memes has completely bought into the right-wing outrage propaganda.
Ottawa has seen lots of protests over the years, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a group of regular citizens self-organize to try to shut down at least some of the protestors.
And once the cops finally started moving against them, the protestors were handled with kid gloves at almost every stage of the process. Given multiple warnings over several days, given ample opportunity to just walk away from the whole thing, and when some were finally arrested, most of them were processed and released quite quickly. There are videos out there of protestors bragging about how they were arrested at noon, and are back on the front lines by evening.
Worst. Tyranny. Ever.
Yeah, the ignorance about Ottawa, and who it is that lives downtown, that we’ve seen in the media is pretty staggering. Someone was saying, “Hey, it’s just a bunch of rich people and politicians!” Uh, no, those guys live in Rockcliffe, dude.
This is amazingly true to the extent that I don’t see how the police could have been any less forceful. I have experience the same levels of abuse standing in a crowded bus or at a concert. People should compare this to protests around the world.
These people were also likely fine with the police response to the G20 protests in Toronto - indiscriminate clubbing of random people walking by, pepper spraying journalists, kettling protesters into tiny areas and not letting any of them leave peacefully, assault, tear gas, and the largest mass arrests in Canadian history - many of the charges thrown out.
But that was just fine with the same folks that are going off the deep end now.
Why? Because the people in the “freedom” convoy are the In-group whom the law must protect. The G20 protesters were in the Out-group whom the law must bind.
I know. That’s exactly what made it so puzzling.
It probably wouldn’t hurt the conservatives
I mean, “I didn’t know she was Canadian!” is not an unreasonable response upon 1st hearing the name.
I try never to talk about politics, or “touchy subjects” in front of my dad, as he is a Fox-new-watching, AM-radio listening Trumper. But this weekend I was driving my parents somewhere and we were on the freeway. It was snowy and everyone was going about 40 MPH, and I was just out there trying my best, kind of using the trucks to guide my way. I said “I just follow the trucks, it makes it easier.”
My parents were like “See? Why would anyone hate truckers? They’re heroes.”
Uhm, “What?” says I.
“I can’t believe GoFundMe took away all the truckers money.”
What I gleaned from this conversation is that the narrative being pushed at my parents is that All The Truckers Everywhere are being oppressed and disrespected somehow and those people in Canada are fighting the good fight. They truly are heroes.
I didn’t get a chance to point out to my dad (a union man, from a family of union men) that the trucker unions denounced these yahoos, as I shut the conversation down quickly.
I just thought I’d share with you how this insanity is being spun to the Fox News/AM Radio crowd.
I’m guessing they felt the same way, or would have, 47 years ago.
Around the world? Hell, you don’t need to leave the province of Ontario to see worse.
Ottawa was about as perfect a dispersal operation as has ever been mounted by police. A phenomenal success.
I’ve enjoyed hearing the protesters and their supporters talking about the poor, poor, down-trodden truckers who lost their jobs because of the vaccine mandates. That’s like saying that a serial red-light runner lost his job because of the highway traffic act.
I know this poor guy who can no longer work in a bank. His rights are being trampled! His children are suffering just because now, no bank will hire him!
Sure, he was convicted of fraud against his employer, and forged cheques. But this is no reason to make it so he cannot work! Banking is is dream job! Won’t someone think of the children?
I blame Trudeau.
If not already mentioned, the House passed the Emergencies Act. The vote was in the neighbourhood of 180-150 plus change.
This was a great sarcastic comment following an “Ottawa Citizen” article:
"I lost my job as a short order cook because I refuse to wash my hands. I read on the internet that soap is evil. My body, my right. It’s just not fair.
I’m going to park my car on someone’s lawn and honk my horn like an id iot for 3 weeks. Then I’ll cry foul and claim I am being oppressed when the police finally make me leave. Of course if there’s any media there I’ll be sure to say something incoherent followed by “freedom!”
And they voted along party lines.
Funny that if this hadn’t been a minority government I would have expected a less party alignment. Even so I’m surprised no conservatives voted for it. Slightly less surprised the NDP went along with it party line as well.
It is odd that the parties on the left have now become the law and order parties, while the ones on the right are about liberty.
It’s only odd if you accepted the propaganda that the Liberals and NDP never supported “law and order” to begin with, and accept the propaganda that the current CPC actually supports “liberty” now.
Well, “liberty” not in the sense that anyone’s actually depriving the parties on the right of any of their duly constituted liberties (which has usually been the driving force behind pro-liberty movements on the left), just “liberty” in the sense of “I shouldn’t hafta do anything I don’t wanna do.”
And the left parties, although still in many cases concerned about power abuses by the appointed “guardians of law and order”, have had to take over the work of supporting the fundamental principles of law and order simply because someone’s got to do it. And the parties on the right have made it clear that they have no interest in doing so when those principles interfere with the “liberty” (see above) of people “like them”.
More bail hearings today.