Now that the public hearings mandated by law after use of the federal Emergencies Act are under way, we are reminded that Canadian support for the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters early this year was an inch wide and an inch deep.
Well, here in Alberta, supposedly a hotbed of support for the Convoy and certainly home to numerous Conservative politicians who were openly rooting for the insurrectionists behind the occupation of Ottawa and various border blockades, support might have been a few inches wide, but no way was it anywhere near the proverbial mile.*
Research commissioned by the Public Order Emergency Commission led by Judge Paul S. Rouleau of the Ontario Court of Appeal shows just how tepid support for the Convoy protesters and their goals was here in Alberta.
The paper by University of Alberta political science professor Jared Wesley – Alberta Separatism and the Freedom Convoy: A New Brand of Western Alienation – says that public opinion research done in April 2022 for Dr. Wesley indicated only 18 per cent of Albertans said they felt positive emotions about the Convoy protests.
That compared to 40 per cent who felt anger, anxiety, frustration and other negative emotions.
The survey of the views of more than 2,000 Albertans found that 48 per cent of Albertans “strongly opposed this protest and how it was done,” and another 15 per cent were somewhat opposed – so, 63 per cent opposition overall.
“Sizeable majorities of Albertans felt the Freedom Convoy took its protest too far,” the paper also says, and 47 per cent of Albertans answered that the Trudeau government did the right thing by invoking the Emergencies Act.
By contrast, indicators of support for the Convoyers’ activities were low – 2 per cent indicated they donated money, and pro-and con dinner table discussions, by the sound of it, were about 30 per cent opposed to half that in favour, although one imagines some of the pro voices were pretty shouty.
The survey indicated most Albertans opposed the occupation of downtown Ottawa, the blockades at the border, and anti-mask protests in Calgary and Edmonton, the paper says.
“All three protests were less popular than the Wet’suwet’en, Black Lives Matter, and pro-Ukraine movements,” the survey indicated.
It also showed 47 per cent of respondents thought the Convoy protests revealed weaknesses in Canadian democracy, 55 per cent thought they made Canadians’ lives worse, 57 per cent thought the protesters did not deserve sympathy, 58 per cent thought the Convoy was a failure, and 59 per cent said the protests made them less proud to be Canadian.
There’s also some interesting if unsurprising stuff about just who Alberta separatists tend to be: white, male, over 55, and having spent all or most of their lives in Alberta.
Dr. Wesley’s helpful CBC commentary yesterday on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s use of the “populist playbook” no doubt contains some insights gleaned researching the support for the Convoy blockades.
Meanwhile , on the first day of hearings in Ottawa, a lawyer for the government of Alberta said of the blockade at the Coutts border crossing that “none of the powers that were created under the federal Emergencies Act were necessary, nor were any of them used.”
This echoed statements made by then premier Jason Kenney last February, when he claimed “the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act is an unnecessary and disproportionate measure that can violate civil liberties, invades provincial jurisdiction and creates a very dangerous precedent for the future.”
This was odd since the Kenney government sat on its duff for two weeks while the border was blocked at Coutts at a cost of close to $50 million a day to the provincial economy, but the RCMP acting as provincial police didn’t begin to move seriously against the blockaders until Feb. 14, the day the Emergencies Act was invoked.
As I wrote at the time, “on the strength of timing alone, one could make a weak case the Alberta authorities acted first, but the premier’s conduct throughout the siege was that of a man terrified into inaction for fear of offending an extremist group with many friends in his United Conservative Party’s base.”
Moreover, it turned out that on Feb. 5 Mr. Kenney’s municipal affairs minister had written to the federal ministers of public safety and emergency preparedness to plead for federal help clearing the mess at Coutts.
“I am requesting federal assistance that includes the provision of equipment and personnel to move approximately 70 semi-tractor trailers and approximately 75 personal and recreational vehicles from the area,” said Ric McIver in his letter to federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair.
Given that, Alberta’s opposition to the invocation of the act then and now, is to put it kindly, counterintuitive.
Socialism for the Czar, feudalism for the rest of us!
Will Premier Danielle Smith have to issue a clarification today of her clarification yesterday about statements she made about Ukraine on a social media application last April?
Reprints of Ms. Smith’s comments in April, to the effect that Ukraine would be better off if it declared neutrality, caused a huge brouhaha on social media, where they were interpreted as an endorsement of Russian propaganda and war aims.
In a clarification statement on the war in Ukraine issued by the Premier’s Office yesterday, Ms. Smith accused the NDP Opposition of attempting to inappropriately politicize the Russian invasion of Ukraine and argued the best way to achieve peace is with “measured diplomacy, not virtue signalling.”
Alas, her statement also said “my Ukrainian great grandfather, Philipis Kolodnycky, fled communism and immigrated to Canada after WW1, where he changed his name to Smith.”
Social media genealogists were quick to argue that documents show Ms. Smith’s great grandfather came to Canada between 1913 and 1915, when Czar Nicolas II was still on the throne.
So, perhaps a clarification of some sort will be required again.
Ms. Smith issued her first clarification on Oct. 13 for comments she made shortly after she was sworn in on Oct. 11, in which she said Alberta’s vaccine refuseniks were “the most discriminated against group that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.”
“I want to be clear that I did not intend to trivialize in any way the discrimination faced by minority communities and other persecuted groups both here in Canada and around the world or to create any false equivalencies,” she clarified in her Oct. 13 clarification.
“UPDATE | Danielle Smith to host daily 11am “Clarification Briefings” to shed light on previous remarks,” quipped one Internet wag yesterday.
*For younger readers brought up post-metrification, a mile is the equivalent of 1.6 kilometres.
NOTE TO READERS: Premier Smith issued her Oct. 13 statement to clarify remarks she made on Oct. 11, shortly after her first news conference. Incorrect information appeared in an earlier version of this story. Publication of this blog may be a little less frequent than usual this week due to meetings that must be attended and the possible need for edits to an upcoming book project.
It’s a never ending saga of foolishness and stupidity with the UCP. These convoy protesters made life miserable for so many, and cost a lot of money, from policing and other costs. The former head honcho of the UCP, the CPC leader, Pierre Poliveire, and Danielle Smith enabled them, and/or supported them. Danielle Smith still can’t stop putting her hoof in her mouth. She angers so many. Her time as premier of Alberta will be very short, at the rate she keeps going.
(Primly:) Her “hoof?” Please, Anonymous, don’t compare Danielle Smith to a horse. I happen to LIKE horses!
So, your point is that a protest must be popular? And if not, it justifies the use of the emergencies act? Interesting… What other things can we ban from Alberta because they aren’t populist- sorry, popular.
Supporter: The point about the popularity of what you term a protest is that it was not widely supported, as conservative media (which is pretty well all of it) implied throughout the period citizens were being harassed and assaulted, attempts were being made to overthrow our democratically elected government and economic sabotage was being carried out. One would think this is useful information for Canadians to know. Use of the Emergencies Act was clearly justified. DJC
Yah, sometimes I read!.. Your man there, “Convoy Supporter” should try it! Here’s a little ditty about a deranged plutocrat convoying a few hundred thousand of the citizens he still controls to their deaths! All the while, killing tens of thousands more he deems unworthy to care for, in his quest for dominion! https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/10/17/fiona-hill-putin-war-00061894
Wacky stuff in that little gem from Politico. An American political insider referring to ol’ Pooty-Poot’s real nature as a threat to that super-fresh awesome post-WW2 World Order that gave us the US destruction of North Korea (20% of population dead from US bombing according to Curtis Lemay, the guy in charger), the US destruction of Vietnam (3 million dead, countryside poisoned with Agent Orange), the US destruction of 1 million or so Indonesians (first super awesome use of Moslem fanatics working with bona fide fascist militarists), the US shennigans in Biafra to kill off, oh, I don’t know, a whole bunch … That doesn’t quite bring us up to 1980 when the Americans really cut loose with the destruction of Africa, and we really don’t have the space to get into stuff like Operation Condor in Latin America, although the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, or the School of the Americas Goodtime Gang are always worth a look.
I find Progs so funny now, with their fretting about the scary guns in Canada while they fall all over themselves in support of the Rand Corporation scheme to arm the unfortunate Ukrainians to the teeth, just so that they can be turned into taco meat under Russian ordinance. Let’s overthrow Iran in the name of women, never mind their relationship to Pooty-Poot and the late blooming Geraniums on the territory of the failed Ukrainian CIA project. More freedoms for Iranian women, more Light Armoured Vehicles for Saudi women. Oh, the wacky ol’ progs!
No, the points is that the claims freedumb convoyers keep making stating that they have the support of the people are wildly inaccurate. You don’t. You never did.
The point is that alt-right media and supporters like you lied about how much the public backed the anti-vaxx tantrums. Based on Alberta’s reaction, logic is not a strong point of your “movement”.
During that time I offered the information that the number of Canadian licenced trucks and licenced truck drivers compared to the number in Ottawa meant that only a tiny fraction of a percent of truckers were involved.
I believe it was perfectly engineered by current and former police and military strategists to target all known weakness in our systems.
Prevent the use of areas and transport with tons of interlocked steel that is by nature an incendiary device ready to be torched, jam and misdirect 911 resources to do this , hide behind children and women , utter death threats and have security have no idea what the trucks may carry for ordinance.
Use sound to wage psychological warfare.
And carry the flag to overthrow the government of the same flag . This is not freedom or patriotism . This was a classical false flag operation by seditionists to cause an insurrection.
And I have read that over 60 different “on domestic terrorist watch list” organizations were in attendance.
Every piece of steel should have been confiscated and sold and every participant should be charged, fined and forever treated like the treasonous criminals that they were.
I think that it even now they should bare the charge for the portion (costs and damage) of that operation. And yes you lose your truck as it was used in the commission of a crime.
lungta white, male, over 55, 68 of 72 in Alberta, non separatist.
Agree with most points, would say the collaboration of current/former Police-trained Canadians was far from ‘perfect’ though. Was certainly alarmed that someone who used to be JTs bodyguard was part of this mob though – you gotta think there’s a story there. Whoof. I don’t know the process, but I’m pretty sure PM bodyguards are very extensively vetted. To my knowledge, this is very unusual.
I would like a full forensic of all involved Police departments. I want to know all orders given, who they were given by, when they were given, and whether they were obeyed. I want the minutes from the meetings where they decide what orders they will give, and the meetings from when they met with elected officials. If the Police had done their jobs, the Emergency Measures act would not have been required. In my opinion, Canada’s Police, as an institution, supported this insurrection (when you have a badge and a gun and you choose not to use them against certain people, you are directly supporting them).
I want the same from CSIS, and furthermore, I want to know what specific measures they are taking to combat homegrown white supremacist terrorism. Obviously I’m not gonna get those things, but I want changes at CSIS, which I view as also having failed.
I want the same and more for Provincial government. Clear as day even from distance that Ford (lazily) and Kenney (greasily) tried to nurture and exploit this crisis in the hopes of damaging JT, which is crazy to me. It’s not like the guy’s a political wizard and you need to play dirty to get rid of him. You don’t need to hang Justin, you can just give him rope and keep your hands clean. smh
The issue was never WHAT convoy participants were protesting, it was HOW they were doing it. Camping in city streets and blocking international border trade for weeks on end is never an acceptable means of protest, especially when it includes intentional harassment of residents. You’ll notice that the various “Saturday protests” in favour of the convoy were allowed to continue in cities across the country because those generally did not last longer than a weekend.
Ask yourself: Would it be justified if climate protesters blocked Edmonton streets for weeks on end and prevented the movement of critical trade in an out of the province? Would it be ok for them to blast truck horns all month long in front of your house? If this is legitimized as a form of protest, then expect every special interest group to use these tactics until their demands are met.
FWIW, I don’t think being a supporter of the “protest” convoy automatically makes you a bad person… but I do find it strongly indicative. I try to believe that people who proudly choose to publicly flaunt their absurd, easily falsifiable, obviously antisocial beliefs do so because their profound political ignorance is being exploited for profit by a bunch of completely legal far-right propaganda machines.
I was really glad to read this article. It reminded me that during the 10 years I lived in Edmonton, the Albertans I met who were decent, likeable people vastly outnumbered the heavily armed, self-righteous, deliberately misinformed, definitely-not-white-supremacists. The rest of Canada needs to be reminded of that Alberta isn’t a ramshackle collection of hateful hovels – there is a real danger that Canadians are, in real time, coming to see Albertans as unflatteringly as they ever did the Quebecois.
Certainly not. However when the protest group fuffs themselves up as champions of the downtrodden majority while, in fact, are recognized by the majority of Albertans, all bets are off. Let the mocking be unconfined!
I do not understand why there was , and is, so much support for the Freedom Convoy by federal Conservative MP’s.
Canada’s elections are usually decided by the 116 urban ridings in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The CPC holds 8 of those ridings. Not even one in the GTA. The Liberals hold 86.
Really, how do you think any of those urban voters feel about the Freedom Convoy????Many saw the reports night after night and were thankful that it was not their city under seige.
The bottom line is that most had no issue with Emergency Act if it ended the nonsense. IMHO, this is a dead issue no matter the outcome. Voters have moved on to other issues….inflation, health care, child care, etc.
Only the few permanently angry and disassociated few remain focused on either the covid mandatory situation or the Freedom Convoy. Certainly it will play big in some rural areas which is what Smith is counting on. And she many be right in this seemingly backwater part of Canada in which I live.
But Alberta, and Canada, is made of more than hillbillies, those who are angry at the world, and those who are lonely and looking to join a cause…any cause. There are many smart, common sense people who can see through the fog of BS than some politicians like to launch.
Maybe the CPC thinks “Wow, these angry mostly-old-white-guys are really loud, therefore, there must be lots of them.” Then when their pollsters try to tell them otherwise they replace them with pollsters who tell them what they want to hear.
Brett, I figure Pierre Poilievre is trolling for voters in the only place still open to him—Max Bernier’s People’s Party. Maybe some of Max’s road warriors* are disappointed they didn’t get one single seat in the last election. They might be willing to try PP’s New & Improved Con Party for a chance to actually get some bums into Parliament seats next time.
*I was going to write “Mad Max’s road warriors,” but that’s just a bad pun.
I think the smarter protesters eventually figured out that making a lot of noise and tying up traffic for days was not the best way to win more public support. This is probably partly why the protests eventually diminished in Edmonton and Calgary.
Of course this was after the Emergency Act came into effect, which seemed to be a turning point, despite the revisionist history being peddled. I think the threat of having their funding caught their attention like nothing else prior did. The border blockades were causing shortages and disruptions, but the announcement to implement the Emergencies Act seemed to quickly lead to them ending.
Everyone is playing Monday morning quarter back now, but no one can say what other legislation would have resolved this situation. Of course there is no evidence doing nothing would have worked. It is hypothetical conjecture.
Even if the Emergencies Act was overkill, it was the only tool readily available. We’ve had quite enough of these pretend law and order Conservatives continuing to cause mischief. They need to smarten up.
Dave, I suspect the “smarter protesters” faded away because of another factor: neighbours telling them to shut off the noise. The threat of having their bank accounts frozen would, of course, be a powerful disincentive—since the cops seemed disinclined to uphold little things like public-nuisance laws to begin with. We will hear a LOT more about this, including all the usual rationalizations and “I didn’t know it was loaded” excuses from the Ottawa city and Ontario governments.
Remember, there was an incident in Edmonton, widely reported, of a “convoy” of noisy yokels blaring their way down River Valley Road. They were stopped by a counter-protest, on foot. The cops showed up and—guess what?—they told the counter-protesters to go home. No report of warnings to the original troublemakers.
Re the federal Emergencies Act, it wasn’t invoked until AFTER the Ottawa city government and the Ontario government both failed to act for three weeks. The Ottawa mayor sent someone to “negotiate,” and the Freedomites strung him along. Doug Ford’s government dithered for weeks. The only thing they knew was they did NOT want help from the feds. This will all be rehashed at the current enquiry.
Furthermore, the Emergencies Act isn’t “overkill” at all. In fact, it’s must more restrictive than the War Measures Act it replaced. I can’t cite chapter and verse, but experts said at the time, there are specific conditions that must be met before the Emergencies Act can be invoked. Ask a legal expert, I don’t recall the details. Even the current enquiry is mandated in the Emergencies Act itself.
No. The federal government acted responsibly. Two junior governments blew their chance to scotch this thing. Then the feds ended it. Most of the country said, “About damn time.”
As for Danielle Straitjacket’s lukewarm to barely existent support for Ukraine’s defence against a Russian invasion, it appears she can’t even manage a simple and easily manageable position on this issue before shooting herself in the face again. Smith claims Ukrainian ancestry which is true; however, she blows it when she can’t even get the timeline of her great-grandfather’s arrival in Canada or his reason for leaving. No, he was not running from socialism; he was running from the Czar. At that time, plenty of Ukrainians were running from Nicholas Romanov 2, but so were plenty of Russians and Jews. Keep in mind that Smith likely wants to qualify the nature of their oppression relative to, say, Antivaxxers, but I digress.
Smith’s position on the Ukraine isn’t that far removed from the controversial positions of someone like Tucker Carlson, who begins by asking the question: “What terrible thing has Vladimir Putin ever done to you? Has he moved your job overseas? Has he made your life harder? (Remember: Carlson is just asking questions.) Smith’s approach is not dissimilar, short of just asking Ukraine and NATO to suck it up and stop picking on Putin. Smith’s mimicking the US isolationist views from Foxnews is just more playing to her base and damn the embarrassment.
If Putin is against President Biden and PMJT, he’s fighting for you. Welcome to another tier in Dani Smith’s world of crazy.
Danielle Smith is correct to say Ukraine would have been better to become a neutral state. Russia did NOT in fact invade Ukraine unprovoked. NATO(The US) clearly poked at the Russian bear by not keeping it’s promise not to expand eastward. The US would likewise not put up with Chinese missiles pointed at them on the Mexican boarder. Not to mention the Ukrainian neo-nazis attacking ethnic Russians in the Donbas and the other disputed regions. A little more reading would be helpful by many, starting with Noam Chomsky’s thoughtful analysis at Truthout.org.
Would be nice if you could post a link to the article where Chomsky claims neo-Nazis attacking ethnic Russians was a provocation, I googled “truthout noam chomsky Ukraine” and read several articles that made no mention of Nazis. Been a while since I read any Chomsky. He’s like a living cognitive dissonance generator. FWIW I believe climate change is a million times more important than this war and I do have some time for the “NATO expansion was dangerous, needless, disingenuous and provocative” argument, and you aren’t the first (I’m inferring) leftist to claim that we are somehow allied to Nazis by supporting Ukraine. I’ve gone looking, and from my (very imperfect) research, neo-Nazis in Ukraine are about where they are most places in the contemporary West – a thing that does exist and is not taken seriously enough by law enforcement and counterterrorist organizations in general. Are we going to claim with a straight face that America, Canada, Britian, France, Russia, etc, don’t have significant minorities of white supremacists, and a security apparatus and/or political ideology that can fairly be called “tolerant of white supremacy?” The biggest credible difference I’ve been able to find between white supremacy in Ukraine and most Western countries is the claim that one or more local unsanctioned white supremacist militias has been fighting against the Russian invasion in Ukraine, that they have won the admiration of some locals, and that the Ukrainian government has been using force against the Russians but not against the alleged neo-Nazi militias. For me, this is not enough to justify a narrative of “Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent white supremacist fascism.” Frankly, I think Russia could have fought against white supremacist fascism without ever leaving their own country. JMO of course.
So while these convoy freedom supporters insist on proving how dumb they are, apparently they enjoy being down at the bottom of the totem pole with the rest of the losers, and some how they think it makes them a lot smarter. It does in fact give the intelligent people someone to laugh at and call them traitors for not being intelligent enough to add their support to the majority, who are smart enough to understand it.
Smith’s connection to Gas City Medicine Hat is making a lot of sense.”This part of the country seems to have All Hell for a basement, and the only trap door appears to be in Medicine Hat,” Rudyard Kipling once wrote.
Gas City seems like the perfect piece of the origin story for a gaslighter. It also involves the tale of a famous battle that gave the town its name, which might be where Smith got another piece of her origin story, about having *unsubstantiated* indigenous ancestry. It’s getting very hard to separate fact from fiction, but Smith should know that everything she says will be fact-checked. Rightfully so.
People of good character do not feel the urge to lie constantly.
Does the timing of her great grandfather’s leaving Ukraine suggest could have fled from privilege and capitalism? Thank you for the correction Dave. Shouldn’t be long before you get the fake news tag.
“…attempts were being made to overthrow our democratically elected government and economic sabotage was being carried out.”
There never was a centralized organization that lead the convoy, so the MOU you’re speaking of could have never been official convoy policy. In fact an overwhelming majority of protestors probably didn’t know about it or what the abbreviation even meant. The truth of the matter is that in the early stages of the convoy an individual reached out to some organizers and offered the use of his website to which, having no website at that time, they agreed. The MOU was already on the website and the organizers, being unprofessional and inexperienced in these matters, failed to investigate the site completely. The MOU was taken down before the convoy was ended via force, as it did not and never had represented the spirit and intent of the protest. Your comments on the matter are either due to ignorance or intentional disingenuousness.
Perhaps you should not comment on these matters until you’ve educated yourself more objectively on the matter.
I’m confused. You say that there was no centralized organization but immediately pivot to say that an “individual” (I guess we have to look it up ourselves) reached out to “some organizers” (I guess we have to look it up ourselves – wait, there weren’t any centralized organizers…) that had no authority and weren’t in actual existence, who also couldn’t be bothered to google the “individual” reaching out to them to start a website with no official status. I would pass this incompetence and malfeasance off to Tamara Lich, but she either doesn’t exist or was not a leader, or the unruly anarchistic mob that spontaneously drove to Ottawa and Coutts neglected to reveal to anyone their leaderless condition and share their secret non-organizing organization tricks.
Somehow, I believe you might want to consider not commenting on these matters until you’ve educated yourself more objectively on the matter.
Right, and the Nazi and Confederate flagbearers the insurrectionists were completely comfortable hanging out with also had nothing to do with the insurrection. This crowd was not shy about intimidating, assaulting or othering people it did not want to associate with. Very telling to contrast how that crowd treated literal Nazis and white supremacists with how they treated journalists, paramedics and local residents – one group was welcomed, the other assaulted. A lot of people are showing us who they are by, in defiance of all sense and decency, still claiming that this insurrection was normal protest.
If I show up intending to protest X, and a group of people claiming to be in charge of the protest says it is about Y, and no other group of people emerges to dispute their claim, I must choose between leaving the protest or accepting that the public will believe I am protesting Y, not X, and they will assume I am lead by the group that has publicly claimed to be leading me without anyone disputing their claim. I didn’t notice an exodus of “protesters” after that ridiculous MOA was publicized. Did it not occur to a single one of you knotheads that, if overthrowing Canada was as easy as giving a letter to the GG, someone would have already done it? Everyone who ever pretended to believe that idiocy should cover their heads in shame. I also didn’t notice an exodus of “protesters” when the Nazi and Confederate imagery came out, or when the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was vandalized. You can tell yourself whatever nonsense helps you sleep at night, you can invent whatever rationale or retroactively pretend to have held whatever intentions help you maintain the perpetual, warming glow of self-righteous anger you are addicted to, but at the end of the day most people who aren’t sniffing Tucker Carlson’s farts aren’t going to have a lot of time for your spurious, socially destructive nonsense. The mask slipped a little too far, and too many people can see you for the dangerous, out of control, lawless Christofascist hooligans you are.
The “Liberty” you and yours run your mouths about is nothing but the “right” to other your neighbour, kick down at people who never got a fair shake, and ensure that your children will inherit the “full advantages of whiteness.” You spend your lives perpetuating a system that forces most of the people you, personally, know and care about to spend most of their lives doing what they have to, instead of what they want to, so that their bosses and landlords can get rich off their labour, and you do it while mocking the ear with the language of freedom. If we’re so free, why are we happier on Friday than we are on Monday? You are the worst element of Canadian society, and, as is fitting for these times, you are full of passionate conviction. You may think you will forever be immune to consequences of your actions, but you are wrong. The day is coming when mainstream Canadians will see you for what you are, the Police will stop taking selfies with you and donating to your Gofundmycoup accounts, and your criminal actions will be prosecuted just like any other criminal actions. I, for one, think that day is years overdue. Good day, sir.
No wait, one more thing, “Liberty” – I’ll point out to you that I am willing to attach my name to these highly incendiary statements. I sincerely believe the claims I have made and am advancing these arguments in good faith. I want people to know that I am doing this. If you are proud of your actions, why do you hide having taken them? If your ideas have merit, why is the entire world outside your echo chamber so hostile to them?
For every action there is a reaction. The over emotional parade that trucked off to Ottawa with visions of a the Jan. 6 type of protest in Canada. The small vocal group of trouble makers, took a group of unvaxxed truckers and their supporters with a mixed gang of bigots and wing nuts to the capital. One goal of the so called leaders was to somehow invalidate the election of the government. So there was more that F–ck Trudeau flags, bouncy castles, shirtless rednecks and freedom. Yes it may have been an overreaction by the government, but it sure as hell was no worse than the convoy.
I’m torn on this – on the one hand, if Provincial governments had done their jobs and local Police had done their jobs and Federal politicians had condemned, rather than supported this lawlessness, the Emergency Measures Act would not have been required, and therefore, should not have been invoked. On the other hand, it’s not like the Federal government has a magic wand that can compel the actions of the people and institutions that were legally empowered to act. How, exactly, do I propose JT *make* the Police do their jobs or *make* conservative politicians stop pouring fuel on the fire? Gruntandshurg. I do assign some blame to the Liberals, but nowhere near as much as I assign to all those other institutions. I also feel the lion’s share of blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the Ottawa Police, whose unwillingness to do their jobs and tacit support for the insurrection made this entire crisis possible. That whole institution should be cleaned out and replaced with people who will obey and enforce the law impartially. Those who used to work in it should be ineligible from working in Policing anywhere else in Canada. We should re-examine the very concepts upon which our laughably-feeble “civilian oversight” rests upon, and rebuild it from the bottom up, because it is a failure. People with cell phones do more to hold Police accountable than every political institution combined.
The insurrection, and the Police response to it, was a black eye for every Police officer in Canada – it said the quiet part out loud, it confirmed the narratives of too many oppressed peoples, and it contrasted too obviously with how Canada’s Police have historically treated dissidents who weren’t white supremacists. Most people who feel the way I do won’t risk putting their name on statements like these – my intent is not to stir up violence against Police officers, but to convince people that we should change the institutions they work in. I believe that the problem is not bad apples, it is bad barrels, and the barrels aren’t “bad” exactly, they actually do exactly what the people who made the barrels want them to do. The problem is that today we claim we want the barrels to accomplish something different, yet we have not redesigned the barrels. Hopefully this analogy makes sense?
The damage to the public’s perception of the Police is IMO mostly below the waterline. Lots of the people who aren’t critical of Police are very loudly pro-Police, but those people overwhelmingly trend older, whiter, and more Conservative, therefore, more likely to appear on TV. In 10 or 20 years our demographics will look very different, and I’m not seeing any signs that Canadian Police will stop becoming less popular, trusted and liked amongst younger generations and/or nonwhite communities. I believe Canadian Police will lose their near-total immunity to consequences for their actions over the next decade or two, and that Canada will be a much better place for it.