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

[Weinie]

The convoy was just a big tantrum. It stopped having anything meaningful to do with working truckers by the time it even entered Ontario; it was just a big collection of incoherent grievances. Sloly didn’t have the will to immediately act to clear it out; once he was turfed, his successor did. When it finally came time to clear them out and open up downtown again, they went with all the grace and dignity of a toddler sweeping things off the shelf as his mom carries him screaming out of the grocery store. The convoy achieved nothing save to spur some long overdue regulation of crowd funding platforms, and to land a bunch of people with minor criminal records that will screw with their plans to take the kids to Disneyland. None of the service or retail workers whose jobs downtown were shuttered for weeks because of these idiots were sad to see them go.

The sad and disturbing thing is that even right up to the very end, a bunch of them thought they would convince police to turn around, join them, and March to Parliament Hill and toss out the current government (notwithstanding that it was a weekend). That’s what a whole lot of them wanted. We know this because they said it loudly and repeatedly.

Sorry kids. You can wait til the next election and try it the lawful way.

So, deplorables?

 

[Edward Campbell]

What are you on about? Nothing happened at the big BLM protest in Ottawa for police to get particularly worked up about. A few thousand people marched down to the US embassy, yelled for a while, a couple bottles were thrown at cops but that was it, and then they went up to Parliament and the PM literally went into the middle of the crowd. I can only guess you’re talking about the handful who, on a totally separate occasion, occupied the intersection at Nicholas and Laurier and were forcibly cleared out. It pissed some people off but was completely lawful and justified to remove them from the intersection,

The convoy protesters were removed from downtown Ottawa because for weeks they had blocked up part of the downtown core, forced to closure of many businesses and shuttered many people’s livelihoods, and had been warned for days that their occupation had long since crossed the line into being criminal.

It’s not rocket surgery. You don’t get to blockade a downtown core and harass thousands of residents for weeks and expect to get away with it endlessly. They were tolerated far longer than they ought to have been. You want to hold marches, clog up streets for an hour or two, be loud and annoying and wave signs, have at ‘er. But weeks is ridiculous. Fortunately the protesters ultimately chose to mostly leave, and to put up modest enough resistance that the use of force by police was kept quite minimal. Had they made different choices there would have been different paths to the same end result.

I've told this story before, but: on the day of the big BLM protest I walked, as is my custom, to the National War Memorial (and beyond). I stopped to pay my respects. There were two young, black men wearing yellow vests there. "It's a special place," one said to me. I agreed and asked him if he was pat of the protest. He told me that he was part of the "organizing committee"and he and his colleague were assigned to the National War Memorial, "just in case," to ensure that no one associated with the BLM march might be accused of doing something stupid.

Contrast that with the "truckers" and a few others in recent months.

 

[QV]

Oh well then… I guess those blue collar workers who have probably never protested before didn’t have all the plans and PR in place Ike the professional protesters do.

 

[Remius]

Oh well then… I guess those blue collar workers who have probably never protested before didn’t have all the plans and PR in place Ike the professional protesters do.

No need for professional PR plans to not be Dancing and pissing on a monument and using it as a political prop. You just have to not be an a-hole.

 

[Remius]

I am going off the meeting I watched that is not public in its entirety now. The one where she acted improperly trying to force the Police Chief to ask for the Military to assist him to gain order from the terrorist that invaded her city.
A couple days later he resigned.
They hired a new Chief who stepped down a couple of days later.
No matter what other politics were going on, she messed up by trying to directly influence the Police Chief to escalate force on the protesters. After he had things under control. She was directly responsible for reneging on the meeting locations for the safe protests.
You can have your opinions on all the other influences as to her leaving the Police Committee. She was forced out because she acted inappropriately for her position and role. She acknowledged it in the meeting, but tried to cover her butt for it.

End of the day she did wrong, she over stepped her boundaries and tried to directly influence the Police Chief, during a major situation. Which is a over reach in the committees role and purpose.

Your going off a false narrative and things that did not happen. She was not forced out for the reasons you think. You keep making statements that you say are facts when they are not.

You are out west right? Not in Ottawa? People here have given you the actual reasons she was forced (long-standing political issues and disagreements that came to a head) out and why Sloly, who did not have the confidence of his own force resigned as well.

The police chief had lost control. Nothing was under control. Citizens were about to take things Into their own hands and his own incident commanders had lost faith in his leadership.

 

[brihard]

So, deplorables?

I’m more concerned with the actions and behaviour they exhibited and less with whatever politically loaded label someone might want to attach.

“Your cars and trucks are blocking city streets. It’s a crime. Move them or we will.”

“No”.

Everything else beyond that was just details.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Throughout the whole 247 pages of this thread, nobody has acknowledge the anger and sense of futility that fueled this goat rodeo in the first place. Lots of "right bad, left good" and left bad, right good" , but nobody gives a flying fuck about the underlying frustration. Keep sniping at each other, it's a great distraction.

Are you running for office by chance? This is the smartest thing anyone has said over the past 247 pages.

It's one of the only posts that doesn't make me feel like I've lost a significant amount of brain cells after I've read it.

WELL DONE!

Your going off a false narrative and things that did not happen. She was not forced out for the reasons you think. You keep making statements that you say are facts when they are not.

You are out west right? Not in Ottawa? People here have given you the actual reasons she was forced (long-standing political issues and disagreements that came to a head) out and why Sloly, who did not have the confidence of his own force resigned as well.

The police chief had lost control. Nothing was under control. Citizens were about to take things Into their own hands and his own incident commanders had lost faith in his leadership.

There are a lot of false narratives floating around out there, I don't think either side has a monopoly on false narratives.

 

[OldSolduer]

Are you running for office by chance? This is the smartest thing anyone has said over the past 247 pages.

It's one of the only posts that doesn't make me feel like I've lost a significant amount of brain cells after I've read it.

WELL DONE!


There are a lot of false narratives floating around out there, I don't think either side has a monopoly on false narratives.

I fully agree. There is a lot of frustration out west. And the GoC is either tone deaf or could care less.

 

[brihard]

Indeed. And it’s not like this website has been silent of analysis of the underlying criticism and grievance that led to this movement, or discussion of the merits of things brought up by those unhappy with the government. It just tends to take place in other threads like the ‘Liberal Government’ mega thread. The existence of alienation and grievances, and their underlying causes, have been spoken of at length. Just not so much here in the thread that focused more narrowly on the nitty gritty of the actual goings on in Ottawa, Windsor, and Coutts.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I fully agree. There is a lot of frustration out west. And the GoC is either tone deaf or could care less.

The actual hatred for our current PM and the current Govt is palpable out here.

I look at the recent reception Dep PM Freeland got and the shock from those in Upper Canada and Ottawa.

I think a substantial portion of the population out West would give Dep PM Freeland the same reception regardless of where she was.

I'm seeing a lot of parallels between the current Fed LIBS and the former Wynne Govt in Ontario. Given the current economic trend of the Country along with a bunch of other issues that are beginning to converge, I think the current Govt is potentially on the road to a pretty big ejection.

As a Millenial, I don't know anyone my age that actually likes Team Trudeau.

 

[OldSolduer]

As a Millenial, I don't know anyone my age that actually likes Team Trudeau.

I am a boomer and the behavior of this GoC disgusts me. JT reminds me more of a Joe Stalin and his gang of thugs with the various schemes they have going on.

The latest being the demand that the agri sector reduce the fertilizer use by 30% by 2030 or 2035 and no consultation with the agri community.

 

[childs56]

Your going off a false narrative and things that did not happen. She was not forced out for the reasons you think. You keep making statements that you say are facts when they are not.

You are out west right? Not in Ottawa? People here have given you the actual reasons she was forced (long-standing political issues and disagreements that came to a head) out and why Sloly, who did not have the confidence of his own force resigned as well.

The police chief had lost control. Nothing was under control. Citizens were about to take things Into their own hands and his own incident commanders had lost faith in his leadership.

Funny because the official reports and investigations disagree with this opinion.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I am a boomer and the behavior of this GoC disgusts me. JT reminds me more of a Joe Stalin and his gang of thugs with the various schemes they have going on.

The latest being the demand that the agri sector reduce the fertilizer use by 30% by 2030 or 2035 and no consultation with the agri community.

Yet another example of good politics not equaling good policy

I personally think many of the policies the current GoC is implementing have an alterior motive of consolidating power in Ottawa and making the average Canadian more reliant on Big Government.

 

[Remius]

Funny because the official reports and investigations disagree with this opinion.

Please post them then. The official reports that state that Deans was removed because she was pushing an escalation.

I’ve already posted several links and articles to support what I’ve said.

If you want to know more about the city’s politics this article and podcast covers a lot of it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-city-hall-council-mayor-election-2022-1.6574640

 

[brihard]

Funny because the official reports and investigations disagree with this opinion.

Which “official resports” and “which investigation” disagrees with what specific parts of that opinion? The police definitely did not have the matter ‘under control’, as evidence by the utter jamming up of several blocks of downtown and the inability to get it cleared out without massive use of public order units. Sloly had most certainly lost the confidence of his troops. Citizen pushback was starting to happen (see: Billings Bridge), and there was beginning to be vandalism against convoy vehicles downtown. It was increasingly a powder keg, and the citizens of Ottawa had largely lost confidence in not just the ability but also the willingness of their police to restore order. That still hasn’t really recovered to this day.

The situation was out of hand within the first day or two; Ottawa police should never have let those vehicles all get parked the way they were, and failing that, should have moved in force at first light on the Monday or Tuesday after the first weekend. Instead, the protesters got entrenched and emboldened, and it became three weeks of failure to maintain public order before it was restored. That, to the detriment of thousands of Ottawa residents trying to live and work in the downtown core.

That was not a situation that OPS “had under control”.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Protests are great, as long as they don't inconvenience anyone.

 

[dapaterson]

TBH, citizens of Ottawa have suffered from eroding trust in OPS for years. Provincial legislation permitting officers to quit the day before an adverse finding / punishment in disciplinary matters make it worse; but with police credibly accused of taking bribes, assault, sexual assault, planting weapon, theft of cash from investigation scenes...

 

[OldSolduer]

Yet another example of good politics not equaling good policy

I personally think many of the policies the current GoC is implementing have an alterior motive of consolidating power in Ottawa and making the average Canadian more reliant on Big Government.

There is only one PM who was hated as much as JT. Three guesses who it was - it wasn't Chretien or Martin. Harper was hated but not like this one.

It doesn't help that his ministers are incompetent boobs and that anyone that stands up to him gets fired.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Protests are great, as long as they don't inconvenience anyone.

The protests did have an effect on removing mandates, whether anyone here wants to admit it or not is another thing entirely.

I too am capable of keeping my head firmly buried in the sand

 

[dimsum]

Harper was hated but not like this one.

Being in BC at the time, I'd respectfully disagree.