> Would you prefer if they ended the blockades through more forceful means, even if that would escalate into violence?
As an outsider looking in on that debacle I have two points to make:
1: What I wanted to be addressed above all was why Canada went so much further than any other country in N. America in response to COVID, and what purpose did it serve when it's biggest trading partner (The US) was also starting to pressure it from it's border restrictions?
2: As a former street demo activist, I can tell you violence doesn't always have to resort to physical altercation; it takes many forms, and those impacts can take just as long if not longer to recover from. Financial censorship is a form of violence, you are depriving people of their own property and personal agency. It compounds further when their way of living is being stripped from them and they are unable to feed themselves or their families, thus causing further discord and strife in Society--be it in bankruptcy or divorce etc...
The vaccine-mandate is just one response to a litany of others that proved to have efficacy in combating COVID; better diets, exercise, sunlight and Vitamin D proved an even bigger boon for people's health and well being and yet those are OPTIONAL even to this day.
My point is why did it even come this? And why are so many proponents of the State being able to ruin the lives of fellow members of their class (non-elite/political class) with such fervor in Canada?
I've personally never understood the plight of Montreal as anything that mattered, most French I've encountered see their dialect as uncouth and their culture entirely divorced from their own; but after all of this I can surmise that it's they have been in a forced marriage with an abusive partner who is prone to take everything it has under the constant threat of violence as a likely POV they must have.
Perhaps not unlike Ukraine, Catalunya or Pais Vasco for a more European example that spans Centuries of needless bloodshed.