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Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

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Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#651

Post by eloisius »

thepasswordis wrote: post #513

There are too many people making making similar comments to reply to all of them, so I'm going to make a top level response to all of them. The truckers are NOT protesting against the vaccine itself, and if you believe that they are, I would highly encourage you to find different sources for news. The truckers are protesting the idea that the government can force them to take the vaccine against their will. I would h…

I'm vaccinated, and I think almost everyone should take a vaccine. I don't sympathize with the protesters' beliefs, or even their methods. But, I am terrified by the glee that some people seem to express in the government using unlimited power to shut these protests down. I keep seeing variations of

- These aren't peaceful protests, they're an occupation by a fringe group

- You're allowed to protest, but not have an impact on the economy

- You're allowed to protest, but not block critical infrastructure

- An as of yet unattributed violent act was committed during the midst of the protests, therefore they are not peaceful protests, they are violent extremists

I sympathize with people living in Ottawa, it must be loud, frightening, and angering to be occupied by an unruly protest. I don't want to make a comparison to other protest movements of recent memory and how they were handled. Demonstrations are always unpleasant and inconvenient for bystanders, that's almost the entire point.

Do we want demonstrations contained by free speech zones as were so controversial during the 2000s? If we can freeze bank accounts of demonstrators participating in protests that are deemed illegal, what else can we do? Should the government force Apple and Google to lock people out of their phones because they are using them to coordinate illegal protests? Lock them out of email and social media? Ban businesses in general from serving them? I don't believe the government would go that far, but how far do we want them to go? Freezing bank accounts is too far for me.

Try to remember that the government rarely yields back powers we give them, but they do change hands. What we see here today will be used against movements you support. Maybe next year.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#652

Post by Tiktaalik »

ff317 wrote: post #230
colechristensen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't look like , it is authoritarian response to something which should be protected. Using government power intended for things like war to suppress a protest is ridiculous, if this is what being "liberal" is about, I'm out. I hope the response is a protest escalation. Not my country, not my protest, but I know who I'm rooting for. Contrast this to what was happening in Minneapolis a couple of summers ago... p…

Serious question though, which applies to both the Canadian truckers case and the Minneapolis example above - does a right to protest an issue also include a right to inflict economic harm (on broader society, in poorly-targeted fashion) in order to raise awareness? Is the amount of economic harm (say, %GDP of the town, region, or country) or how broadly it's targeted ("random retail stores"? "Anything that relies on…

This is the irony here in that in the situations recently where environmentalists and indigenous protestors halted pipeline construction the Conservatives in parliament railed against these actions, citing economic harms.

Now with these protests, causing even more incredibly severe economic harms they've demurred from criticizing the protestors.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#653

Post by themaninthedark »

jdright wrote: post #478
themaninthedark wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign (IE not from canada) and that most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners, not workers Others have addressed the fact that more than half the funds are from Canada. Imagine if someone tried to discredit BLM by saying that most of the funding came from wealthy business and not individual black community members...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wpax/freedom-convoy-givese... > the majority of donors come from the U.S. (56%) and Canada (29%)

and from the linked NYT article: >A review of the data shows that some $4.3 million came from Canada, while an additional $3.6 million originated in the United States, though the United States accounted for the most individual donations. Small donations from dozens of other countries made up a fraction of the total amount raised.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/world/canada/canada-truck...

Phrasing it as the majority of the donors are foreign to drive a narrative that Canadians don't care about this issue when they are putting their money and their time on the line is absurd.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#654

Post by JamisonM »

slibhb wrote: post #158
Jackim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an exaggerated headline. Accounts being used to fund illegal activities can be frozen. Protesting is not and will not be illegal. Blocking critical infrastructure is illegal.

We have a word for "blocking infrastructure" as a form of protest: civil disobedience. I'm sympathetic to (some) of the aims of the protesters but I think they've made their point and should go home. Still, this move by Trudeau seems like an overreaction considering there's been little/no violence.

Civil disobedience as I support it is a non-violent action. A lot of people cite these protestors as "non-violent" but there have been many incidences of protestors attacking or intimidating residents as well as intimidating the police to resist enforcement actions so I don't regard the current occupation in Ottawa as meeting that threshold.

I think that anyone following closely would have to concede that police conduct and the lack of enforcement is a product of the threat of violence, but I certainly concede that it might be the case that immediate enforcement /might/ result in nonviolent resolution - it just seems very unlikely.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#655

Post by moistly »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #303
Jackim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an exaggerated headline. Accounts being used to fund illegal activities can be frozen. Protesting is not and will not be illegal. Blocking critical infrastructure is illegal.

Trudeau is calling the whole protest illegal. Last week they arrested an old man for merely honking his horn to show support. So, anyone attending a protest is joining an illegal activity...and can have their accounts frozen. There's no guarantee of due process in Canada's constitution?

Arrested for refusing to identify himself. He had been blowing the horn in a residential area for quite a long time. Cops came by to tell him to knock it off, he refused to cooperate with them.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#656

Post by Daishiman »

trhway wrote: post #235
Daishiman wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally everything that you say is wrong. Vaccines work, they work extremely well. You are literally making it up. Restrictions have come and gone across the world as case numbers and hospital capacity go up and down. Most European countries have plans to drop mandates or are in the process as case numbers go down. This logic is repeating pretty much everywhere. Your post is a textbook example of a slippery slope f…

>Vaccines work, they work extremely well. You are literally making it up. If it so then why there have been so many breakthrough infections ? (30-40% of the new infections for delta at the 60-70% vaccination rate and 80% for omicron at 80% vaccination rate, and that is as reported which is given lighter symptoms means severe undercounting) While the vaccines failure to control the infectious spread has been obvious f…

Vaccines cut down the hospitalization and death rate 20 to 60-fold. They reduce transmission by a substantial amount. That means they work. Why are you nitpicking and purposely ignoring the titanic scientific achievement of developing cheap vaccines, deployed by the billions in the span of a year, that literally avoided tens of millions of deaths?

It's clear you're not here to make good-faith arguments.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#657

Post by abstract_put »

yonaguska wrote: post #582
SECProto wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trudeau is calling the whole protest illegal. The whole protest has been illegal from the start (violating the highway traffic act) > Last week they arrested an old man for merely honking his horn to show support. Source? Either way, yes, there was an injunction granted specifically against honking horns. > So, anyone attending a protest is joining an illegal activity...and can have their accounts frozen. No, anyon…

https://youtu.be/Ea-7RKpRNIk Man arrested for honking

It looks like the old man was stopped for honking. Not sure on the timing of everything, there was an injunction granted against honking downtown Ottawa.

He appears to have been arrested for refusing to identify himself when stopped (it looks like he was intending to, then emboldened by the cameraman opted not to). That's bog standard highway traffic act stuff - if you're stopped driving, you have to show your license, registration and proof of insurance if asked.

To say "arrested for honking" feels misleading - it seems reasonable to suggest that if he followed standard Highway Traffic Act stuff he would have been on his way with a warning/ticket/whatever is done presently to stop the honking, doesn't it? I'm open to have misunderstood, I'm not even qualified to be an armchair lawyer.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#658

Post by klyrs »

gwicks56 wrote: post #492
Jackim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an exaggerated headline. Accounts being used to fund illegal activities can be frozen. Protesting is not and will not be illegal. Blocking critical infrastructure is illegal.

I'm sure Trump could have come up with reason BLM protesters were doing something illegal, and needed to shut down their bank accounts.

BLM protests happened in a completely different legal jurisdiction. Trump couldn't invoke the Emergencies Act, because that's a Canadian law.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#659

Post by Tiktaalik »

airmailspecial wrote: post #424
armagon wrote: post #332

> 5:05 p.m. > Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has invoked the Emergencies Act as a “last resort” to bolster the police response to convoy demonstrators and to “bring the situation fully under control.” I really feel like there were a number of "resorts" that could've been taken before this "last" one. Engaging in dialogue with the truckers and not inflaming the situation by calling the truckers names are at the…

> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he has invoked the Emergencies Act as a “last resort” to bolster the police response to convoy demonstrators and to “bring the situation fully under control.” What was the "first resort"? Trudeau isn't even willing to speak with the protesters. >There is still no indication Trudeau is willing to sit down or speak to convoy participants. He said he doesn’t regret describing those t…

It's a last resort that Trudeau and the Federal Government even needs to be involved in the first place. It's wild that we're at this point.

The first resorts are the issue being dealt with by local police. The fact that local police couldn't resolve this, and neither could reinforcements from the Ontario Provincial Police is very troubling tbh. It really should never get to this point.

At the end of this there needs to be an inquiry as to why the police were unable to get a grip on the situation.

Re: Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act

#660

Post by JamisonM »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #112
Jackim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an exaggerated headline. Accounts being used to fund illegal activities can be frozen. Protesting is not and will not be illegal. Blocking critical infrastructure is illegal.

Locking bank accounts at all WITHOUT A TRIAL, seems dystopian. That's a lot of power for the state to have to be able to reach into some ones bank accounts with no due process. Edit: changed AT ALL to without a trial because on second thought resized it's possible that there are some legit uses for freezing bank accounts.

Locking bank accounts without a trial happens every single day in every democracy in the world. Any legal process where money is suspected of being dirty but is allowed to flow freely through the banking system until the conclusion of a trial would be completely useless - I believe this is fairly obvious if you think about it.

Due process should be quicker, I wish more people would vote based on making the courts more responsive, but unfortunately no one does.

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