Two hours ago:
See what I mean? 
I suggest you read something other than the National Post:
# ‘Freedom Convoy’ protesters regroup in rural communities surrounding Ottawa
They claim it’s a “staging area” to say their goodbyes before heading home. Sure. Or a staging area to see if the Emergencies act is going to be lifted so they can go back to the fun and games.
Look, we get it. Your opinion is that the Act was not needed, was too much, and should be removed now that it’s all over. Thank you for your opinion. It is not shared by others.
I know the liberal v. leftist thing gets beaten to death, but this is a good example of it.
The left obviously supports much more extreme and confrontational tactics than this. Liberals often have ambivalence over stuff like this. On the one hand, a lot of liberalism is about individualism. However, the entire concept of being a society of laws is that enough of society agrees to a social contract with one legitimate source of violence (the state) as an alternative to everyone imposing power directly by fighting with each other over everything. Since that is mutually detrimental, society is supposed to keep all or at least most of the factions happy enough that they continue to view respecting the state as a better deal than having to actually fight it out. When people start to push those boundaries, they are going to be the factions that are on the margins of the left or the right because they generally are getting the worst deal under that system. Liberals essentially have more reason to oppose confrontational protests that threaten liberal order, while they are often hesitant about turning to authoritarianism to do it.
Actual leftists frequently advocate for tactics like the freedom convoy is using, and don’t really see opposing the right wing when it uses the same tactics as hypocrisy - leftists are more concerned with the actual goals of these movements and in the scenario (one they may anticipate) where state power is weakened and direct power through open confrontation and violence is the norm, they expect to be fighting against the right over their conflicting goals. Although smart leftists should hopefully realize that if the end result of a protest like this with a state that is still powerful is more state power that could end up hurting them down the road.
If the majority of the population, and a majority in parliament, are in agreement it’s needed, then I don’t have a problem with whether it’s a Liberal or Conservative government.
Any government willing to cave to a minority who won’t leave, ‘till they get their way!’, having not achieved the votes to insure such, in a very recent election, would be rightly ridiculed for not quite understanding how a democracy should work.
Why would the Emergencies Act being lifted allow them to do this?
You STILL haven’t explained how it stops anyone. Someone driving into Ottawa and blocking a street can still be arrested.
Hard core right wing people are exactly the same in hypocrisy. Look at all the PPC and Republican types who are shrieking that breaking up an illegal protest was tyranny. Now check their Twitter profiles and see how they felt about rail blockades or BLM marches (in the case of Republicans, ALL BLM marches, not just ones accompanied by rioters.) Amazing how their opinions change based on who’s protesting.
You’re a populist?
It would embolden them. They would perceive this as weakness, and as the go-ahead to head back and pull the same shit all over again. Have you been listening to what they’ve been saying? Do you think that these are reasonable people?
Yes, if they head back, they could be arrested. Previous experience says that the Ottawa or Ontario governments will not do this. It took officers from all over the country, officers that the Emergency Act put into place to accomplish the clearing of Ottawa. But you seem to think that it’s all over nothing more to see, let’s all just forget about it.
No. Ain’t gonna happen. The Emergencies Act will be cancelled when appropriate. Not when YOU think it’s appropriate.
Look, we get that you think this is serious government overreach. I don’t particularly like it either. But it had to be done. And it will go away. The memes out there of “Trudeau the dictator” are bullshit. The memes that Harper was a dictator were also bullshit.
But this Act had to be put into place before the whole thing got even worse and people were killed. This is where it was heading.
I suspect that the Emergencies Act would no have been required if some basic actions had been taken the day before the arrival of the convoy (I mean parade of ignorant, uneducated thugs). But instead, as someone in the CBC sarcastically said, they were almost provided with valet parking.
Then they were allowed to settle in and keep bringing in more and more crap for their peaceful protest, all the while necessitating the closure of probably, and literally, hundreds of small businesses which are probably already on the edge financially, as well as an entire shopping mall, while holding hostage and threatening and stressing the crap out of about 60,000 residents.
And incredibly stupidly, some of this was permitted to sit literally beside the PM’s office building.
Regardless of your intelligence capabilities, unless there are actually HUMINT resources embedded in the mob, there is no way of accurately knowing what weapons are in there. Additionally, a supply organization was allowed to set up only a few km away.
So what if there had been a half-Oklahoma city-sized bomb on Wellington, or even a really crude radiological device, or a Tokyo subway-inspired sarin attack.
Additionally, at a more banal level, I was informed that without the Act, the incoming police forces would have had to be sworn in before deployment. And with the situation having been allowed to develop to its extent I don’t think that the Ottawa Police Service could have done the removal without outside help.
So I have absolutely no problem with the Emergencies Act being in place and this has nothing to do with my political views.
Well, exactly and specifically what do you think should have been done instead of invoking the Emergencies Act?
I mean, here’s what you were bleating in this thread on February 14, beginning right before the Act was invoked:
You segued seamlessly from “OMG, this is a real crisis and somebody needs to DO something!!” to “Eh, not like that.”
Well okay then Captain Commentator, exactly what specific actions do you argue should have been taken by the federal government instead of invoking the Act? Given that local and provincial governments, as you acknowledged at the time, were being completely ineffective in coping with the situation, what were the feds supposed to do?
This isn’t a “gotcha” question, there may well be perfectly reasonable and feasible legal alternative strategies that would have been less extreme in terms of assuming emergency powers. I’m just sayin’ that you sure weren’t suggesting any coherent ideas for alternative strategies at the time.
I am not an expert and do not know all the alternatives to the Emergencies Act. If it was true towing companies able to handle trucks were continuing to refuse to tow, and the Act compelled them, it was probably justifiable. If this was required to set up police checkpoints or efficiently get enough police to do the job, I support it. Protests interrupting trade or borders seem close to economic terrorism which is not justifiable. But it should end ASAP unless truckers have weapons or a more compelling reason to keep it than mere possibilities of regrouping, which would still exist after 30 days.
While the stories of reported frozen accounts for small donations seem unlikely and are unverified, this use does not seem a substitute for better regulation of alternative currencies. Fintrac is woefully understaffed and this should be changed and reporting requirements broadened. But that has little to do with the emergency. I wonder how Ottawans felt to hear this crisis dismissed as a “parking problem”?
“Emboldened” people are still arrestable.
In fact, they just did arrest a bunch of them. Things have rather plainly been different since the dismissal (er… “resignation”) of Peter Sloly.
The government should have done exactly what they did, which did not require the Emergencies Act; they should have sent in the cops with horses and riot gear.
At no point have I ever contradicted myself on this issue. Absolutely the law had to be enforced, but not every act in enforcing the law is correct, as you fully know. Invoking the Emergencies Act was wrong.
It is absurdly obvious that “this behaviour should be prevented by law” can also be logically consistent with “this method of enforcing the law is terrible and wrong,” and snide comments and insults seem weirdly unnecessary in addressing such an obviously reasonable position even if you disagree with the details. I think drunk driving laws should be rigorously enforced. When they start sending people to prison for drunk driving without a trial I’ll be picketing the courthouse. Not everything is okay in enforcing laws.
Agreed, they should have, but they did not.
Police came from as far away as Vancouver. Do you think that the Federal government could have accomplished this absent the emergencies act? How?
Could the government have stopped the money flow this quickly without interminable court processes and challenges, while the money kept going to the blockade?
How about if the police stop charging anyone with drunk driving, while a whole bunch of entitled assholes drive around your town chugging whiskey, yelling “FREEDOM” and driving through playground zones? And the police just watch them, going “tsk tsk, nothing we can do here.”
And a bunch of citizens start to block the drunk drivers, and the situation is getting ugly. That’s just OK? We can just say “well, there are laws against drunk driving, and they should be applied here.”
But the laws are not being applied. They are being ignored.
So we just keep calmly discussing about how the laws should be followed, while the drunks have their FREEDOM?
Just wait patiently? What’s the solution?
Would the protests in Windsor have ended without invoking the Act? Would many in Ottawa have departed peacefully? Who can say?
Why would you go to the trouble of passing the EA after the drunk drivers have been pulled off the street?
They did.
At no point did I ever accuse you of contradicting yourself, so kindly leave those goalposts where they are, thx.
What I pointed out is that you went directly from “something must be done and nothing effective is being done at the local or provincial level” to “this is the wrong way for the federal government to respond” without ever suggesting any concrete ideas for what you thought would be the right way for the federal government to respond.
Sure, it’s not wrong or self-contradictory to admit “(1) I think the feds desperately need to take effective action to cope with this situation that other governments aren’t coping with, although (2) I don’t know exactly what actions ought to be taken, but (3) I feel strongly that this particular action is an overreach.” But you went from fretting about part (1) to scolding the government about part (3) without ever acknowledging part (2).
You certainly didn’t sound as though you thought they were ending, back on February 14 before the Act was invoked.
Well, shit, here I was all ready to quote a few other posters in an attempt to explain that another part of this emergency was that the utter failure of the proper authorities to act was that regular citizens were prepared and willing to mobilize themselves to deal with these people, but there you go: He already knew all of that.
What part of the city and provincial governments sitting back while two opposed groups of citizens openly prepare for (almost inevitably) violent confrontations on the streets of a major Canadian city isn’t a major national emergency?
FFS.
“The government will use the act to force towing companies to remove big rigs and other vehicles that are blocking highways and other critical infrastructure, establish zones where public assembly is not allowed, and require banks to suspend or freeze accounts suspected of supporting the blockades, including those belonging to companies whose trucks are part of the convoy.” (From CP24 news).
There are two questions. Is it reasonable to use the Act? And are the legal requirements to invoke the Act met?
If towing companies would not help in Ottawa, I think it was reasonable. There are questions if it met the legal standard of “no other law” I am unqualified to answer, but it passed the House as a non-confidence vote. Economic damage including reputations damage is serious and could be long lasting. The Act’s use should be ended promptly. I thought Trudeau had threatened to use the Act before the Windsor blockade was dispersed and arrested, but am not sure on this point. Windsor might have ended the day before, in which case I was mistaken on this point. Even so, there were other border blockades and other convoys. I do not see the Act as an outrageous overreach. Probably 7 in 10 Canucks would agree.
We can have a serious discussion of when this should end. 30 days may be too long, but “While some of these people are literally still on the streets of Ottawa looking to cause trouble, and others are camped out just outside Ottawa planning to cause trouble” is way too soon.
Because other drunk idiots are still in the bar drinking and talking about how drunk they plan to be while driving home.