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Patio11 has some good coverage of Trudeau's handling of the trucker protest against the government's handling of COVID-19 [1]. Whatever you think of the trucke

by csense 2y ago

Patio11 has some good coverage of Trudeau's handling of the trucker protest against the government's handling of COVID-19 [1]. Whatever you think of the truckers' position or protest tactics, any punishment for their actions ought to go through the laws and court system. Trudeau instead essentially told the banking system "You can't do business with those people, they're terrorists." Patio11's words of what happened next: "The assistant deputy finance minister...said...'The intent was not to get at the families', and when a democratic government starts a sentence that way something deeply #*&$#ed up has happened." I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki... (You'll have to Ctrl+F trucker as this blog doesn't seem to have <a name> for headings, as is customary on e.g. Wikipedia.)

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>'The intent was not to get at the families', and when a democratic government starts a sentence that way something deeply #&$#ed up has happened." Wait, are people that shocked that their democratic governments are wiling to act like mobsters/dictators against a minority group just to get their way and appease a majority, when the history books are full of such examples? People must have a short memory then and why history repeating itself is a fact.
- snakeyjake 2y ago
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  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
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  - grecy 2y ago
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    - Cumpiler69 2y ago
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      - grecy 2y ago
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        dang 2y ago
        Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? We've had to ask you this so many times I don't even want to bother digging up all the links. As I'm sure I've said more than once before, we'll have to ban you if you keep this up, so please just stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - dang 2y ago
        Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? Your account unfortunately has been doing this repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
        zahlman 2y ago
        To be clear, is "Anyone who doesn't like this should think about which members of their immediate family they want included in that 70,000 deaths." not also the same sort of flamewar style?
        Cumpiler69 2y ago
        It's just double standard and selective enforcement.
busterarm 2y ago
While I agree with patio11's assessment here, if you were to poll the average Ottawan about the trucker protest, you'll largely get back a response of "#&$! those people", soley because they were minorly-inconvenienced by them. Canadian politics (not uniquely here) is plagued with petty squabbles. The really meaningful political and social issues don't get any airtime.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > if you were to poll the average Ottawan about the trucker protest, you'll largely get back a response of "#&$! those people", soley because they were minorly-inconvenienced by them This just illustrates why pure/Athenian democracy doesn’t work. Madness of the crowds and all that. Decide most issues by plebescite and you get an emotional outcome.
  - ivell 2y ago
    Switzerland has direct democracy and seems to go fine with it.
  - sapphicsnail 2y ago
    I can't imagine looking at Republican Rome or any of the tyrants in the ancient world and thinking they're better. The Republic fell because a bunch of senators were too greedy and refused to do basic land reform or anything else to make life better for anyone other than themselves. There's no shortage of absolutely insane tyrants that made people's lives miserable.
  - 8note 2y ago
    its a much less severe response than there would gave been, compared to say, ottawabs torching the trucks along with anyone in them
- throw10920 2y ago
  Is this where the meme about Canadians being very polite comes from - a tendency towards pettiness rather than really nasty political rifts? (I don't know anything about Canadian culture)
MichaelZuo 2y ago
This seems a bit confused. Canada is not the US. Why would it matter when the judiciary is not a co-equal branch of government? i.e. When there is Parliamentary sovereignty/supremacy? An inferior authority can never legally overrule a superior authority by definition.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Why would it matter when the judiciary is not a co-equal branch of government? Then there is an external guarantor of the rights of the people against the government.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Huh? What ‘external guarantor’?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > What ‘external guarantor’? …the coëqual judiciary.
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        How can a subordinate entity be external?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        A subordinate judiciary isn’t coëqual.
        MichaelZuo 2y ago
        I know it’s not coequal, because I was the one who wrote this…
  - darth_avocado 2y ago
mass_and_energy 2y ago
YSK that the people who had their accounts frozen weren't simply protesting in Ottawa; they were blocking international borders to our largest trading partner, effectively holding our economy hostage. This absolutely constitutes behavior that's a danger to our nation so it makes sense to freeze the accounts of the people doing it. To be clear, there were many attempts to settle this without freezing people's bank accounts, but when nothing else works sometimes you have to get out the big guns.
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  >but when nothing else works sometimes you have to get out the big guns. Isn't that why you have the police, army, etc? You use force to remove those people breaking the laws, not go after their families. That's some USSR shit.
  - leptons 2y ago
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    - lp0_on_fire 2y ago
      > The truckers were warned what would happen, and they made their families pay the price. This is a terrifying comment and you should really start re-examining your outlook on life. I really hope you are nowhere near any sort of lever of power.
      - leptons 2y ago
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        lp0_on_fire 2y ago
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        2y ago
kubb 2y ago
I don’t follow Canadian politics, and I don’t know that much about Trudeau, but having the capital full of honking, mad truckers, holding the government hostage for their demands to be met in a time of crisis sounds like an absolute nightmare.
- catgary 2y ago
  There had already been one standoff between local residents and truckers, I remember there being chatter that the next weekend groups were going to coordinate in their neighborhoods and drive out the convoy on their own (using baseball bats, cast iron skillets, or golf clubs if need be). The situation had the potential to turn into an absolute blood bath.
  - kubb 2y ago
    In the US some psychopath straight up shot and killed a climate activist who was in the way of his car. It’s a miracle something similar didn’t happen there.
    - catgary 2y ago
      If someone tried this protest in the US someone would have been shot night one.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - taeric 2y ago
      In the US? I recall an event in Panama. Quickly googling shows the person was a dual US citizen? Maybe that is what you are thinking of?
      - relaxing 2y ago
        OP is probably conflating the environmentalist protestor shot in the US by cops and the numerous racial justice protestors killed by motorists, along with the incident you mentioned. Easy mistake to make.
catgary 2y ago
I think it’s worth noting that the weekend before this, local residents of Ottawa had basically “stormed” one of the trucker convoy camps to unblock a road. There were genuine concerns that the residents of Ottawa were ready to take matters into their own hands, and it would be a bloodbath. Not to mention the blockade in Alberta where they were found with guns and a pipe bomb, with their communications indicating they were planning to murder the RCMP officers on site! Declaring the Emergency acts was overwhelmingly popular in Canada and remains one of the most popular things Trudeau ever did. The moves to restrict access to banking affected less than 20 people (and I think they were generally funnelling money from international propaganda groups or committing similar financial crimes).
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. In fact it did that twice in 50 years. And only twenty people getting their rights completely stripped because they bothered the federal government workers in Ottawa is good enough according to you? Maybe it's just because I'm part of a minority but your entire comment is exactly the issue with Canadian politics. We basically have 0 rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. I guess that's the perks of having an incredibly ineffective constitution.
  - c0redump 2y ago
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    - busterarm 2y ago
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      - lp0_on_fire 2y ago
        “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis.
laidoffamazon 2y ago
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grecy 2y ago
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bryanlarsen 2y ago
The federal response was largely due to the abject failure of the city & provincial governments to enforce their laws. The city and province had plenty of tools to get rid of the protesters: noise bylaws, parking bylaws, et cetera. They failed completely, so the Federal government was forced to intervene. The federal government did not have nuanced tools to deal with the truckers so used the blunt hammers they did have.
- loceng 2y ago
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  - mlekoszek 2y ago
    Can you explain what these illegal orders were, within the purview of Sloly's role as police chief? Also, who is the second Ottawa police chief you're talking about? For that matter, who is the third one? Furthermore, on what grounds are you claiming that Sloly resigned over illegal orders, when most sources agree it was over failure to perform?
    - loceng 2y ago
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      - mlekoszek 2y ago
        Is this a runaround way to say you don't have any reliable sources to share with us? I'm sure if you linked them they would be very convincing.
        deleted 2y ago
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    - freedomben 2y ago
      > Furthermore, on what grounds are you claiming that Sloly resigned over illegal orders, when most sources agree it was over failure to perform? I don't know enough about the situation to have an opinion about much of this, but at least on this one I don't think you need grounds to disbelieve stated reasons for resignation. I've personally witnessed many people resigning and giving reasons like "to focus on my family" or "to focus on my health" or something when in reality they were parachuting out before getting fired or were resigning for other reasons but didn't want to burn a bridge by telling the truth. I wouldn't be surprised if being untruthful (or only partially truthful) in resignations is more the norm than is being honest, and when talking about politics that probably goes up even more.
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throw0101d 2y ago
> […] ought to go through the laws and court system. The Emergencies Act is part of the laws of Canada: * https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/ https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act And there were court orders: * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60356461 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60356461 * 2022 ONSC 1001: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1001/2022onsc1001.html https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1001/2022... ; https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/docs/ISSUED_Order_Morawetz_FEB_11_2022_CV-22-30791.pdf https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/docs/ISSUE...
- coldtea 2y ago
  An abhorrent part, abused way out of its intended scope in a totalitarian way.
- deleted 2y ago
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- swat535 2y ago
  And the court of law later determined that this was an abuse of power and unlawful. The fact that there is an existing law that can be abused does not negate the argument that abusing it is unlawful.
  - throw0101d 2y ago
    > And the court of law later determined […] And an Act-mandated commission said it was warranted: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Emergency_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Emergency_Commiss...
    - eli_gottlieb 2y ago
      And in the Canadian system, are appointed commissions or judicial rulings supreme and overriding over the other?
nsavage 2y ago
I live in Ottawa and lived here during the convoy. Happy to answer any questions as an actual resident from anyone about my experience.
- indy 2y ago
  What were the general public's opinion of the protests? Also how 'dangerous' was the convoy perceived to be? Were the actions of the Government deemed to be overreach?
  - nsavage 2y ago
    The protests lasted quite a long time and I think the public's opinion on it changed over time. At the beginning, most left-wing/centrist sorts of people saw it as an annoyance, but Ottawa is used to protests. Within the first week or so, people were bringing their kids to the event After the first week or so (again, going by memory here), I think the general perception of danger started increasing dramatically. Most of the kids were gone, replaced my angry men with nothing better to do. In hindsight, nothing happened during the occupation, but given the overlap with the sorts of people who own guns (remember, the border blockade in Alberta at the same time did see people with guns), I think people were legitimately scared. The police certainly were too scared to do anything! There was also a scare at the time at an apartment building in Centretown where someone tried to barricade the doors and light it on fire. This happened during the convoy, and while nothing happened and it seems it may have been unrelated mischief, we can only say that in hindsight. At the time it was very scary. There was another incident where truckers were showing up at a local school and yelling at people. I think most people supported the Trudeau government in putting an end to it with the Emergencies Act, which later was found to be unconstitutional. It was pretty popular at the time. The general perception was that the federal government was doing what the provincial government (despite what Doug Ford thinks, Ottawa is actually in Ontario!) should have done weeks ago.
    - indy 2y ago
      Thanks for replying. As a non-Canadian, your response has been more informative than the weeks I spent reading Twitter trying to figure out what was happening.
deleted 2y ago
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jamie_ca 2y ago
Offtopic to politics, but browsers these days support arbitrary text anchors. docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Fragment/Text_fragments https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Fragment/Te... your link: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/#:~:text=truckers%20in%20Canada https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...
- codethief 2y ago
  Wow, TIL. Looks like a fairly recent feature, though (at least in certain browsers).
- tjarrett 2y ago
  Wow. Came here expecting to read about truckers and instead learned something really useful! Thank you!
  - arduanika 2y ago
    Gentlemen you can't discuss web protocols tips on here, this is a tech forum!
  - zahlman 2y ago
    I've seen it used countless times before, but I thought it was something somehow being injected into the page by a search engine (especially when it comes from custom site searches on forums), rather than a browser feature.
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > Offtopic to politics, but browsers these days support arbitrary text anchors. Find this extremely annoying, especially in search results: I want to start at the beginning of the article/post, and not some random place in the middle—which is where the highlighted snippet in the search results are from, but not helpful for learning the larger context. It also tends to mess up URLS that you may want to copy-paste as it has that text parameter garbage at the end (often with a sizeable amount of text that needs to be removed).
cdrini 2y ago
> I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone. This seems like a pretty big conclusion to reach based on one article and one topic, no? Especially when you, in the same sentence, also recognize that you don't follow Canadian politics?
mrbonner 2y ago
I, for 1 sec, thought you said press Crtl F to pay respects.
deanCommie 2y ago
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bawolff 2y ago
People on hn seem weirdly obsessed with trudeau's handling of the trucker protest. Regardless of what you think of it, at this point it is very old news and trudeau's actions were controversial but largely popular. The handling of the trucker protest is not why he resigned. It is not why he is unpopular.
- hn-acct 2y ago
  I live and work with mostly conservatives and none of them supported the truckers nor do they even mention it. Their grievances are more typical - inflation, taxes, and immigration. I think we need to be careful when reading these opinions to not mix up Americans’ views, Russian trolls with legitimate Canadian discourse.
- VerminOctopus1 2y ago
  I’ve noticed a ton of non-Canadians like to reference this event as if it’s some incredible example of government tyranny gone too far. Nearly anyone who lived in Ottawa during this time (like me) would say the police completely failed the city, and the “protests” went on for literal weeks too long due to inaction and incompetence by all levels of government.
- bluecheese452 2y ago
  Hacker News is pretty much far right when it comes to politics. Heck the moderators refused to allow any criticism of the monarchy when the queen died but allowed it when Jimmy Carter died.
  - bawolff 2y ago
    Criticizing someone during their funeral is in pretty poor taste regardless of your political leanings.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - bluecheese452 2y ago
SpecialistK 2y ago
I'll quote my own comment on the trucker situation from a year and a half ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37450666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37450666 > It's a story of everyone going way too far. > The government(s) went way overboard with Pfizer proof of purchase QR codes to get lunch. Especially when uptake was 80%+ > They also went overboard by locking down again over the holidays when everyone was already catching the most contagious Omicron. People not being able to go to a gym to stay fit, that already needed a barcode, swayed a lot of the public that things were going on too long. > But the obnoxiousness of the truckers also went too far for too long. The news of rifles and arrests in Alberta was (obviously) too far. > I don't have a citation on hand, but at one point more than a third of Canadians did support either the truckers explicitly or their aims, and that's a higher percentage than voted for the current governing party. Support was higher among younger people, sometimes over 50%. But this percentage decreased as time went on. > The government also completely failed to act diplomatically or to de-escalate the situation. Instead we had inflammatory rhetoric and a focus on some silly flags (which should be condemned, but a lot of people have doubts as to their sincerity, and I've seen some pretty gross signs against the unvaxxed too) > Some people, even in this comment section, take their rhetoric and opposition too far. > There is no doubt in my mind that the more time passes, the more we will look at Canada's response to the pandemic (especially in its later years) as a horrendous failure that harmed trust in public health, harmed social cohesion, and harmed our democratic and civil institutions. Everyone failed and everyone suffered as a result.
- wsmith94333 2y ago
  You mentioned specifically restrictions on lunch. Do you just mean that there are more office workers eating lunch because it is during the day? Or were the vaccine passport rules different depending on what meal or time of day?
  - SpecialistK 2y ago
    It was just an example - in most places the vaccine passports were required for any sit down service where you have a server (not fast food or to go orders) Quebec did impose curfews, and overall had the strictest restrictions by a long way. Around the time of the protests there were plans to tax or fine the unvaccinated and big box retailers were already restricting access to all parts of the store save for the pharmacy.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
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- throwaway12912 2y ago
  There were four people with Nazi flags in the beginning who disappeared almost instantly. A classic way of discrediting a protest. (A real Nazi however received a warm reception in the Canadian parliament: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66943005 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66943005) No one had a pro-Putin sign? Why would they? At that time Putin was sitting at 20m long tables, which should have pleased Fauci himself. Putin was "following the science"! I'm really opposed to this classic way of mixing an imaginary "far right" with Putin as if they do not have their own grievances. You are right about the honking, which should have been dealt with more quickly but stopped after an injunction after a couple of days.
dyauspitr 2y ago
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hn-acct 2y ago
> I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone. Uh really? Is this another version of “Both sides” claiming you don’t know the pulse whilst amplifying a more right leaning, niche, view?
- soupbowl 2y ago
  Niche view? Nobody likes Trudeau, not even is own party that is why they are pressuring him to step down. The comment you are commenting on might not be well thought out or in depth but it is how MANY average Canadians feel.
diggan 2y ago
> I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics > I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point > Personally, I'm glad to see him gone Why do people do this? You don't keep up with Canadian politics and you don't know what led Trudeau to this point, yet you're glad he's gone? Is it not OK anymore to just not have opinions either way, and people have to take a stance on everything?
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  I have to say, as a Canadian, I kind of miss it when nobody outside of here cared what happened up here? Now it's all "You should be a 51st state" and "Oh your Trudeau is a COMMUNIST and needs to GO!"
- zahlman 2y ago
  It's not as if Canadians are any more reserved about their nth-hand opinions about Trump. Speaking as a Canadian here.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    I mean, are we really nth-handed? The sad thing about, as they say "Sleeping with the Elephant" is you get first hand experience of the elephant's ... movements ... even if they never notice yours. Trade war against Canada can have pretty dire consequences, and so putting aside all the other things people say about Trump... the fact of the matter is he slapped massive tariffs on us last time around and is talking about doing worse this time around... so we have pretty 1st hand legit concerns
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
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msie 2y ago
"I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone." - Wow, for no reason you're glad to see him gone?
msie 2y ago
Well, I'm disappointed in Patio11 now. I sort of looked-up at him.
zht 2y ago
so that's the thing right people who are geniuses at one thing may be completely out of their depth in other areas I think this is sadly a demonstration of one of those
wsmith94333 2y ago
Trudeau is like the Obama of Canada. His only redeeming quality is that he has now resigned.
badc0ffee 2y ago
This is not top of mind for Canadians at this time. Anyone who still thinks about the trucker protests is already not voting liberal or NDP.
pkd 2y ago
As somebody who lived in Ottawa at the time, this was not good coverage. Neither was DHH's. It was incredibly rage-inducing to read in real time as it was happening too. My takeaway from this is that one should minimize the confidence in one's opinion of foreign events.
motorest 2y ago
> Whatever you think of the truckers' position or protest tactics, any punishment for their actions ought to go through the laws and court system. Your personal opinion seems to be completely uninformed or misinformed, by the way you tried to frame it as something done to truckers instead of what it actually was: lifting a blockade. It's even more baffling when taken into account the alleged motivation: COVID-19 restrictions. > I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, (...) It shows.
lordloki 2y ago
Debanking someone in our current society is the most abusive things they could have done. It prevented people from accessing and using their own money in an era that is almost cashless. It effectively starved people out and left them trapped. It is so excessively overboard, yet there are those here who will defend it because it happened to those not on their side. When the government changes and it is used against them they will shout and holler with surprise. I'll never understand how people don't see how something that you allow the government to do to others will eventually be used against you too. It's only happened every goddamn time throughout history.

by csense 2y ago

Cumpiler69 2y ago

>'The intent was not to get at the families', and when a democratic government starts a sentence that way something deeply #&$#ed up has happened." Wait, are people that shocked that their democratic governments are wiling to act like mobsters/dictators against a minority group just to get their way and appease a majority, when the history books are full of such examples? People must have a short memory then and why history repeating itself is a fact.

snakeyjake 2y ago
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- Cumpiler69 2y ago
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- grecy 2y ago
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  - Cumpiler69 2y ago
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    - grecy 2y ago
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      - dang 2y ago
        Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? We've had to ask you this so many times I don't even want to bother digging up all the links. As I'm sure I've said more than once before, we'll have to ban you if you keep this up, so please just stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - dang 2y ago
      Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? Your account unfortunately has been doing this repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. 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.
      - zahlman 2y ago
        To be clear, is "Anyone who doesn't like this should think about which members of their immediate family they want included in that 70,000 deaths." not also the same sort of flamewar style?
        Cumpiler69 2y ago
        It's just double standard and selective enforcement.

busterarm 2y ago

While I agree with patio11's assessment here, if you were to poll the average Ottawan about the trucker protest, you'll largely get back a response of "#&$! those people", soley because they were minorly-inconvenienced by them. Canadian politics (not uniquely here) is plagued with petty squabbles. The really meaningful political and social issues don't get any airtime.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> if you were to poll the average Ottawan about the trucker protest, you'll largely get back a response of "#&$! those people", soley because they were minorly-inconvenienced by them This just illustrates why pure/Athenian democracy doesn’t work. Madness of the crowds and all that. Decide most issues by plebescite and you get an emotional outcome.
- ivell 2y ago
  Switzerland has direct democracy and seems to go fine with it.
- sapphicsnail 2y ago
  I can't imagine looking at Republican Rome or any of the tyrants in the ancient world and thinking they're better. The Republic fell because a bunch of senators were too greedy and refused to do basic land reform or anything else to make life better for anyone other than themselves. There's no shortage of absolutely insane tyrants that made people's lives miserable.
- 8note 2y ago
  its a much less severe response than there would gave been, compared to say, ottawabs torching the trucks along with anyone in them
throw10920 2y ago
Is this where the meme about Canadians being very polite comes from - a tendency towards pettiness rather than really nasty political rifts? (I don't know anything about Canadian culture)

MichaelZuo 2y ago

This seems a bit confused. Canada is not the US. Why would it matter when the judiciary is not a co-equal branch of government? i.e. When there is Parliamentary sovereignty/supremacy? An inferior authority can never legally overrule a superior authority by definition.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Why would it matter when the judiciary is not a co-equal branch of government? Then there is an external guarantor of the rights of the people against the government.
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  Huh? What ‘external guarantor’?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > What ‘external guarantor’? …the coëqual judiciary.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      How can a subordinate entity be external?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        A subordinate judiciary isn’t coëqual.
        MichaelZuo 2y ago
        I know it’s not coequal, because I was the one who wrote this…
- darth_avocado 2y ago

mass_and_energy 2y ago

YSK that the people who had their accounts frozen weren't simply protesting in Ottawa; they were blocking international borders to our largest trading partner, effectively holding our economy hostage. This absolutely constitutes behavior that's a danger to our nation so it makes sense to freeze the accounts of the people doing it. To be clear, there were many attempts to settle this without freezing people's bank accounts, but when nothing else works sometimes you have to get out the big guns.

Cumpiler69 2y ago
>but when nothing else works sometimes you have to get out the big guns. Isn't that why you have the police, army, etc? You use force to remove those people breaking the laws, not go after their families. That's some USSR shit.
- leptons 2y ago
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  - lp0_on_fire 2y ago
    > The truckers were warned what would happen, and they made their families pay the price. This is a terrifying comment and you should really start re-examining your outlook on life. I really hope you are nowhere near any sort of lever of power.
    - leptons 2y ago
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      - lp0_on_fire 2y ago
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        2y ago

kubb 2y ago

I don’t follow Canadian politics, and I don’t know that much about Trudeau, but having the capital full of honking, mad truckers, holding the government hostage for their demands to be met in a time of crisis sounds like an absolute nightmare.

catgary 2y ago
There had already been one standoff between local residents and truckers, I remember there being chatter that the next weekend groups were going to coordinate in their neighborhoods and drive out the convoy on their own (using baseball bats, cast iron skillets, or golf clubs if need be). The situation had the potential to turn into an absolute blood bath.
- kubb 2y ago
  In the US some psychopath straight up shot and killed a climate activist who was in the way of his car. It’s a miracle something similar didn’t happen there.
  - catgary 2y ago
    If someone tried this protest in the US someone would have been shot night one.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - taeric 2y ago
    In the US? I recall an event in Panama. Quickly googling shows the person was a dual US citizen? Maybe that is what you are thinking of?
    - relaxing 2y ago
      OP is probably conflating the environmentalist protestor shot in the US by cops and the numerous racial justice protestors killed by motorists, along with the incident you mentioned. Easy mistake to make.

catgary 2y ago

I think it’s worth noting that the weekend before this, local residents of Ottawa had basically “stormed” one of the trucker convoy camps to unblock a road. There were genuine concerns that the residents of Ottawa were ready to take matters into their own hands, and it would be a bloodbath. Not to mention the blockade in Alberta where they were found with guns and a pipe bomb, with their communications indicating they were planning to murder the RCMP officers on site! Declaring the Emergency acts was overwhelmingly popular in Canada and remains one of the most popular things Trudeau ever did. The moves to restrict access to banking affected less than 20 people (and I think they were generally funnelling money from international propaganda groups or committing similar financial crimes).

mardifoufs 2y ago
Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. In fact it did that twice in 50 years. And only twenty people getting their rights completely stripped because they bothered the federal government workers in Ottawa is good enough according to you? Maybe it's just because I'm part of a minority but your entire comment is exactly the issue with Canadian politics. We basically have 0 rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. I guess that's the perks of having an incredibly ineffective constitution.
- c0redump 2y ago
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  - busterarm 2y ago
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    - lp0_on_fire 2y ago
      “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - CS Lewis.

laidoffamazon 2y ago

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grecy 2y ago

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bryanlarsen 2y ago

The federal response was largely due to the abject failure of the city & provincial governments to enforce their laws. The city and province had plenty of tools to get rid of the protesters: noise bylaws, parking bylaws, et cetera. They failed completely, so the Federal government was forced to intervene. The federal government did not have nuanced tools to deal with the truckers so used the blunt hammers they did have.

loceng 2y ago
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- mlekoszek 2y ago
  Can you explain what these illegal orders were, within the purview of Sloly's role as police chief? Also, who is the second Ottawa police chief you're talking about? For that matter, who is the third one? Furthermore, on what grounds are you claiming that Sloly resigned over illegal orders, when most sources agree it was over failure to perform?
  - loceng 2y ago
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    - mlekoszek 2y ago
      Is this a runaround way to say you don't have any reliable sources to share with us? I'm sure if you linked them they would be very convincing.
      - deleted 2y ago
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  - freedomben 2y ago
    > Furthermore, on what grounds are you claiming that Sloly resigned over illegal orders, when most sources agree it was over failure to perform? I don't know enough about the situation to have an opinion about much of this, but at least on this one I don't think you need grounds to disbelieve stated reasons for resignation. I've personally witnessed many people resigning and giving reasons like "to focus on my family" or "to focus on my health" or something when in reality they were parachuting out before getting fired or were resigning for other reasons but didn't want to burn a bridge by telling the truth. I wouldn't be surprised if being untruthful (or only partially truthful) in resignations is more the norm than is being honest, and when talking about politics that probably goes up even more.

deleted 2y ago

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throw0101d 2y ago

> […] ought to go through the laws and court system. The Emergencies Act is part of the laws of Canada: * https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/ https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act And there were court orders: * https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60356461 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60356461 * 2022 ONSC 1001: https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1001/2022onsc1001.html https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1001/2022... ; https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/docs/ISSUED_Order_Morawetz_FEB_11_2022_CV-22-30791.pdf https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/docs/ISSUE...

coldtea 2y ago
An abhorrent part, abused way out of its intended scope in a totalitarian way.
deleted 2y ago
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swat535 2y ago
And the court of law later determined that this was an abuse of power and unlawful. The fact that there is an existing law that can be abused does not negate the argument that abusing it is unlawful.
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > And the court of law later determined […] And an Act-mandated commission said it was warranted: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Emergency_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Emergency_Commiss...
  - eli_gottlieb 2y ago
    And in the Canadian system, are appointed commissions or judicial rulings supreme and overriding over the other?

nsavage 2y ago

I live in Ottawa and lived here during the convoy. Happy to answer any questions as an actual resident from anyone about my experience.

indy 2y ago
What were the general public's opinion of the protests? Also how 'dangerous' was the convoy perceived to be? Were the actions of the Government deemed to be overreach?
- nsavage 2y ago
  The protests lasted quite a long time and I think the public's opinion on it changed over time. At the beginning, most left-wing/centrist sorts of people saw it as an annoyance, but Ottawa is used to protests. Within the first week or so, people were bringing their kids to the event After the first week or so (again, going by memory here), I think the general perception of danger started increasing dramatically. Most of the kids were gone, replaced my angry men with nothing better to do. In hindsight, nothing happened during the occupation, but given the overlap with the sorts of people who own guns (remember, the border blockade in Alberta at the same time did see people with guns), I think people were legitimately scared. The police certainly were too scared to do anything! There was also a scare at the time at an apartment building in Centretown where someone tried to barricade the doors and light it on fire. This happened during the convoy, and while nothing happened and it seems it may have been unrelated mischief, we can only say that in hindsight. At the time it was very scary. There was another incident where truckers were showing up at a local school and yelling at people. I think most people supported the Trudeau government in putting an end to it with the Emergencies Act, which later was found to be unconstitutional. It was pretty popular at the time. The general perception was that the federal government was doing what the provincial government (despite what Doug Ford thinks, Ottawa is actually in Ontario!) should have done weeks ago.
  - indy 2y ago
    Thanks for replying. As a non-Canadian, your response has been more informative than the weeks I spent reading Twitter trying to figure out what was happening.

deleted 2y ago

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jamie_ca 2y ago

Offtopic to politics, but browsers these days support arbitrary text anchors. docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Fragment/Text_fragments https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Fragment/Te... your link: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunking/#:~:text=truckers%20in%20Canada https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/debanking-and-debunki...

codethief 2y ago
Wow, TIL. Looks like a fairly recent feature, though (at least in certain browsers).
tjarrett 2y ago
Wow. Came here expecting to read about truckers and instead learned something really useful! Thank you!
- arduanika 2y ago
  Gentlemen you can't discuss web protocols tips on here, this is a tech forum!
- zahlman 2y ago
  I've seen it used countless times before, but I thought it was something somehow being injected into the page by a search engine (especially when it comes from custom site searches on forums), rather than a browser feature.
throw0101d 2y ago
> Offtopic to politics, but browsers these days support arbitrary text anchors. Find this extremely annoying, especially in search results: I want to start at the beginning of the article/post, and not some random place in the middle—which is where the highlighted snippet in the search results are from, but not helpful for learning the larger context. It also tends to mess up URLS that you may want to copy-paste as it has that text parameter garbage at the end (often with a sizeable amount of text that needs to be removed).

cdrini 2y ago

> I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone. This seems like a pretty big conclusion to reach based on one article and one topic, no? Especially when you, in the same sentence, also recognize that you don't follow Canadian politics?

mrbonner 2y ago

I, for 1 sec, thought you said press Crtl F to pay respects.

deanCommie 2y ago

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bawolff 2y ago

People on hn seem weirdly obsessed with trudeau's handling of the trucker protest. Regardless of what you think of it, at this point it is very old news and trudeau's actions were controversial but largely popular. The handling of the trucker protest is not why he resigned. It is not why he is unpopular.

hn-acct 2y ago
I live and work with mostly conservatives and none of them supported the truckers nor do they even mention it. Their grievances are more typical - inflation, taxes, and immigration. I think we need to be careful when reading these opinions to not mix up Americans’ views, Russian trolls with legitimate Canadian discourse.
VerminOctopus1 2y ago
I’ve noticed a ton of non-Canadians like to reference this event as if it’s some incredible example of government tyranny gone too far. Nearly anyone who lived in Ottawa during this time (like me) would say the police completely failed the city, and the “protests” went on for literal weeks too long due to inaction and incompetence by all levels of government.
bluecheese452 2y ago
Hacker News is pretty much far right when it comes to politics. Heck the moderators refused to allow any criticism of the monarchy when the queen died but allowed it when Jimmy Carter died.
- bawolff 2y ago
  Criticizing someone during their funeral is in pretty poor taste regardless of your political leanings.
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - bluecheese452 2y ago

SpecialistK 2y ago

I'll quote my own comment on the trucker situation from a year and a half ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37450666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37450666 > It's a story of everyone going way too far. > The government(s) went way overboard with Pfizer proof of purchase QR codes to get lunch. Especially when uptake was 80%+ > They also went overboard by locking down again over the holidays when everyone was already catching the most contagious Omicron. People not being able to go to a gym to stay fit, that already needed a barcode, swayed a lot of the public that things were going on too long. > But the obnoxiousness of the truckers also went too far for too long. The news of rifles and arrests in Alberta was (obviously) too far. > I don't have a citation on hand, but at one point more than a third of Canadians did support either the truckers explicitly or their aims, and that's a higher percentage than voted for the current governing party. Support was higher among younger people, sometimes over 50%. But this percentage decreased as time went on. > The government also completely failed to act diplomatically or to de-escalate the situation. Instead we had inflammatory rhetoric and a focus on some silly flags (which should be condemned, but a lot of people have doubts as to their sincerity, and I've seen some pretty gross signs against the unvaxxed too) > Some people, even in this comment section, take their rhetoric and opposition too far. > There is no doubt in my mind that the more time passes, the more we will look at Canada's response to the pandemic (especially in its later years) as a horrendous failure that harmed trust in public health, harmed social cohesion, and harmed our democratic and civil institutions. Everyone failed and everyone suffered as a result.

wsmith94333 2y ago
You mentioned specifically restrictions on lunch. Do you just mean that there are more office workers eating lunch because it is during the day? Or were the vaccine passport rules different depending on what meal or time of day?
- SpecialistK 2y ago
  It was just an example - in most places the vaccine passports were required for any sit down service where you have a server (not fast food or to go orders) Quebec did impose curfews, and overall had the strictest restrictions by a long way. Around the time of the protests there were plans to tax or fine the unvaccinated and big box retailers were already restricting access to all parts of the store save for the pharmacy.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

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throwaway12912 2y ago
There were four people with Nazi flags in the beginning who disappeared almost instantly. A classic way of discrediting a protest. (A real Nazi however received a warm reception in the Canadian parliament: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66943005 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66943005) No one had a pro-Putin sign? Why would they? At that time Putin was sitting at 20m long tables, which should have pleased Fauci himself. Putin was "following the science"! I'm really opposed to this classic way of mixing an imaginary "far right" with Putin as if they do not have their own grievances. You are right about the honking, which should have been dealt with more quickly but stopped after an injunction after a couple of days.

dyauspitr 2y ago

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hn-acct 2y ago

> I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone. Uh really? Is this another version of “Both sides” claiming you don’t know the pulse whilst amplifying a more right leaning, niche, view?

soupbowl 2y ago
Niche view? Nobody likes Trudeau, not even is own party that is why they are pressuring him to step down. The comment you are commenting on might not be well thought out or in depth but it is how MANY average Canadians feel.

diggan 2y ago

> I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics > I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point > Personally, I'm glad to see him gone Why do people do this? You don't keep up with Canadian politics and you don't know what led Trudeau to this point, yet you're glad he's gone? Is it not OK anymore to just not have opinions either way, and people have to take a stance on everything?

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
I have to say, as a Canadian, I kind of miss it when nobody outside of here cared what happened up here? Now it's all "You should be a 51st state" and "Oh your Trudeau is a COMMUNIST and needs to GO!"
zahlman 2y ago
It's not as if Canadians are any more reserved about their nth-hand opinions about Trump. Speaking as a Canadian here.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  I mean, are we really nth-handed? The sad thing about, as they say "Sleeping with the Elephant" is you get first hand experience of the elephant's ... movements ... even if they never notice yours. Trade war against Canada can have pretty dire consequences, and so putting aside all the other things people say about Trump... the fact of the matter is he slapped massive tariffs on us last time around and is talking about doing worse this time around... so we have pretty 1st hand legit concerns

cmrdporcupine 2y ago

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msie 2y ago

"I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, so I don't really know what sins or political circumstances have led Trudeau to this point, or if he has any redeeming qualities. Personally, I'm glad to see him gone." - Wow, for no reason you're glad to see him gone?

msie 2y ago

Well, I'm disappointed in Patio11 now. I sort of looked-up at him.

zht 2y ago

so that's the thing right people who are geniuses at one thing may be completely out of their depth in other areas I think this is sadly a demonstration of one of those

wsmith94333 2y ago

Trudeau is like the Obama of Canada. His only redeeming quality is that he has now resigned.

badc0ffee 2y ago

This is not top of mind for Canadians at this time. Anyone who still thinks about the trucker protests is already not voting liberal or NDP.

pkd 2y ago

As somebody who lived in Ottawa at the time, this was not good coverage. Neither was DHH's. It was incredibly rage-inducing to read in real time as it was happening too. My takeaway from this is that one should minimize the confidence in one's opinion of foreign events.

motorest 2y ago

> Whatever you think of the truckers' position or protest tactics, any punishment for their actions ought to go through the laws and court system. Your personal opinion seems to be completely uninformed or misinformed, by the way you tried to frame it as something done to truckers instead of what it actually was: lifting a blockade. It's even more baffling when taken into account the alleged motivation: COVID-19 restrictions. > I'm not on the pulse of Canadian politics, (...) It shows.

lordloki 2y ago

Debanking someone in our current society is the most abusive things they could have done. It prevented people from accessing and using their own money in an era that is almost cashless. It effectively starved people out and left them trapped. It is so excessively overboard, yet there are those here who will defend it because it happened to those not on their side. When the government changes and it is used against them they will shout and holler with surprise. I'll never understand how people don't see how something that you allow the government to do to others will eventually be used against you too. It's only happened every goddamn time throughout history.