Freedom Convoy protests [Split from All things 2019-nCoV]

[Kirkhill]

2001 Quebec protests - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

28th G8 summit - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I am pretty sure that there were multiple national police and security forces at all of these events, without the Emergency Measures Act being employed.

 

[Kirkhill]

Like the Coventry Road Command Center? No thanks.

"If change isn’t allowed to be a process, it becomes an event." - Penny Mordaunt 10/10/2019

You either permit a demonstration to happen and manage it or try to oppose it and count the casualties.

That is the purpose of Speaker's Corner which has been defusing and dissipating anti-government feelings since the 1848 Chartist Petition.

Revolutions brought down governments, and churches, all over Europe. Britain's Establishment survived, despite the same famines that drove the revolutions in Europe occurring in Scotland and Ireland.

 

[rnkelly]

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/when-protest-met-pepper-spray-at-the-1997-apec-conference-1.5358298

Oh man, it was awesome when Nardwuar the human serviette questioned Chrétien on pepper spray. Those were the days…

 

[Kirkhill]

Or Lebreton flats.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Ottawa exists because it wasn't Montreal or Kingston. It was designed to be away from noisy protesters that had demonstrated a willingness to burn politicians and bureaucrats out of their taxpayer funded debating halls.

Ottawa is a centre of governance. Lots of bureaucrats, lawyers and scribes busily clerking away in their warrens. More power to them.

But it is also a centre of debate.

The home of the Supreme Court - where the application of current laws is debated.
The home of the Commons and Senate - where all laws are debated
The home of the Governor-General (and her Council) - to whom every Canadian can lawfully appeal and petition for redress of any and all grievances.

And a grievance does not have to be grounded in reality. But it does have to be addressed.

grievance​

NOUN​

1 A real or imagined cause for complaint, especially unfair treatment.


1.1 An official statement of a complaint over something believed to be wrong or unfair.

1.2 A feeling of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair.


As a Canadian not resident in Ottawa, a place that jealously guards its position as the Nation's Capital and Centre of Governance, and whose denizens cheerfully take full advantage of first crack at all jobs of influence in the warren by rendering it difficult for non-residents to get government positions (see relocation policies for new applicants), I don't feel it is asking too much that provision be made for the rest of Canada to enjoy easy access to our politicians, our bureaucrats and our debating chambers.

Your City Council, and the National Capital Commission might want to take that into account when considering downtown planning.

Do a Haussmann on Ottawa.

Haussmann's renovation of Paris - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[FSTO]

How about we let that kind of action actually go through the courts to determine merit, not just push it through under the EA…

Watson is the last person that we should be listening to at this point. He’s so tone-deaf and blind to his own crappy performance in this whole mess….and other leadership fiascos like the SNC Lavelin-LRT debacle. I can’t wait to see what self-aggrandizing retirement clap-trap he’ll be spouting leading up to the municipal elections…

Edit to add:


Are you fucking kidding, Watson?!?

How about looking in a mirror!!!

The greatest amount of leadership in this whole thing was shown by a 22-year old student, FFS!

Congratulations Watson, you have accomplished what was always thought to be impossible. Becoming more hated in Ottawa then the Senators owner Eugene Melnyk.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Perhaps Ottawa might want to consider creating a designated Demonstration Ground where the OPS can direct and contain protesters while they conduct orderly, if not necessarily lawful, demonstrations. Preferably in sight of Parliament Hill.

IIRC, that concept didn't work all that well during the G8/G20 here in Canada, but maybe it can be better implemented now.

 

[Jarnhamar]

‘Threat still exists’: Emergencies Act to remain as long as required, Bill Blair says

‘Threat still exists’: Emergencies Act to remain as long as required, Bill Blair says - National | Globalnews.ca

In an interview on the West Block, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair says as soon as the job is completed, 'we will end these measures.'

globalnews.ca

It's not like it's permanent, it's just as long as Blair and Trudeau say there's a threat.

 

[Remius]

"If change isn’t allowed to be a process, it becomes an event." - Penny Mordaunt 10/10/2019

You either permit a demonstration to happen and manage it or try to oppose it and count the casualties.

That is the purpose of Speaker's Corner which has been defusing and dissipating anti-government feelings since the 1848 Chartist Petition.

Revolutions brought down governments, and churches, all over Europe. Britain's Establishment survived, despite the same famines that drove the revolutions in Europe occurring in Scotland and Ireland.

Demonstration was allowed and accommodated.

What happened was that the group demonstrating took advantage of that freedom to demonstrate and dug in and changed their posture to unlawful occupation.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Freezing people's accounts without some kind of court order is pretty worrying though, maybe the EA should be amended to have options to call up only sections of it vice the entire thing so it's a lot more transparent what they are doing when they invoke it. Even if that is done via some kind of OIC that's not publicly available then it's there for shaping the 'ROE' of the application, as well as the eventual inquiry.

But that is exactly what the current Emergencies Act does. In the case of a "Public Order Emergency", this is what the EA permits the government to do. Emergencies Act

To invoke the powers of the act required a proclamation which the Governor General issued and was published in the Canada Gazette
Canada Gazette, Part 2, Volume 156, Number 1: Proclamation Declaring a Public Order Emergency

The orders and regulations as per section 19 of the act defining what was thought necessary to deal with the specifics of this public order emergency were promulgated in the Canada Gazette

Canada Gazette, Part 2, Volume 156, Number 1: Emergency Measures Regulations

February 15, 2022, Part 2, Volume 156, Number 1, Canada Gazette

www.gazette.gc.ca

Canada Gazette, Part 2, Volume 156, Number 1: Emergency Economic Measures Order

February 15, 2022, Part 2, Volume 156, Number 1, Canada Gazette

www.gazette.gc.ca

And while the Emergency Measures Regulations (EMR) does include an open-ended description of a protected place as "any other place as designated by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness", it does not appear that such additional designations have been made. It all seems transparent to me.

Is it time to amend the Emergencies Act? Perhaps. It has, after all, been thirty-five years since that piece of legislation was brought in to replace the War Measures Act which had a much more heavy handed approach that didn't really fit the last time the WMA was invoked. I don't take credit for the suggestion since I heard it on a CBC radio discussion (unfortunately I can't remember who the speaker was) but the premise is that it may be time to amend the act to take into account the monumental changes in media, communications and currency (e.g. crypto) that have occurred since the 1980s.

For comparison (of orders of magnitude for opportunity to violate civil rights) I include the Public Order Regulations made under the War Measures Act in 1970 and the later Public Order Temporary Measures Act.

Public Order Regulation, October 1970 - Quebec History

Public Order Temporary Regulations, November 1970 - Quebec History

 

[mariomike]

there was an interaction between a Toronto Police Service officer on a horse and a 49-year-old woman

Toronto ( 27 horses ) and Hamilton ( 5 horses ) are the only mounted ( non-ceremonial ) patrol units in Ontario.

Maybe Ottawa will consider a mounted police patrol unit of its own?

 

[Kilted]

Toronto ( 27 horses ) and Hamilton ( 5 horses ) are the only mounted ( non-ceremonial ) patrol units in Ontario.

Maybe Ottawa will consider a mounted police patrol unit of its own?

After seeing how effective they were, I think that it would be a good idea for many different police forces to look into them.

 

[Kilted]

Toronto ( 27 horses ) and Hamilton ( 5 horses ) are the only mounted ( non-ceremonial ) patrol units in Ontario.

Maybe Ottawa will consider a mounted police patrol unit of its own?

After seeing how effective they were, I think that it would be a good idea for many different police forces to look into them

 

[RangerRay]

A good, chewy article from The Line.

Dispatch from the Front Line: We just don't trust you, Mr. Trudeau

The protest in Ottawa disperses; what now for the Emergencies Act?

theline.substack.com

A good all round article but these two points jumped out at me about how badly most of these protesters were taken advantage of.

The first is, of course, that these guys were way, way too far into their own information ecosystem. Reports from the scene suggest that these protesters sincerely thought that waving a white flag was some magical forcefield of invincibility, or that taping a copy of the bill of rights to your illegally parked truck was a trump card that would leave the cops powerless.

Police marched in three weeks after the protest began and after the protesters received plenty of warning. Anyone who was genuinely shocked to see them make arrests was so far into the far-right's looking glass of bullshit that they really believed that the cops were with them, that the military would revolt, and that the people would support them. We don't say this in mockery. We say this as warning — many of these people have flown right through their frickin' fail-safe points, folks. We need to understand just how detached from reality they are, because that is a major complicating factor.

The second point, as Line editor Gerson noted so aptly in our weekly video, is that on top of whatever toll misinformation has taken, it's also clear these protesters were neither politically sophisticated, nor experienced activists. These people have clearly never spent any time around a homeless encampment scheduled for clearing out nor an Idle No More rally that wore out its welcome. Again, the police tactics being used this weekend are pretty measured and controlled, but protesters seemed honestly shocked to be confronted by ... disciplined and measured crowd-control tactics after fair warning to disperse had been given.

A lot of people have been drinking their own bath water and are susceptible to pseudo-legal, possibly FOTL inspired, BS and other propaganda swirling in their social media feeds. This is not good. I fear our leadership is ill equipped to deal with this adequately.

 

[Remius]

It used to and did away with it.

Toronto ( 27 horses ) and Hamilton ( 5 horses ) are the only mounted ( non-ceremonial ) patrol units in Ontario.

Maybe Ottawa will consider a mounted police patrol unit of its own?

 

[Blackadder1916]

Toronto ( 27 horses ) and Hamilton ( 5 horses ) are the only mounted ( non-ceremonial ) patrol units in Ontario.

Maybe Ottawa will consider a mounted police patrol unit of its own?

Or why doesn't the RCMP? After all, the stables for the Musical Ride are in Ottawa. If they want the guidon of light cavalry, they should be able to advance with lances. That would scatter a crowd.

 

[Remius]

A good, chewy article from The Line.

Dispatch from the Front Line: We just don't trust you, Mr. Trudeau

The protest in Ottawa disperses; what now for the Emergencies Act?

theline.substack.com

A good all round article but these two points jumped out at me about how badly most of these protesters were taken advantage of.




A lot of people have been drinking their own bath water and are susceptible to pseudo-legal, possibly FOTL inspired, BS and other propaganda swirling in their social media feeds. This is not good. I fear our leadership is ill equipped to deal with this adequately.

It’s called radicalisation. This is what is happening.

 

[The Bread Guy]

It’s called radicalisation. This is what is happening.

People feeling they're being f***ked over, not being heard, being called all sorts of nasty things (even though some say "it's just words"), painted by some as the enemy (or, at the very least, nowhere NEAR as f***ked over as they say they are) ...

Yeah, a lot of situations like this would lead people to become radicalized.

 

[Kirkhill]

After seeing how effective they were, I think that it would be a good idea for many different police forces to look into them

Aye! They've ay been effective.

Peterloo: 100 years after the massacre - archive, August 1919

How Guardian writers explored the legacy of Peterloo, a century after the day government forces charged a crowd protesting for parliamentary reform, killing 18 and injuring more than 600

www.theguardian.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Do we have to relive history? Or could we perhaps spend more time teaching our kids how we got here?

 

[PPCLI Guy]

Toronto ( 27 horses ) and Hamilton ( 5 horses ) are the only mounted ( non-ceremonial ) patrol units in Ontario.

Maybe Ottawa will consider a mounted police patrol unit of its own?

That is an expensive capability. As the the partner of an owner of a horse of no special pedigree, I can assure you that they very efficiently turn (a lot of) money into (a lot of) manure.