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>But police say they are concerned about how the convoy has attracted extremist rhetoric Blame the government for that. They need a scapegoat so hard for their

by totony 5y ago

>But police say they are concerned about how the convoy has attracted extremist rhetoric Blame the government for that. They need a scapegoat so hard for their failure to plan & react to the pandemic that they villainize groups like this and try to ostracize them (e.g. trudeau & al saying they are a fringe group - saying that since 90% of people are vaccinated they agree to the mandates, which is a false dichotomy. If you force someone to do something you can't say "well you did it so you agree it's necessary"). What did they expect would happen to those they voluntarily ostracize? I've seen a lot of reasonable people that just didn't think the vaccine was worth it to them be pushed into very fringe views out of being cornered by the ruling class.

version_five 5y ago
Yeah I voluntarily got vaccinated, before anyone was talking about mandates, and I never considered they would actually happen in a free country. If I'd thought that getting a vaccine (that I didn't really see as vital for me) was an implicit endorsement of authoritarian policies about requiring to show you've taken it to participate in daily life, I maybe would have reconsidered. If we were only 50% vaccinated here, the government may have thought twice about excluding so many people from society. It's ridiculous that voluntarily taking a medicine (a good thing to do) gets turned into an excuse for authoritarian rule
- fooster 5y ago
  Authoritarian rule? Firstly mostly they’re arguing about provincial legislation to the federal government. Secondly vaccinations are already mandatory in most provinces to attend school and for most health care jobs. Stop with the hyperbole.
  - totony 5y ago
    Unacceptable provincial legislations are federal matters. That has always been the case and is why the supreme court is federal. So it makes sense to protest in ottawa when overreach is suspected (esp since this seems like a human rights matter and is federal jurisdiction). Provinces in Canada have way less power than states in the US
    - fooster 5y ago
      You might want to look at https://www.canada.ca/en/intergovernmental-affairs/services/federation/distribution-legislative-powers.html https://www.canada.ca/en/intergovernmental-affairs/services/... to see what is exclusively a provincial matter and a federal matter and then where the power is shared. Now you tell me what provincial legislation should have been interfered with at federal government with respect to mandates and lockdowns.
      - totony 5y ago
        Have you read that link? I'm not familiar with all the intricacies, but from a cursory look these seem relevant: >Certain areas of government action - some of which have become priorities over the years - are not specifically identified and assigned to one or both orders of governments in the Constitution Act, 1867. The courts have found that these areas come under various legislative powers, some federal, others provincial. Two such areas are the environment and health. Federal: >Regulation of Trade/Commerce >Quarantine This also doesn't seem to be set in stone as mentioned in "5. Court Interpretation of the Distribution of Legislative Powers." Neither does it seem complete, as e.g. it doesn't mention human rights as being either federal or provincial, while there is a lot of precedent of it being a federal matter. EDIT: Also AFAIK most mandates are provincial bylaws that stem from the emergency act (which is a federal act)
noisefridge 5y ago
Reasonable people https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sfql2g/nazi_flag_during_freedom_convoy_protest_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sfql2g/nazi_flag_duri...
- joemazerino 5y ago
  An obvious plant or less obvious idiot. And?
  - noisefridge 5y ago
    And? Okay. The people who started the GoFundMe are Tamara Lich and B.J. Dichter. Neither of them are truck drivers. They are, however, racist conspiracy theorists. Tamara Lich's Facebook pages were full of Islamophobia, and conspiracy theories about the "Muslim Brotherhood" operating in Canada, and her own personal activism supporting conspiracy theorists. Tamara Lich is also an official of some kind in Canada's "Maverick Party", a very fringe movement advocating for western separatism. B.J. Dichter is an activist for the similarly fringe People's Party of Canada, and has described the Conservative Party of Canada as "suffering from the stench of cultural relativism and political Islam". Patrick King is another important figure in organizing the convoy, and he is a Nazi. He promotes the "great replacement theory", minimizes the Holocaust, and argues that Jewish bankers are controlling politicians. Dave Steenberg is another organizer whose brain has been rotted out by Facebook conspiracy theory, and who fantasizes about COVID mask mandates implementors being hauled before war-crimes tribunals. He's also shared the logo of the Soldiers of Odin, a totally! totally peaceful group that just happens to like Nazi imagery and "patrolling" neighborhoods to keep the wrong kind of people out. (The actual Soldiers of Odin don't seem to be involved, though). This "trucker convoy" has been condemned by trucker associations in Canada and seems to not really have that many truckers involved (mostly pickup trucks). Convoy members have been seen with US Confederate flags, Canadian flags with swastikas scrawled on them, Trump 2024 flags, and so on. Stickers, t-shirts, and other merch of Trudeau being hanged are popular. (I'm sure this is just a little political disagreement!) They've terrorized towns that they've rolled through, sometimes invoking upside-down "sovereign citizen" legal logic, like telling people they're trespassing on public property. Ottawa residents have seen many protests, but everyone agrees this protest is one of the most disorderly and aggressive they've ever seen. Including, apparently, harassing workers at a soup kitchen, of all things. On social media, videos of non-white Canadians have often been appropriated and taken out of context to imply there is broad support for this convoy among all ethnicities. There are some non-fascist people who may oppose mandates and show up for that reason. But this all definitely started as a ridiculous grift by nativists, conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and literal Nazis, and it's mostly attracted people with obnoxious attitudes.
ipaddr 5y ago
The media is in full scramble. Trudeau is in hiding. The police and powers that be are trying to scare people. And others political figures are trying to get out of the way. Meanwhile you have families, kids, women all standing around in negative -30 temps. The 7 year old holding a freedom sign doesn't seem like a white nationalist coming to kill Trudeau.
- refurb 5y ago
  I noticed the CBC today finally gave some reasonable coverage of the protest in terms of the peaceful nature and size of it. It was clear for days that they were downplaying it, only covering “problems” (radicals might be hiding in the convoy!) and in general trying to ignore it. This morning some commentator tried to suggest “Zee Russians” might be behind it. My guess is the international coverage was clearly ramping up, so the CBC had little choice but to join in or else their bias would stick out like a sore thumb. My guess is the coverage will quickly snap back to all the “problems” with the convoy, entirely ignoring the actual purpose of it.
  - RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
    Its ludicrous exactly how curated the news from "reputable" sources are getting. Oh, the largest truck gathering protesting the mandate and instead we're going to cover this one man who died refusing to get a vaccine to try and scare the shit out of our population. There are hundreds of thousands of people refusing to get the vaccine, one of them is going to die, its called a pandemic for a reason. I can respect each channel being a little biased, but what we see today is so obviously blatant in its one-sidedness. I've already set my Youtube settings to ignore news from golden age news channels, I dont even want to see that propaganda anymore. I'm hoping we are entering an era of more independent and decentralized news networks, because they are the only ones actually covering the news these days. The big news networks are too scared to go out of business if they don't preach what the money man tells them to, and I'm hoping more people come to this realization.
  - fooster 5y ago
    The purpose? To say they’re sick of Covid and the US government should stop requiring vaccines. Oh and to blame the federal government for provincial legislation. These people are antivax anti science antisocial idiots.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Trudeau saying that a portion of his citizens protesting are holding “unacceptable views” was chilling. It’s always telling when someone in power holds free speech or any opposing view in contempt. https://globalnews.ca/news/8539610/trucker-convoy-covid-vaccine-mandates-ottawa/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8539610/trucker-convoy-covid-vacc...

by totony 5y ago

version_five 5y ago

Yeah I voluntarily got vaccinated, before anyone was talking about mandates, and I never considered they would actually happen in a free country. If I'd thought that getting a vaccine (that I didn't really see as vital for me) was an implicit endorsement of authoritarian policies about requiring to show you've taken it to participate in daily life, I maybe would have reconsidered. If we were only 50% vaccinated here, the government may have thought twice about excluding so many people from society. It's ridiculous that voluntarily taking a medicine (a good thing to do) gets turned into an excuse for authoritarian rule

fooster 5y ago
Authoritarian rule? Firstly mostly they’re arguing about provincial legislation to the federal government. Secondly vaccinations are already mandatory in most provinces to attend school and for most health care jobs. Stop with the hyperbole.
- totony 5y ago
  Unacceptable provincial legislations are federal matters. That has always been the case and is why the supreme court is federal. So it makes sense to protest in ottawa when overreach is suspected (esp since this seems like a human rights matter and is federal jurisdiction). Provinces in Canada have way less power than states in the US
  - fooster 5y ago
    You might want to look at https://www.canada.ca/en/intergovernmental-affairs/services/federation/distribution-legislative-powers.html https://www.canada.ca/en/intergovernmental-affairs/services/... to see what is exclusively a provincial matter and a federal matter and then where the power is shared. Now you tell me what provincial legislation should have been interfered with at federal government with respect to mandates and lockdowns.
    - totony 5y ago
      Have you read that link? I'm not familiar with all the intricacies, but from a cursory look these seem relevant: >Certain areas of government action - some of which have become priorities over the years - are not specifically identified and assigned to one or both orders of governments in the Constitution Act, 1867. The courts have found that these areas come under various legislative powers, some federal, others provincial. Two such areas are the environment and health. Federal: >Regulation of Trade/Commerce >Quarantine This also doesn't seem to be set in stone as mentioned in "5. Court Interpretation of the Distribution of Legislative Powers." Neither does it seem complete, as e.g. it doesn't mention human rights as being either federal or provincial, while there is a lot of precedent of it being a federal matter. EDIT: Also AFAIK most mandates are provincial bylaws that stem from the emergency act (which is a federal act)

noisefridge 5y ago

Reasonable people https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sfql2g/nazi_flag_during_freedom_convoy_protest_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sfql2g/nazi_flag_duri...

joemazerino 5y ago
An obvious plant or less obvious idiot. And?
- noisefridge 5y ago
  And? Okay. The people who started the GoFundMe are Tamara Lich and B.J. Dichter. Neither of them are truck drivers. They are, however, racist conspiracy theorists. Tamara Lich's Facebook pages were full of Islamophobia, and conspiracy theories about the "Muslim Brotherhood" operating in Canada, and her own personal activism supporting conspiracy theorists. Tamara Lich is also an official of some kind in Canada's "Maverick Party", a very fringe movement advocating for western separatism. B.J. Dichter is an activist for the similarly fringe People's Party of Canada, and has described the Conservative Party of Canada as "suffering from the stench of cultural relativism and political Islam". Patrick King is another important figure in organizing the convoy, and he is a Nazi. He promotes the "great replacement theory", minimizes the Holocaust, and argues that Jewish bankers are controlling politicians. Dave Steenberg is another organizer whose brain has been rotted out by Facebook conspiracy theory, and who fantasizes about COVID mask mandates implementors being hauled before war-crimes tribunals. He's also shared the logo of the Soldiers of Odin, a totally! totally peaceful group that just happens to like Nazi imagery and "patrolling" neighborhoods to keep the wrong kind of people out. (The actual Soldiers of Odin don't seem to be involved, though). This "trucker convoy" has been condemned by trucker associations in Canada and seems to not really have that many truckers involved (mostly pickup trucks). Convoy members have been seen with US Confederate flags, Canadian flags with swastikas scrawled on them, Trump 2024 flags, and so on. Stickers, t-shirts, and other merch of Trudeau being hanged are popular. (I'm sure this is just a little political disagreement!) They've terrorized towns that they've rolled through, sometimes invoking upside-down "sovereign citizen" legal logic, like telling people they're trespassing on public property. Ottawa residents have seen many protests, but everyone agrees this protest is one of the most disorderly and aggressive they've ever seen. Including, apparently, harassing workers at a soup kitchen, of all things. On social media, videos of non-white Canadians have often been appropriated and taken out of context to imply there is broad support for this convoy among all ethnicities. There are some non-fascist people who may oppose mandates and show up for that reason. But this all definitely started as a ridiculous grift by nativists, conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and literal Nazis, and it's mostly attracted people with obnoxious attitudes.

ipaddr 5y ago

The media is in full scramble. Trudeau is in hiding. The police and powers that be are trying to scare people. And others political figures are trying to get out of the way. Meanwhile you have families, kids, women all standing around in negative -30 temps. The 7 year old holding a freedom sign doesn't seem like a white nationalist coming to kill Trudeau.

refurb 5y ago
I noticed the CBC today finally gave some reasonable coverage of the protest in terms of the peaceful nature and size of it. It was clear for days that they were downplaying it, only covering “problems” (radicals might be hiding in the convoy!) and in general trying to ignore it. This morning some commentator tried to suggest “Zee Russians” might be behind it. My guess is the international coverage was clearly ramping up, so the CBC had little choice but to join in or else their bias would stick out like a sore thumb. My guess is the coverage will quickly snap back to all the “problems” with the convoy, entirely ignoring the actual purpose of it.
- RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
  Its ludicrous exactly how curated the news from "reputable" sources are getting. Oh, the largest truck gathering protesting the mandate and instead we're going to cover this one man who died refusing to get a vaccine to try and scare the shit out of our population. There are hundreds of thousands of people refusing to get the vaccine, one of them is going to die, its called a pandemic for a reason. I can respect each channel being a little biased, but what we see today is so obviously blatant in its one-sidedness. I've already set my Youtube settings to ignore news from golden age news channels, I dont even want to see that propaganda anymore. I'm hoping we are entering an era of more independent and decentralized news networks, because they are the only ones actually covering the news these days. The big news networks are too scared to go out of business if they don't preach what the money man tells them to, and I'm hoping more people come to this realization.
- fooster 5y ago
  The purpose? To say they’re sick of Covid and the US government should stop requiring vaccines. Oh and to blame the federal government for provincial legislation. These people are antivax anti science antisocial idiots.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Trudeau saying that a portion of his citizens protesting are holding “unacceptable views” was chilling. It’s always telling when someone in power holds free speech or any opposing view in contempt. https://globalnews.ca/news/8539610/trucker-convoy-covid-vaccine-mandates-ottawa/ https://globalnews.ca/news/8539610/trucker-convoy-covid-vacc...