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I agree that this needs to be taken very seriously. However, the author overstates his case significantly when he writes: > Doing this to someone—a small busin

I agree that this needs to be taken very seriously. However, the author overstates his case significantly when he writes: > Doing this to someone—a small business owner in BC, a public servant in Winnipeg, a student in Halifax—who made a small donation to support the convoy is a clear abuse of power. However: > The RCMP, banking sector and federal government said Monday that account-freezing powers bestowed under the Emergencies Act to help authorities deal with convoy protests do not affect donors to the protests, despite unsubstantiated claims by a Conservative MP that a constituent had her bank account frozen over a $50 contribution. > “At no time, did we provide a list of donors to Financial Institutions,” the RCMP said in a statement Monday. [1] Facts are important! 1: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-rcmp-banks-and-ottawa-say-convoy-protest-donors-wont-have-accounts/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-rcmp-banks-an...

raxxorrax 5y ago
That is a statement, not necessarily a fact. Especially if the source is not trustworthy simply because they are part of the executive in this case. It probably is true, but it still is not a fact until it was verified, which is not trivial.
caylus 5y ago
If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? It's hard to hide who has been jailed (though "disappearances" come close), whereas we have no choice but to take the word of the entity which we have granted unchecked power that it has not abused that power. There's also plenty of wiggle room in their statement - they said they froze the accounts of "influencers" and people they "suspect" committed illegal acts. If it turns out they did in fact freeze someone who just donated, they didn't technically lie if they can fit them into one of those vague groups.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  I have a hard time following this discussion because people are throwing around pretty dramatic statements without pause. > It's hard to hide who has been jailed None of the “influencers” we talk about are jailed. Nor does having your money frozen mean “jail”. It sure can be really bad and not without consequences, but even fully IRL we wouldn’t describe someone having all his possessions taken as jailed. Then govs have been freezing account under many pretenses for decades, except we now have a chance to get the affected people to come forward and explain they’re getting shafted. That wouldn’t happen a few decades ago, there was no way the local news would touch a story about some random peeps getting frozen under a terrorist charge for instance. Do you really think it’s worse now for activists than decades ago ?
- nathanaldensr 5y ago
  It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. How many more examples do we need before the opposite is assumed?
  - josephg 5y ago
    Eh. With 7.8 billion people on this planet, there is so much going on that you can find examples to support any narrative. Want examples to show governments tend toward corruption? Easy. Want examples showing governments working well? Sure! Examples showing citizens exercising power? Yep. Examples showing citizens being crushed under the heel of their government? We have that too! Black people being killed by police? Sure! White people being killed by police? That happens too! How about police getting attacked by civilians? Google has you covered. > How many more examples do we need If you go looking for examples to support your narrative, you'll always find them. We need data and analysis. And no, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
    - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
      Don't forget: The plural of anecdote is data http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - ghostpepper 5y ago
    I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.
    - cced 5y ago
      Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? If a crucial part of your argument is the epistemological claim that we obviously can't trust anyone who presents evidence or arguments that we don't like because they could be lying, then there's clearly no way of having a reasoned discussion.
  - MrStonedOne 5y ago
    Being able to audit the government requires being able to know what the government is doing, not just what the government says it's doing.
  - AmericanChopper 5y ago
    The claim isn’t that broad. The democratic model of society has never trusted executive government to dispense justice unilaterally. Having due process and an open system of courts is a mandatory feature of the democratic society, and when a government decides to suspend those safeguards, that governments own commentary about how little harm it’s decisions are causing do not have any credibility.
    - defaultname 5y ago
      Not a single charter right has been overridden. Every act undertaken under the EA is on the official record (available to the opposition parties). Parliament can revoke or partially revoke any component of the EA at any juncture. Then it has a followup discussion/analysis phase built in. Let's be clear -- there is no silencing component to this act. If someone has unfairly seen their accounts frozen, do a tell-all sad tale to every media outlet you can find. Rant on twitter. Share those Facebook pages. There are plenty of outlets that would love it. There are political parties who would make this their battle cry, using it to seal their own ascension. But there isn't a single case. Not one. No sad tales. Now accounts have been frozen -- we know that for sure -- but the people whose accounts have been frozen have been organizers and direct participants. People who knew what was coming and had literally weeks of warning to stop or face consequences. There isn't a lot of sympathy there. But the poor waitress in some small town who gave $20...boy, that story will give this country a new government. Yet...where is it?
- chrissnell 5y ago
  This is indeed a problem. We have major news outlets who function as propaganda mouthpieces of regimes. They're happy to carry the water for the regime and declare "nothing to see here!" and these days, they often do it with a "fact check". For the unsophisticated reader, this is very effective.
john_moscow 5y ago
I actually looked into the incident with the donor's account being frozen. From what I could understand: 1. The person made a donation to the Freedom Convoy. 2. Trudeau signed the Emergencies Act, giving rather broad power to freeze bank accounts without due process or clear recourse. 3. The person's bank account got locked due to an unrelated reason (false positive on the fraud check system). 4. The person either didn't contact the bank, or the bank was ambiguous, so they contacted their MP. 5. The MP, that is generally arguing against the right to freeze accounts [0], used it as an example to illustrate his point. So, key takeaways: 1. The recently passed legislation makes it possible to freeze the supporters' bank accounts. 2. It has not been done so far. 3. People are on edge, expecting it to be done. 4. Making the power less broad, or putting some provisions about basic life expenses could be a good idea. [0] https://twitter.com/markstrahl https://twitter.com/markstrahl
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > 1. The person made a donation to the Freedom Convoy. > 2. Trudeau signed the Emergencies Act, giving rather broad power to freeze bank accounts without due process or clear recourse The Emergencies Act is not retroactive. If this was the order of operations then their account was not locked because of the EA.
  - wolpoli 5y ago
    The order is retroactive. It simply specifies that institutions have a duty to cease dealings with people involved. https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=41567&lang=en https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=41...
    - pkd 5y ago
      I don't see what makes you think it's retroactive in the act. The government has also said it's not going to be applied retroactively. https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-ottawa-can-do-now-under-the-emergencies-act/ https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-ottawa-can-do-n...
wvenable 5y ago
The banks contacted the government to seek advice on what to with these funds before the Emergency Act. They have these funds they know belong to multiple individuals, including the account holder, and don't know what to do with them. Just because 100,000 people dumped money into your account for cause doesn't mean it belongs to you personally. No individual protestors accounts have been frozen. If you donated to this cause you literally have no idea where your money went. If you participated in the protest and feel entitled to these funds, how would you get them? Freezing the accounts, at this time, is neither pro-protest or anti-protest. The government isn't seizing this money -- it's keeping it from being moved until somebody can figure out who even owns it. https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/trudeau-gives-banks-power-to-freeze-funds-without-court-order-in-bid-to-choke-off-protest-funding https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/trudeau-gives-b...
- phil21 5y ago
  > Just because 100,000 people dumped money into your account for cause doesn't mean it belongs to you personally. This is the first time I've seen someone make this completely true point about the banking system. It's not right or just, but money in the bank is not your money. It is your bank's money, and they may or may not allow you to transact it at any given time. Your recourse's are few and extremely expensive. If anything positive comes out of this, I hope it's more folks realize this.
  - JamisonM 5y ago
    I think actually you will find in the normal course of life your recourse against a financial institution that freezes your funds in Canada are many and very affordable, even free. It is a highly regulated sector, there is frequent reporting and quick reviews. In the specific case of the GoFundMe money TD Bank was immediately at the courts begging for someone to tell them what to do.
syshum 5y ago
Notice the Canadian government did not in fact say they did not freeze the accounts of donors, only that they did not "provide lists of donors to Financial Institutions" Those are very different statements, and they can both note have provided a list specifically of donors, while including donors on a list of "suspected criminals whom accounts need to be frozen" Facts do matter, and I do not trust the RCMP, nor the Canadian government to provide those facts
JPKab 5y ago
I think you are forgetting a few key details: 1.) You are taking a government's word for it. As a US citizen, I can tell you that you should never, ever do this. My attitude with any governing entity is to trust but verify. If they don't provide a way to verify, assume they are lying. I'm a former Department of Defense and intelligence contractor. My experience working with these entities hardened my attitude to never take their word for it. 2.) You are ignoring the complete lack of due process with the account-freezing powers. Any Canadian citizen is a mere accusation or mistake away from being labelled as "being involved" with the protests and having their accounts frozen, with no ability to defend yourself or correct an error. The complete willingness and seal-clapping from the majority of the Canadian public about allowing a violation of democratic norms, purely because it's directed at a minority whom they have dehumanized for years, has completely changed my view of the Canadian public. I've travelled in Canada extensively, and I'm dismayed to now realize they are even easier to mislead than the US public is. The utter shortsightedness of this is mind-blowing, with it's supporters seemingly oblivious to how quickly they can find themselves on the receiving end of it.
- defaultname 5y ago
  > You are taking a government's word for it Canada is a parliamentary democracy, and the current governing party -- the ones who take all of the heat for every abuse -- are a minority government. They can fall at a moment's notice. Prime Minister in Canada isn't King, and instead is far less powerful than, for instance, the US president. Yet *not a single case has been brought forward*. A couple of Conservative MPs have vaguely alluded to cases -- ones with almost no details, yet the few details that are brought up don't match any known donor lists (e.g. "Briane from Chilliwack") -- yet despite this being such an incredible hammer to take down this government, crickets. So yes, I'll take the government's position on this. "seal-clapping" Ah, yes, "seal-clapping". That surely conveys the sincerity of your comment. Or we saw mass financing of public mayhem and realized that yes, this is a very real problem. It's a real problem that needs considerable solutions. "purely because it's directed at a minority whom they have dehumanized for years" A "minority"? This is perverse. By this measure, every deplorable subset is a protected minority that you will pearl clutch about. Won't someone think about the poor Nazis? Financed mayhem will always come under the microscope.
34679 5y ago
Facts are important, and so is language. The RCMP claim they provided a list of "influencers". The problem with that denial is that the set of all people who influenced the protest includes the set of all donors. In other words, it doesn't matter if they didn't share a list of donors if the list they did share includes all of the donors.
- JamisonM 5y ago
  You can get yourself all twisted up in semantics if you want.. lots of people seem to be arguing all sorts of goofy stuff - Canadians that work in the banking sector actually know the government is telling the truth. That is what is actually going on.
daenz 5y ago
Here's David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He was asked directly whether or not people who donate to the movement should be worried.[0] >If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried. Can you understand now why people may be concerned about the scope of who is being targeted, regardless of what the RCMP claims they're doing? A high ranking official made it clear that donators are under the microscope based on their political affiliations. 0. https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1494115333136867329 https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/14941153331368673...
- JamisonM 5y ago
  IDK, he said the scope is a donation of over $100,000 - so probably zero people should be worried?
  - daenz 5y ago
    I took it to mean if the "movement" (of which you are a member) is donating that much money, but I can see your interpretation as well. It's ambiguous, which is not a good look for an official on such an important topic.
    - JamisonM 5y ago
      Reasonable people can disagree but I do see what you mean - I thank you for your honest consideration of my opinion, a rare treat! Subsequent statements and clarifications have made it clear that these donors were not subject to any action, this freaking government.. they just can't quite figure out how to make a clear statement about anything, despite seeming like they are constantly reading talking points - it drives me up the wall.
- staticman2 5y ago
  Well having googled that quote and found nothing by a normal news site I'm not clear why anyone would think the Twitter account you linked to is anything other than pure fiction.
defaultname 5y ago
While the linked article and the twitter thread it links are both quite good, your core point is absolutely correct. As stated elsewhere, this is a minority government. If there is a single actual case of someone donating some small amount and having their account frozen, with the corresponding life mayhem, may the Conservatives use it to bludgeon the Liberals. But there hasn't been one. Not a single case. A couple of opposing politicians and twitter personalities have invented vague claims of cases, but these are clearly a fiction (or have been clarified as "but it could happen" scenarios).
busymom0 5y ago
> “At no time, did we provide a list of donors to Financial Institutions,” the RCMP said in a statement Monday. [1] They don't need to. The list is public. Banks have been given the power already. Also, trusting anything the RCMP says is like trusting what the CIA/NSA/FBI says.
theptip 5y ago
Hangon. The reason this shitstorm kicked up in the first place, and was getting retweeted by PG, Sam Altman, and lots of reasonable people (not to mention provoking the libertarian wing to frothing at the mouth), was that the deputy PM said: "The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen." https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1494381498555781122 https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1494381498555781122 And this story was run in Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/police-begin-financial-squeeze-trudeau-defends-emergency-edict https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/police-be... So I think it's not fair to dismiss this as fake news coming from "unsubstantiated claims by a Conservative MP" as your comment seems to do. The story came from the government's own deputy PM! In the video, the deputy PM sounded like she was being vague, either obfuscating or because she was out of depth on the specifics. So if this statement wasn't true as-quoted (maybe she mis-spoke or wasn't precise), then that's great news. So, maybe it is actually true that they did not share names with the banks. But I think it would be quite naive to take the latest claim at face value, after all they did make a contradictory claim previously. This is the sort of thing governments lie about and try to spin their way out of all the time. It's entirely plausible that they did share the info, did not expect the blowback they got, and are now in damage control mode trying to walk this back and pretend it didn't happen.
- ladallada 5y ago
  It's not fake news, they did freeze some accounts, people are arguing which account was frozen, was it only that of people who illegally block major roads and boarder crossings as part of the tricker protest, and/or did they also include small donors to their funds, and/or only large donors, but then what is the threshold for small/large, and/or did they also include collateral of people who might have been peacefully protesting alongside the truckers illegally blocking roads and boarder crossings. The article makes the point that it's is dangerous to not have some limitations on over reach in this case. For example, in a protest, you might get physically tear gased or jailed, but it's temporary, and eventually you get due process and can be released, and your tears from tear gas will dissipate. Yet the nature of it is that police punishes you before you've been convinced in a court, so there's collateral damage, people who did nothing wrong are hit and tear gased and arrested by the police, and it's a big deal each time it happens. Here too, there could very well be this sort of collateral, but the article worries that since it's less visible in nature, that people might not see it as a big deal, the same way that they would if they'd see police throwing tear gas, hitting people and arresting people left and right. So it's saying, there's a possibility of overreach and collateral, but it might create less of a concern from citizens towards the government, since they won't notice the blast radius, as it is harder to notice it. It's a good argument to some extent, even if in this case there would have been zero overreach and collateral, it is still a good argument for next time where there could be some.

raxxorrax 5y ago

That is a statement, not necessarily a fact. Especially if the source is not trustworthy simply because they are part of the executive in this case. It probably is true, but it still is not a fact until it was verified, which is not trivial.

caylus 5y ago

If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? It's hard to hide who has been jailed (though "disappearances" come close), whereas we have no choice but to take the word of the entity which we have granted unchecked power that it has not abused that power. There's also plenty of wiggle room in their statement - they said they froze the accounts of "influencers" and people they "suspect" committed illegal acts. If it turns out they did in fact freeze someone who just donated, they didn't technically lie if they can fit them into one of those vague groups.

makeitdouble 5y ago
I have a hard time following this discussion because people are throwing around pretty dramatic statements without pause. > It's hard to hide who has been jailed None of the “influencers” we talk about are jailed. Nor does having your money frozen mean “jail”. It sure can be really bad and not without consequences, but even fully IRL we wouldn’t describe someone having all his possessions taken as jailed. Then govs have been freezing account under many pretenses for decades, except we now have a chance to get the affected people to come forward and explain they’re getting shafted. That wouldn’t happen a few decades ago, there was no way the local news would touch a story about some random peeps getting frozen under a terrorist charge for instance. Do you really think it’s worse now for activists than decades ago ?
nathanaldensr 5y ago
It is utterly amazing to me that despite all of human history being filled with stories of egregious human rights violations, lies, and propaganda coming from governments all across the political spectrum and world that people still trot out the "look, read this official information. This is proof!" excuse. How many more examples do we need before the opposite is assumed?
- josephg 5y ago
  Eh. With 7.8 billion people on this planet, there is so much going on that you can find examples to support any narrative. Want examples to show governments tend toward corruption? Easy. Want examples showing governments working well? Sure! Examples showing citizens exercising power? Yep. Examples showing citizens being crushed under the heel of their government? We have that too! Black people being killed by police? Sure! White people being killed by police? That happens too! How about police getting attacked by civilians? Google has you covered. > How many more examples do we need If you go looking for examples to support your narrative, you'll always find them. We need data and analysis. And no, the plural of anecdote isn't data.
  - bryanrasmussen 5y ago
    Don't forget: The plural of anecdote is data http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/ http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-i...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ghostpepper 5y ago
  I feel like if this actually happened to any one of the protestors, that person would be all over social media publicizing this. So far, to my knowledge, that has not happened.
  - cced 5y ago
    Unless of course they were banned for spreading false or misleading information.
tshaddox 5y ago
> If anything this reinforces the author's point about the dangers of lack of transparency of "digital jail". How do we know that statement is true? If a crucial part of your argument is the epistemological claim that we obviously can't trust anyone who presents evidence or arguments that we don't like because they could be lying, then there's clearly no way of having a reasoned discussion.
- MrStonedOne 5y ago
  Being able to audit the government requires being able to know what the government is doing, not just what the government says it's doing.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  The claim isn’t that broad. The democratic model of society has never trusted executive government to dispense justice unilaterally. Having due process and an open system of courts is a mandatory feature of the democratic society, and when a government decides to suspend those safeguards, that governments own commentary about how little harm it’s decisions are causing do not have any credibility.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    Not a single charter right has been overridden. Every act undertaken under the EA is on the official record (available to the opposition parties). Parliament can revoke or partially revoke any component of the EA at any juncture. Then it has a followup discussion/analysis phase built in. Let's be clear -- there is no silencing component to this act. If someone has unfairly seen their accounts frozen, do a tell-all sad tale to every media outlet you can find. Rant on twitter. Share those Facebook pages. There are plenty of outlets that would love it. There are political parties who would make this their battle cry, using it to seal their own ascension. But there isn't a single case. Not one. No sad tales. Now accounts have been frozen -- we know that for sure -- but the people whose accounts have been frozen have been organizers and direct participants. People who knew what was coming and had literally weeks of warning to stop or face consequences. There isn't a lot of sympathy there. But the poor waitress in some small town who gave $20...boy, that story will give this country a new government. Yet...where is it?
chrissnell 5y ago
This is indeed a problem. We have major news outlets who function as propaganda mouthpieces of regimes. They're happy to carry the water for the regime and declare "nothing to see here!" and these days, they often do it with a "fact check". For the unsophisticated reader, this is very effective.

john_moscow 5y ago

I actually looked into the incident with the donor's account being frozen. From what I could understand: 1. The person made a donation to the Freedom Convoy. 2. Trudeau signed the Emergencies Act, giving rather broad power to freeze bank accounts without due process or clear recourse. 3. The person's bank account got locked due to an unrelated reason (false positive on the fraud check system). 4. The person either didn't contact the bank, or the bank was ambiguous, so they contacted their MP. 5. The MP, that is generally arguing against the right to freeze accounts [0], used it as an example to illustrate his point. So, key takeaways: 1. The recently passed legislation makes it possible to freeze the supporters' bank accounts. 2. It has not been done so far. 3. People are on edge, expecting it to be done. 4. Making the power less broad, or putting some provisions about basic life expenses could be a good idea. [0] https://twitter.com/markstrahl https://twitter.com/markstrahl

throw0101a 5y ago
> 1. The person made a donation to the Freedom Convoy. > 2. Trudeau signed the Emergencies Act, giving rather broad power to freeze bank accounts without due process or clear recourse The Emergencies Act is not retroactive. If this was the order of operations then their account was not locked because of the EA.
- wolpoli 5y ago
  The order is retroactive. It simply specifies that institutions have a duty to cease dealings with people involved. https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=41567&lang=en https://orders-in-council.canada.ca/attachment.php?attach=41...
  - pkd 5y ago
    I don't see what makes you think it's retroactive in the act. The government has also said it's not going to be applied retroactively. https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-ottawa-can-do-now-under-the-emergencies-act/ https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/what-ottawa-can-do-n...

wvenable 5y ago

The banks contacted the government to seek advice on what to with these funds before the Emergency Act. They have these funds they know belong to multiple individuals, including the account holder, and don't know what to do with them. Just because 100,000 people dumped money into your account for cause doesn't mean it belongs to you personally. No individual protestors accounts have been frozen. If you donated to this cause you literally have no idea where your money went. If you participated in the protest and feel entitled to these funds, how would you get them? Freezing the accounts, at this time, is neither pro-protest or anti-protest. The government isn't seizing this money -- it's keeping it from being moved until somebody can figure out who even owns it. https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/trudeau-gives-banks-power-to-freeze-funds-without-court-order-in-bid-to-choke-off-protest-funding https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/trudeau-gives-b...

phil21 5y ago
> Just because 100,000 people dumped money into your account for cause doesn't mean it belongs to you personally. This is the first time I've seen someone make this completely true point about the banking system. It's not right or just, but money in the bank is not your money. It is your bank's money, and they may or may not allow you to transact it at any given time. Your recourse's are few and extremely expensive. If anything positive comes out of this, I hope it's more folks realize this.
- JamisonM 5y ago
  I think actually you will find in the normal course of life your recourse against a financial institution that freezes your funds in Canada are many and very affordable, even free. It is a highly regulated sector, there is frequent reporting and quick reviews. In the specific case of the GoFundMe money TD Bank was immediately at the courts begging for someone to tell them what to do.

syshum 5y ago

Notice the Canadian government did not in fact say they did not freeze the accounts of donors, only that they did not "provide lists of donors to Financial Institutions" Those are very different statements, and they can both note have provided a list specifically of donors, while including donors on a list of "suspected criminals whom accounts need to be frozen" Facts do matter, and I do not trust the RCMP, nor the Canadian government to provide those facts

JPKab 5y ago

I think you are forgetting a few key details: 1.) You are taking a government's word for it. As a US citizen, I can tell you that you should never, ever do this. My attitude with any governing entity is to trust but verify. If they don't provide a way to verify, assume they are lying. I'm a former Department of Defense and intelligence contractor. My experience working with these entities hardened my attitude to never take their word for it. 2.) You are ignoring the complete lack of due process with the account-freezing powers. Any Canadian citizen is a mere accusation or mistake away from being labelled as "being involved" with the protests and having their accounts frozen, with no ability to defend yourself or correct an error. The complete willingness and seal-clapping from the majority of the Canadian public about allowing a violation of democratic norms, purely because it's directed at a minority whom they have dehumanized for years, has completely changed my view of the Canadian public. I've travelled in Canada extensively, and I'm dismayed to now realize they are even easier to mislead than the US public is. The utter shortsightedness of this is mind-blowing, with it's supporters seemingly oblivious to how quickly they can find themselves on the receiving end of it.

defaultname 5y ago
> You are taking a government's word for it Canada is a parliamentary democracy, and the current governing party -- the ones who take all of the heat for every abuse -- are a minority government. They can fall at a moment's notice. Prime Minister in Canada isn't King, and instead is far less powerful than, for instance, the US president. Yet *not a single case has been brought forward*. A couple of Conservative MPs have vaguely alluded to cases -- ones with almost no details, yet the few details that are brought up don't match any known donor lists (e.g. "Briane from Chilliwack") -- yet despite this being such an incredible hammer to take down this government, crickets. So yes, I'll take the government's position on this. "seal-clapping" Ah, yes, "seal-clapping". That surely conveys the sincerity of your comment. Or we saw mass financing of public mayhem and realized that yes, this is a very real problem. It's a real problem that needs considerable solutions. "purely because it's directed at a minority whom they have dehumanized for years" A "minority"? This is perverse. By this measure, every deplorable subset is a protected minority that you will pearl clutch about. Won't someone think about the poor Nazis? Financed mayhem will always come under the microscope.

34679 5y ago

Facts are important, and so is language. The RCMP claim they provided a list of "influencers". The problem with that denial is that the set of all people who influenced the protest includes the set of all donors. In other words, it doesn't matter if they didn't share a list of donors if the list they did share includes all of the donors.

JamisonM 5y ago
You can get yourself all twisted up in semantics if you want.. lots of people seem to be arguing all sorts of goofy stuff - Canadians that work in the banking sector actually know the government is telling the truth. That is what is actually going on.

daenz 5y ago

Here's David Lametti, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He was asked directly whether or not people who donate to the movement should be worried.[0] >If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried. Can you understand now why people may be concerned about the scope of who is being targeted, regardless of what the RCMP claims they're doing? A high ranking official made it clear that donators are under the microscope based on their political affiliations. 0. https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1494115333136867329 https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/14941153331368673...

JamisonM 5y ago
IDK, he said the scope is a donation of over $100,000 - so probably zero people should be worried?
- daenz 5y ago
  I took it to mean if the "movement" (of which you are a member) is donating that much money, but I can see your interpretation as well. It's ambiguous, which is not a good look for an official on such an important topic.
  - JamisonM 5y ago
    Reasonable people can disagree but I do see what you mean - I thank you for your honest consideration of my opinion, a rare treat! Subsequent statements and clarifications have made it clear that these donors were not subject to any action, this freaking government.. they just can't quite figure out how to make a clear statement about anything, despite seeming like they are constantly reading talking points - it drives me up the wall.
staticman2 5y ago
Well having googled that quote and found nothing by a normal news site I'm not clear why anyone would think the Twitter account you linked to is anything other than pure fiction.

defaultname 5y ago

While the linked article and the twitter thread it links are both quite good, your core point is absolutely correct. As stated elsewhere, this is a minority government. If there is a single actual case of someone donating some small amount and having their account frozen, with the corresponding life mayhem, may the Conservatives use it to bludgeon the Liberals. But there hasn't been one. Not a single case. A couple of opposing politicians and twitter personalities have invented vague claims of cases, but these are clearly a fiction (or have been clarified as "but it could happen" scenarios).

busymom0 5y ago

> “At no time, did we provide a list of donors to Financial Institutions,” the RCMP said in a statement Monday. [1] They don't need to. The list is public. Banks have been given the power already. Also, trusting anything the RCMP says is like trusting what the CIA/NSA/FBI says.

theptip 5y ago

Hangon. The reason this shitstorm kicked up in the first place, and was getting retweeted by PG, Sam Altman, and lots of reasonable people (not to mention provoking the libertarian wing to frothing at the mouth), was that the deputy PM said: "The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen." https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1494381498555781122 https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/1494381498555781122 And this story was run in Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/police-begin-financial-squeeze-trudeau-defends-emergency-edict https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/police-be... So I think it's not fair to dismiss this as fake news coming from "unsubstantiated claims by a Conservative MP" as your comment seems to do. The story came from the government's own deputy PM! In the video, the deputy PM sounded like she was being vague, either obfuscating or because she was out of depth on the specifics. So if this statement wasn't true as-quoted (maybe she mis-spoke or wasn't precise), then that's great news. So, maybe it is actually true that they did not share names with the banks. But I think it would be quite naive to take the latest claim at face value, after all they did make a contradictory claim previously. This is the sort of thing governments lie about and try to spin their way out of all the time. It's entirely plausible that they did share the info, did not expect the blowback they got, and are now in damage control mode trying to walk this back and pretend it didn't happen.

ladallada 5y ago
It's not fake news, they did freeze some accounts, people are arguing which account was frozen, was it only that of people who illegally block major roads and boarder crossings as part of the tricker protest, and/or did they also include small donors to their funds, and/or only large donors, but then what is the threshold for small/large, and/or did they also include collateral of people who might have been peacefully protesting alongside the truckers illegally blocking roads and boarder crossings. The article makes the point that it's is dangerous to not have some limitations on over reach in this case. For example, in a protest, you might get physically tear gased or jailed, but it's temporary, and eventually you get due process and can be released, and your tears from tear gas will dissipate. Yet the nature of it is that police punishes you before you've been convinced in a court, so there's collateral damage, people who did nothing wrong are hit and tear gased and arrested by the police, and it's a big deal each time it happens. Here too, there could very well be this sort of collateral, but the article worries that since it's less visible in nature, that people might not see it as a big deal, the same way that they would if they'd see police throwing tear gas, hitting people and arresting people left and right. So it's saying, there's a possibility of overreach and collateral, but it might create less of a concern from citizens towards the government, since they won't notice the blast radius, as it is harder to notice it. It's a good argument to some extent, even if in this case there would have been zero overreach and collateral, it is still a good argument for next time where there could be some.