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Shameful that a peaceful protest is met with this response. How can a person protest meaningfully if any peaceful protest can be called illegal? I do understan

Shameful that a peaceful protest is met with this response. How can a person protest meaningfully if any peaceful protest can be called illegal? I do understand that the truckers were disturbing the peace of ordinary people - I think this should be discouraged. However there must be a way to peacefully assemble without the government's approval. I don't see how we can have meaningful civil discourse if you need permission to protest at all.

filoleg 5y ago
> How can a person protest meaningfully if any peaceful protest can be called illegal? By protesting only against things that Trudeau himself supports protests against, obviously /s. Unfortunately, it is only a halfway sarcasm, because it legitimately sounds like this is how it might go down.
joshlemer 5y ago
Protesters are still allowed to protest peacefully, they just aren't allowed to occupy the area around parliament and shut down border crossings for weeks, and intimidate and enact violence against the citizens of Ottawa. Nobody is stopping anyone from peacefully protesting in Canada, give your head a shake.
- busymom0 5y ago
  > enact violence against the citizens of Ottawa That hasn't happened. Grossly exaggerated statements are not what I and my friends who have been at the Ottawa protest for 3 weeks have seen. We aren't living in 1950s. Everyone has a phone camera now a days and Ottawa, the capital, has security cameras everywhere and yet none of this ever gets captured on camera and nobody seems to capture the face of the people supposedly doing such things.
  - Jackim 5y ago
    Personal anecdotal evidence does not disprove that very real violence has occurred and continues to occur in my city.
    - argvargc 5y ago
      Your original comment relayed anecdotal evidence. Are you now saying it doesn't prove anything? Violence does occur in cities, and it will continue to. I've seen no evidence protestors or attendees are violent or even aggressive, and livestreamers passing police and asking them impromptu specifically this confirms it. There's bouncy castles for kids to play on, multi-ethnic groups dancing together and holding native ceremonies or prayer, people giving out free food, public handing dollars directly to truckers because of the frozen funds - every weekend it's packed with families, smiles and good vibes. And then the "news" comes on and says it's an "insurrection" (yeah, don't they just always have bouncy castles) and Trudeau says they're all racist transphobes. It's laughable. If more violence/crime is occurring, a more likely explanation may be the friendly and busy atmosphere his driven drunks/addicts/homeless out of the city centre, and these people are now committing crimes they would ordinarily commit in the city centre in surrounding areas instead. That would suck for those affected, but all of this could be over in hours if Trudeau would simply remove the mandates and the passport. (Which are the Ottawa's protest organisers only demands, as they've reiterated multiple times.) The mandates clearly don't work for their intended purpose of coercing people, and instead just motivate people to fight back yet stronger, in this case harming the economy and causing inconvenience to some. That's squarely on Trudeau's governance, nowhere else. The passport is a completely silly idea given the facts regarding transmission, as many other countries have realised and since dropped. It's a no brainer on Trudeau's part to simply drop both things. But instead he's chosen to humiliate himself spreading nonsense lies about the truckers and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Canadians who support them. If the disruption is causing you grief, maybe write to him or your local Liberal representative and suggest he/they drop those things? They're demonstrably no good anyway, so it'd be a pretty simple win-win for everybody.
    - busymom0 5y ago
      Like I said, we live in 2022. Everyone has a phone with video camera. How come such "violence" never gets captured on camera despite thousands of people there and several live streams?
- tomohawk 5y ago
  That's right. Only the government is allowed to shut everything down and put people out of work.
  - joshlemer 5y ago
    Yes that's correct, our democratically elected government with a charter of rights and freedoms and independent judiciary is allowed to impose reasonable restrictions on citizens freedoms under specific circumstances. No, a mob of thugs who represent a minority public opinion are not allowed to impose their will on society. If that's supposed to be a mic-drop comment you're going to have to try harder.
    - ameminator 5y ago
      I think there's difference in what "reasonable" means here, regardless of what the issue is and who is doing it. My argument is that there must be some form of protest that is always legal (even if not sanctioned by the government) and that minimal form of protest must be public. That no restrictions can be reasonable on this minimal form of protest. All the people who are cheering this emergency powers move, have not made clear to me why this particular protest has surpassed that point outside of noise issues in private (and non-public) areas (which I do understand are difficult).
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        "Minimal" and "block important roads for weeks" don't intersect, in my view. Nobody said they can't protest. Nobody invoked the Emergencies Act when they initially blocked the roads. When they remained blocked for a week, still nobody invoked the Emergencies Act. Minimal protest? Sure, absolutely that should be allowed. Nobody's making it not allowed. But "minimal" isn't where these protest are, and they haven't been for a while.
        dane-pgp 5y ago
        It's nice that the government gave them permission to protest for a week, sure. For comparison, though, the Tiananmen Square protests lasted over a month before Beijing invoked their equivalent of the Emergencies Act. According to the Wikipedia article: > The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing.
- ameminator 5y ago
  But it seems that every time the "unpermitted location" changes with every protest! In this case, it's "the area around parliament" and "border crossings" - in Quebec it was "this particular road" or "these schools" during their "Red Square" tuition protests. In my opinion, Parliament is almost always a valid place to protest - outside a politician's or ordinary person's private home, much less so. By invoking these emergency powers, I think it's hard to dispute that the Prime Minister's Office is stopping a peaceful protest!
  - joshlemer 5y ago
    If the protesters weren't blocking infrastructure with trucks, and were just gathering on parliament hill, it would be a different story.
    - tonfreed 5y ago
      Because Trudeau could have ignored that again. This is the action of people who are not being heard. Trudeau could have de-escalated by meeting with the protesters, but he instead essentially said they should shut up and go back to driving.
      - jsjsbdkj 5y ago
        Why do they think they aren't being heard? We've heard them, they're wrong, and we're not going to do what they want. The vast majority of canadian oppose the convoy and support public health measures. This is just a childish tantrum.
      - joshlemer 5y ago
        It is absolutely false that Trudeau could have deescalated by talking to the convoy leaders. This is demonstrably false, as the mayor of Ottawa set up a meeting with them to negotiate some terms where the convoy would be restricted to a specific area in Ottawa. A meeting with the mayor, exactly what the convoyers want right? Then at the last minute they backed out. This whole "meet with us" is a move to be recognized and the moment Trudeau met with them, they would ratchet up their demands to a higher level. These people are foaming at the mouth with hate for trudeau, they have "F*CK TRUDEAU" as their slogan and painted on their trucks, they don't want to meet with him.
- stackedinserter 5y ago
  Nobody intimidated or enact violence against Ottawa residents. Based on what I saw with my own eyes last week, protesters and truckers are friendly and peaceful. IDK maybe they turn to werewolves at night, but the most aggressive thing I saw there was "fuck trudeau" signs everywhere.
  - pkd 5y ago
    My friend was accosted for wearing a mask on Saturday in a restaurant. One of the two downtown grocery stores had to close because the employees were being intimated by the protestors to let them inside without a mask. A neighborhood ice cream store employee was assaulted for wearing a mask while walking to work, and the store closed down. The biggest shopping center downtown has been closed for 3 weeks, putting over a thousand people out of a job because the protestors kept trying to force their way in to stores without wearing masks. These are not protests against the government. They harm actual people on the ground trying to get on with their lives. I'm sorry the YouTube streams have not shown any of this. Who'd have thought that even youtubers can have editorial intent!
    - ersii 5y ago
      What does being accosted entail? If it's a matter of being heckled or laughed at, surely one has to be able to deal with that and not scream bloody murder. (We haven't had mask mandates here in Sweden, so your situation with masks seems peculiar and a bit weird from here)
      - joshlemer 5y ago
        Practically speaking, a heckling and laughing at from a large group of angry protesters against a single person minding their own business is basically an unspoken threat of violence. It is definitely intimidation.
      - pkd 5y ago
        Being asked to take their mask off in a belligerent way. We can argue about the relativity of violence all day long - but the fact is that this behaviour was not really heard of before the protests began and can be traumatising. My friend was with a group so they were able to handle the situation but there have been incidents of things going worse. Moreover, the mask mandates are provincial, not federal. If people are opposed to that, they should go heckle at Doug Ford, the Ontario Premier in Toronto, not at Trudeau in Ottawa. The fact is that the protestors don't have a common coherent narrative.
- Tiktaalik 5y ago
  Pretty much this is the core difference here. Is this a protest or an occupation? No one is gonna bat an eye if you block and intersection or a bridge for a day (ok maybe if it's the ambassador bridge). But eventually, if you start occupying the space for days and weeks on end, there are limits to people's patience. When a protest becomes an occupation, there are impacts on those whose neighbourhood is being occupied. Downtown Ottawa residents ain't happy.
Jackim 5y ago
I live in Ottawa and I assure you that this protest is not peaceful. I've had friends physically assaulted, spit on, and yelled at just for wearing a mask into a business. Not to mention the constant honking that was reaching levels above 100db inside people's homes. Homeless shelters were raided by protestors, businesses have been forced to close due to threats, and people are afraid to leave their homes.
- busymom0 5y ago
  I and my friends have been there for 3 weekends and haven't seen any of that. > Homeless shelters were raided by protestors, businesses have been forced to close due to threats, and people are afraid to leave their homes. This is hilariously inaccurate. Everyone's bringing food TO the truckers and there's so much food there that truckers are refusing to take more. Amazingly, we live in 2022 where everyone has a phone camera and Ottawa, the capital, has security cameras everywhere and yet none of this ever gets captured on camera and nobody seems to capture the face of the people supposedly doing such things. Here's one actual violence which did get captured on video: https://twitter.com/TheMarieOakes/status/1493053006237122562 https://twitter.com/TheMarieOakes/status/1493053006237122562 And there's another video of someone with a mask on who drove his jeep over 3 protestors in Manitoba. There are plenty of livestreams on YouTube (Viva Frei channel for example) which have been capturing everything. Honking might be the only thing which could constitute as annoying but that hasn't happened for over a week. Here's reporting by a government employee who lives right above the protest: https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night-with-the-untouchables/ https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night...
  - Jackim 5y ago
    I'm happy that you haven't experienced any of that. None of what I said is untrue. I'm glad there has been lots of support from this protest to attempt to make up for some of the damage. It is still an illegal occupation that is costing my city millions every day, thousands of people are out of work at the Rideau Centre alone, libraries have been shut down, school children are being intimidated... I'm happy you're having fun.
busymom0 5y ago
I along with my friends (who are vaxxed but only did so because their work coerced them) have been at the protest in Ottawa for 3 weekends. It's always been peaceful, friendly and almost like Canada day celebrations. It was loud the first week due to honking but even that's stopped. And even if there were honking, that's not violence. I am brown and my buddy is black and neither of us met with anything other than friendly hugs and fist bumps. Then we get home and see an entirely different reporting on media and by government. Here's an article written by a government employee who lives right above the protests: https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night-with-the-untouchables/ https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night... EDIT: Reply to comment below, I was personally there because of the air-travel mandate by the Feds and restaurant/gym mandates by my province. Triple vaxxed Trudeau can fly even while he caught COVID. Triple vaxxed Mayor Jim Watson can go to restaurants and gyms despite being COVID+. But I am not allowed to fly or go to restaurants and gyms even if I can show a negative COVID test. I also talked to nurses there who worked for 2 years taking care of COVID patients, caught COVID along with their entire family, got natural immunity which is superior, and then got fired for not taking the shots. Yet Ontario and Quebec is letting COVID+ nurses to work if they are vaxxed. Also women are a lot more against the mandates than men based on my impression which seems to match the surveys.
- Jackim 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    Attacking another user will get you banned here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Perhaps you don't feel you owe political opponents better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
    - Jackim 5y ago
      Sorry, thanks for the reminder. I've had a tough time in my city over the past 3 weeks.
dbtc 5y ago
Is it because of the $ cost of shutting the border down? (I am not even thinking of whether it's justified, good or bad, just reasoning about motivations)
tedajax 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please make your substantive points without swipes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - tedajax 5y ago
    - animal_spirits 5y ago
      Dang is a moderator of hackernews if you are not aware.
      - tedajax 5y ago
  - ameminator 5y ago
    Good luck in this thread - and probably on the front page. Thanks for doing such a good job moderating this website.
barbazoo 5y ago
I think it stops being a peaceful protest if you erect structure and continually inconvenience residents by blasting your horns 24/7. Go on the street, show what you protest against, what you want. But don't permanently take over a part of the city, let alone start swearing in your own peace officers [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/0DvVtDHEizk?t=51 https://youtu.be/0DvVtDHEizk?t=51
- Covzire 5y ago
  Was it even ever honking 24/7?
- ameminator 5y ago
  I'm going to be honest, that seems remarkably peaceful, even when compared to the BLM protests from 2 years ago or especially the FLQ crisis of Pierre Trudeau. I don't think the truckers should be going into residential neighborhoods and making noise at all hours - but it's hard to argue that it's violent.
  - atdt 5y ago
    It's not at all hard to argue. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are not and have not been the parent of a small child. The psychological suffering the noise is causing is acute.
  - jsjsbdkj 5y ago
    BLM protests in Ottawa were extremely peaceful, and met with harsh police retaliation. Protestors blocked _one_ intersection for one day, and they were all rounded up and arrested by dozens of police officers in the middle of the night.
    - throwaway2048 5y ago
      Strange how the police seem totally unwilling to act in the case of a much more severe blockage
asdfaoeu 5y ago
Blocking roads without permission is generally illegal. A protest doesn't allow you to inconvenience others without repercussion.
- ameminator 5y ago
  Uh, how is someone supposed to protest? I mean, I see clear differences between going up to someone's home or into someone's workplace and making noise in the street. Any protest is almost guaranteed to inconvenience someone, unless you want to limit a "protester" to yelling in their own home. So what would you suggest is the line?
  - synthos 5y ago
    Work with the city to park in a designated spot and then protest on foot in front of parliament. Not 'move-in' and set up hot tubs, saunas, and sleep in your truck on Wellington.
    - ameminator 5y ago
      What if the city doesn't want to work with the protesters? Do the protesters have to prove that they tried to work with the city? What if the protest is against the city itself? I have issues with asking permission to protest, even if it's an issue I don't support.
      - adra 5y ago
        There have been regular anti-vax protests throughout the pandemic. They are afforded time to disrupt traffic with a procession that usually ends in parking at a central district and legitimately ends that day. No cities have blocked their rights to protest within the legal construct they've been afforded. If this is too authoritarian for balancing the rights of protestors and the rights of everyone else, I recommend finding a new place to live. This is a sad but necessary limit of protest to distinguish protest from occupation. Even "occupy NY" largely allowed people to live their lives without significant burdens (though I'm sure some were unfortunately affected).
nyokodo 5y ago
> if you need permission to protest at all. This isn't about protesting "at all" it's about protesting in a way that stings the government. You can protest in a legal way but then you're dismissed. The Truckers are protesting in a way that can't be dismissed. They've chosen to risk serious consequences because to them the status quo is worse. Protests like this are a sign of a failure of leadership and representation.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  Then let's hope for serious consequences so that the message is loud and clear, minority positions can't and shouldn't be allowed to overrule the majority in a democracy. Their voice is heard through their elected representatives. Sometimes that means you don't get your way. Right now in my country the government in power acts in ways I really don't agree with but unfortunately they won fair and square and clearly have the support of the majority. For me that is disappointing and somewhat embarassing but I wouldn't dream of claiming that elections were fraudulent (USA) or simply ignoring mandate and consensus and trying to blackmail the government (CA).

filoleg 5y ago

> How can a person protest meaningfully if any peaceful protest can be called illegal? By protesting only against things that Trudeau himself supports protests against, obviously /s. Unfortunately, it is only a halfway sarcasm, because it legitimately sounds like this is how it might go down.

joshlemer 5y ago

Protesters are still allowed to protest peacefully, they just aren't allowed to occupy the area around parliament and shut down border crossings for weeks, and intimidate and enact violence against the citizens of Ottawa. Nobody is stopping anyone from peacefully protesting in Canada, give your head a shake.

busymom0 5y ago
> enact violence against the citizens of Ottawa That hasn't happened. Grossly exaggerated statements are not what I and my friends who have been at the Ottawa protest for 3 weeks have seen. We aren't living in 1950s. Everyone has a phone camera now a days and Ottawa, the capital, has security cameras everywhere and yet none of this ever gets captured on camera and nobody seems to capture the face of the people supposedly doing such things.
- Jackim 5y ago
  Personal anecdotal evidence does not disprove that very real violence has occurred and continues to occur in my city.
  - argvargc 5y ago
    Your original comment relayed anecdotal evidence. Are you now saying it doesn't prove anything? Violence does occur in cities, and it will continue to. I've seen no evidence protestors or attendees are violent or even aggressive, and livestreamers passing police and asking them impromptu specifically this confirms it. There's bouncy castles for kids to play on, multi-ethnic groups dancing together and holding native ceremonies or prayer, people giving out free food, public handing dollars directly to truckers because of the frozen funds - every weekend it's packed with families, smiles and good vibes. And then the "news" comes on and says it's an "insurrection" (yeah, don't they just always have bouncy castles) and Trudeau says they're all racist transphobes. It's laughable. If more violence/crime is occurring, a more likely explanation may be the friendly and busy atmosphere his driven drunks/addicts/homeless out of the city centre, and these people are now committing crimes they would ordinarily commit in the city centre in surrounding areas instead. That would suck for those affected, but all of this could be over in hours if Trudeau would simply remove the mandates and the passport. (Which are the Ottawa's protest organisers only demands, as they've reiterated multiple times.) The mandates clearly don't work for their intended purpose of coercing people, and instead just motivate people to fight back yet stronger, in this case harming the economy and causing inconvenience to some. That's squarely on Trudeau's governance, nowhere else. The passport is a completely silly idea given the facts regarding transmission, as many other countries have realised and since dropped. It's a no brainer on Trudeau's part to simply drop both things. But instead he's chosen to humiliate himself spreading nonsense lies about the truckers and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Canadians who support them. If the disruption is causing you grief, maybe write to him or your local Liberal representative and suggest he/they drop those things? They're demonstrably no good anyway, so it'd be a pretty simple win-win for everybody.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Like I said, we live in 2022. Everyone has a phone with video camera. How come such "violence" never gets captured on camera despite thousands of people there and several live streams?
tomohawk 5y ago
That's right. Only the government is allowed to shut everything down and put people out of work.
- joshlemer 5y ago
  Yes that's correct, our democratically elected government with a charter of rights and freedoms and independent judiciary is allowed to impose reasonable restrictions on citizens freedoms under specific circumstances. No, a mob of thugs who represent a minority public opinion are not allowed to impose their will on society. If that's supposed to be a mic-drop comment you're going to have to try harder.
  - ameminator 5y ago
    I think there's difference in what "reasonable" means here, regardless of what the issue is and who is doing it. My argument is that there must be some form of protest that is always legal (even if not sanctioned by the government) and that minimal form of protest must be public. That no restrictions can be reasonable on this minimal form of protest. All the people who are cheering this emergency powers move, have not made clear to me why this particular protest has surpassed that point outside of noise issues in private (and non-public) areas (which I do understand are difficult).
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      "Minimal" and "block important roads for weeks" don't intersect, in my view. Nobody said they can't protest. Nobody invoked the Emergencies Act when they initially blocked the roads. When they remained blocked for a week, still nobody invoked the Emergencies Act. Minimal protest? Sure, absolutely that should be allowed. Nobody's making it not allowed. But "minimal" isn't where these protest are, and they haven't been for a while.
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        It's nice that the government gave them permission to protest for a week, sure. For comparison, though, the Tiananmen Square protests lasted over a month before Beijing invoked their equivalent of the Emergencies Act. According to the Wikipedia article: > The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing.
ameminator 5y ago
But it seems that every time the "unpermitted location" changes with every protest! In this case, it's "the area around parliament" and "border crossings" - in Quebec it was "this particular road" or "these schools" during their "Red Square" tuition protests. In my opinion, Parliament is almost always a valid place to protest - outside a politician's or ordinary person's private home, much less so. By invoking these emergency powers, I think it's hard to dispute that the Prime Minister's Office is stopping a peaceful protest!
- joshlemer 5y ago
  If the protesters weren't blocking infrastructure with trucks, and were just gathering on parliament hill, it would be a different story.
  - tonfreed 5y ago
    Because Trudeau could have ignored that again. This is the action of people who are not being heard. Trudeau could have de-escalated by meeting with the protesters, but he instead essentially said they should shut up and go back to driving.
    - jsjsbdkj 5y ago
      Why do they think they aren't being heard? We've heard them, they're wrong, and we're not going to do what they want. The vast majority of canadian oppose the convoy and support public health measures. This is just a childish tantrum.
    - joshlemer 5y ago
      It is absolutely false that Trudeau could have deescalated by talking to the convoy leaders. This is demonstrably false, as the mayor of Ottawa set up a meeting with them to negotiate some terms where the convoy would be restricted to a specific area in Ottawa. A meeting with the mayor, exactly what the convoyers want right? Then at the last minute they backed out. This whole "meet with us" is a move to be recognized and the moment Trudeau met with them, they would ratchet up their demands to a higher level. These people are foaming at the mouth with hate for trudeau, they have "F*CK TRUDEAU" as their slogan and painted on their trucks, they don't want to meet with him.
stackedinserter 5y ago
Nobody intimidated or enact violence against Ottawa residents. Based on what I saw with my own eyes last week, protesters and truckers are friendly and peaceful. IDK maybe they turn to werewolves at night, but the most aggressive thing I saw there was "fuck trudeau" signs everywhere.
- pkd 5y ago
  My friend was accosted for wearing a mask on Saturday in a restaurant. One of the two downtown grocery stores had to close because the employees were being intimated by the protestors to let them inside without a mask. A neighborhood ice cream store employee was assaulted for wearing a mask while walking to work, and the store closed down. The biggest shopping center downtown has been closed for 3 weeks, putting over a thousand people out of a job because the protestors kept trying to force their way in to stores without wearing masks. These are not protests against the government. They harm actual people on the ground trying to get on with their lives. I'm sorry the YouTube streams have not shown any of this. Who'd have thought that even youtubers can have editorial intent!
  - ersii 5y ago
    What does being accosted entail? If it's a matter of being heckled or laughed at, surely one has to be able to deal with that and not scream bloody murder. (We haven't had mask mandates here in Sweden, so your situation with masks seems peculiar and a bit weird from here)
    - joshlemer 5y ago
      Practically speaking, a heckling and laughing at from a large group of angry protesters against a single person minding their own business is basically an unspoken threat of violence. It is definitely intimidation.
    - pkd 5y ago
      Being asked to take their mask off in a belligerent way. We can argue about the relativity of violence all day long - but the fact is that this behaviour was not really heard of before the protests began and can be traumatising. My friend was with a group so they were able to handle the situation but there have been incidents of things going worse. Moreover, the mask mandates are provincial, not federal. If people are opposed to that, they should go heckle at Doug Ford, the Ontario Premier in Toronto, not at Trudeau in Ottawa. The fact is that the protestors don't have a common coherent narrative.
Tiktaalik 5y ago
Pretty much this is the core difference here. Is this a protest or an occupation? No one is gonna bat an eye if you block and intersection or a bridge for a day (ok maybe if it's the ambassador bridge). But eventually, if you start occupying the space for days and weeks on end, there are limits to people's patience. When a protest becomes an occupation, there are impacts on those whose neighbourhood is being occupied. Downtown Ottawa residents ain't happy.

Jackim 5y ago

I live in Ottawa and I assure you that this protest is not peaceful. I've had friends physically assaulted, spit on, and yelled at just for wearing a mask into a business. Not to mention the constant honking that was reaching levels above 100db inside people's homes. Homeless shelters were raided by protestors, businesses have been forced to close due to threats, and people are afraid to leave their homes.

busymom0 5y ago
I and my friends have been there for 3 weekends and haven't seen any of that. > Homeless shelters were raided by protestors, businesses have been forced to close due to threats, and people are afraid to leave their homes. This is hilariously inaccurate. Everyone's bringing food TO the truckers and there's so much food there that truckers are refusing to take more. Amazingly, we live in 2022 where everyone has a phone camera and Ottawa, the capital, has security cameras everywhere and yet none of this ever gets captured on camera and nobody seems to capture the face of the people supposedly doing such things. Here's one actual violence which did get captured on video: https://twitter.com/TheMarieOakes/status/1493053006237122562 https://twitter.com/TheMarieOakes/status/1493053006237122562 And there's another video of someone with a mask on who drove his jeep over 3 protestors in Manitoba. There are plenty of livestreams on YouTube (Viva Frei channel for example) which have been capturing everything. Honking might be the only thing which could constitute as annoying but that hasn't happened for over a week. Here's reporting by a government employee who lives right above the protest: https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night-with-the-untouchables/ https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night...
- Jackim 5y ago
  I'm happy that you haven't experienced any of that. None of what I said is untrue. I'm glad there has been lots of support from this protest to attempt to make up for some of the damage. It is still an illegal occupation that is costing my city millions every day, thousands of people are out of work at the Rideau Centre alone, libraries have been shut down, school children are being intimidated... I'm happy you're having fun.

busymom0 5y ago

I along with my friends (who are vaxxed but only did so because their work coerced them) have been at the protest in Ottawa for 3 weekends. It's always been peaceful, friendly and almost like Canada day celebrations. It was loud the first week due to honking but even that's stopped. And even if there were honking, that's not violence. I am brown and my buddy is black and neither of us met with anything other than friendly hugs and fist bumps. Then we get home and see an entirely different reporting on media and by government. Here's an article written by a government employee who lives right above the protests: https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night-with-the-untouchables/ https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night... EDIT: Reply to comment below, I was personally there because of the air-travel mandate by the Feds and restaurant/gym mandates by my province. Triple vaxxed Trudeau can fly even while he caught COVID. Triple vaxxed Mayor Jim Watson can go to restaurants and gyms despite being COVID+. But I am not allowed to fly or go to restaurants and gyms even if I can show a negative COVID test. I also talked to nurses there who worked for 2 years taking care of COVID patients, caught COVID along with their entire family, got natural immunity which is superior, and then got fired for not taking the shots. Yet Ontario and Quebec is letting COVID+ nurses to work if they are vaxxed. Also women are a lot more against the mandates than men based on my impression which seems to match the surveys.

Jackim 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Attacking another user will get you banned here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are. Perhaps you don't feel you owe political opponents better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - Jackim 5y ago
    Sorry, thanks for the reminder. I've had a tough time in my city over the past 3 weeks.

dbtc 5y ago

Is it because of the $ cost of shutting the border down? (I am not even thinking of whether it's justified, good or bad, just reasoning about motivations)

tedajax 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Please make your substantive points without swipes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tedajax 5y ago
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    Dang is a moderator of hackernews if you are not aware.
    - tedajax 5y ago
- ameminator 5y ago
  Good luck in this thread - and probably on the front page. Thanks for doing such a good job moderating this website.

barbazoo 5y ago

I think it stops being a peaceful protest if you erect structure and continually inconvenience residents by blasting your horns 24/7. Go on the street, show what you protest against, what you want. But don't permanently take over a part of the city, let alone start swearing in your own peace officers [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/0DvVtDHEizk?t=51 https://youtu.be/0DvVtDHEizk?t=51

Covzire 5y ago
Was it even ever honking 24/7?
ameminator 5y ago
I'm going to be honest, that seems remarkably peaceful, even when compared to the BLM protests from 2 years ago or especially the FLQ crisis of Pierre Trudeau. I don't think the truckers should be going into residential neighborhoods and making noise at all hours - but it's hard to argue that it's violent.
- atdt 5y ago
  It's not at all hard to argue. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are not and have not been the parent of a small child. The psychological suffering the noise is causing is acute.
- jsjsbdkj 5y ago
  BLM protests in Ottawa were extremely peaceful, and met with harsh police retaliation. Protestors blocked _one_ intersection for one day, and they were all rounded up and arrested by dozens of police officers in the middle of the night.
  - throwaway2048 5y ago
    Strange how the police seem totally unwilling to act in the case of a much more severe blockage

asdfaoeu 5y ago

Blocking roads without permission is generally illegal. A protest doesn't allow you to inconvenience others without repercussion.

ameminator 5y ago
Uh, how is someone supposed to protest? I mean, I see clear differences between going up to someone's home or into someone's workplace and making noise in the street. Any protest is almost guaranteed to inconvenience someone, unless you want to limit a "protester" to yelling in their own home. So what would you suggest is the line?
- synthos 5y ago
  Work with the city to park in a designated spot and then protest on foot in front of parliament. Not 'move-in' and set up hot tubs, saunas, and sleep in your truck on Wellington.
  - ameminator 5y ago
    What if the city doesn't want to work with the protesters? Do the protesters have to prove that they tried to work with the city? What if the protest is against the city itself? I have issues with asking permission to protest, even if it's an issue I don't support.
    - adra 5y ago
      There have been regular anti-vax protests throughout the pandemic. They are afforded time to disrupt traffic with a procession that usually ends in parking at a central district and legitimately ends that day. No cities have blocked their rights to protest within the legal construct they've been afforded. If this is too authoritarian for balancing the rights of protestors and the rights of everyone else, I recommend finding a new place to live. This is a sad but necessary limit of protest to distinguish protest from occupation. Even "occupy NY" largely allowed people to live their lives without significant burdens (though I'm sure some were unfortunately affected).

nyokodo 5y ago

> if you need permission to protest at all. This isn't about protesting "at all" it's about protesting in a way that stings the government. You can protest in a legal way but then you're dismissed. The Truckers are protesting in a way that can't be dismissed. They've chosen to risk serious consequences because to them the status quo is worse. Protests like this are a sign of a failure of leadership and representation.

jpgvm 5y ago
Then let's hope for serious consequences so that the message is loud and clear, minority positions can't and shouldn't be allowed to overrule the majority in a democracy. Their voice is heard through their elected representatives. Sometimes that means you don't get your way. Right now in my country the government in power acts in ways I really don't agree with but unfortunately they won fair and square and clearly have the support of the majority. For me that is disappointing and somewhat embarassing but I wouldn't dream of claiming that elections were fraudulent (USA) or simply ignoring mandate and consensus and trying to blackmail the government (CA).