13 ms·

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. The

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
  [flagged]
  - busterarm 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - 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.
    - jknoepfler 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - nradov 2y ago
        [flagged]
        razakel 2y ago
        >Freedom of movement is more important than safety. Tell that to Typhoid Mary.
      - mardifoufs 2y ago
        [flagged]
        bitwize 2y ago
        BLM protestors were masking and social distancing. They were doing the right things wrt COVID.
        baggy_trough 2y ago
        [flagged]
        mardifoufs 2y ago
        Okay, so if I show you an example of a protest with people that weren't masking or social distancing, you'd be in favor of using emergency powers against protestors that were protesting for racial justice?
        slaw 2y ago
        Did you miss? /s
        segasaturn 2y ago
        The BLM protestors in 2020 were cracked down on by the police, often violently, so I'm not sure what your point is.
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - slackfan 2y ago
        Per Miriam Webster: 1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority 2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people It was quite pointedly, exactly neither of these. Words have meanings.
        cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        What glib nonsense. We had authoritarian right wing protesters -- who don't believe in democracy -- trying to topple our elected government. Imposing their will on the people in Ottawa for weeks, threatening violence and disturbing the peace. i.e. Not constitutionally responsible to the people. Words have meaning, as do actions, sir, and you're choose to ignore both because of your partisan blind spots.
        slackfan 2y ago
        [flagged]
        cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        [flagged]
        slackfan 2y ago
        [flagged]
        cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago
  - mathgeek 2y ago
    It’s also so very weird that both sides of this issue are likely nodding their head agreeing with you. I couldn’t get a good inference on which side of the comments you meant, personal opinion and assumptions notwithstanding.
  - yoavm 2y ago
    I don't have a horse in this race, but I would have found it useful if you wrote what exactly you find terrifying. It's often in this kind of discussions that someone says "Things said here are X", but there are things said on both sides and I literally cannot tell even which side the speaker is on.
- toasteros 2y ago
  The guy likely to take over is going to use non-emergency powers to curtail the rights of trans people. The sanctioned individuals were involved with blocking an international border. They had the stated intention of causing mischief and preventing leaving or entering Canada. They were blockading their own economy; they deserved what they got. You don't disrupt life and economy just because you've been asked to help keep a virus from spreading and get to get away with it. And now we'll curtail the rights of people who absolutely do NOT deserve it. The lurch to the right is deeply inspired by attitudes like this. We even have the Premier of Alberta claiming that unvaccinated people are "the most discriminated against group in history", which, whatever "side" of the vaccination "debate" you fall on, you know is an unbelievably stupid thing to say. Please, help prevent a drastic lurch to the right by at least reading the lede of an article as well as the headline.
  - stretchwithme 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - toasteros 2y ago
      As I'm just a lowly computer technician, no I do not get to choose who gets rights. That is typically the domain of judges, lawmakers, and more fundamentally the founders of nations. Preventing goods from crossing an international border is called a blockade. In most jurisdictions, this is regarded as a crime and is generally done to harm an economy. Crimes are often punished. Some aren't (like wage theft, not since 1955), but a lot are. Interfering with a country's ability to trade with another country, as well as publicly threatening to kill law enforcement officers, is quite a serious offence. I am not certain left-leaning government should not punish crimes, as it's generally seen as a good idea to ensure that activity that disrupts life or liberty of others doesn't happen, and judiciary measures are a part of that. I guess we COULD try an idea in which people are trusted not to do harm, that could be an interesting experiment.
- catgary 2y ago
  Are you talking about the militant separatists who had already committed mailbombings and escalated to assasinating a government official and kidnapping a foreign diplomat on Canadian soil in 1970? It’s also important to note that afterwards Quebec separatism continued to be a legitimate political movement without a terrorist wing, with parties represented in federal and provincial governments.
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - GamerUncle 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - idiotsecant 2y ago
      You think the US has not been doing exactly the same thing? What do you think the patriot act was? There are a million examples of this.
      - mardifoufs 2y ago
        The Patriot act doesn't even come close to emergency powers. And the Patriot act would've been insanely worse if the US had the equivalent of our non withstanding clause. So no, it hasn't been doing the same. Bush and his cronies sure would've wanted to go further though, I agree. Also, another difference is that the Patriot act has been very controversial in the years since. Whereas the same hasn't been true in Canada for the usage of emergency power. And no one seems to care that we see more and more laws passed with the non-withstanding clause either.
    - wbl 2y ago
      There was a literal British army deployment to Northern Ireland for decades.
- hackandthink 2y ago
  "In 1971, official date of the birth of topos theory, unfortunately the dream team at Dalhousie was dispersed. What happened, that made you go to Denmark ? Some members of the team, including myself, became active against the Vietnam war and later against the War Measures Act proclaimed by Trudeau. That Act,similar in many ways to the Patriot Act 35 years later in the US, suspended civil liberties under the pretext of a terrorist danger. (The alleged danger at the time was a Quebec group later revealed to be infiltrated by the RCMP, the Canadian secret police.) Twelve communist bookstores in Quebec (unrelated to the terrorists) were burned down by police; several political activists from various groups across Canada were incarcerated in mental hospitals, etc. etc. I publicly opposed the consolidation of this fascist law, both in the university senate and in public demonstrations. The administration of the university declared me guilty of “disruption of academic activities”. Rumors began to be circulated, for example, that my categorical arrow diagrams were actually plans for attacking the administration building. My contract was not renewed" https://www.mat.uc.pt/~picado/lawvere/interview.pdf https://www.mat.uc.pt/~picado/lawvere/interview.pdf
  - catgary 2y ago
    I love Bill Lawvere, but he punched the president of his university in the face, he was genuinely lucky to find a position in academia afterwards.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    Amazingly there is someone living very close to the airport where they found the body of the Deputy Premier of Quebec (Pierre Laporte) in 1970 that flies the flags of allegiance to the successors of the terrorists (i.e. the MNLQ following from the FLQ) from a pole in his yard for everyone on the highway to see. For some people all this stuff is very much part of their reason for being, but the FLQ took being obnoxious to make a point to staggering new levels. Just the titles of their books alone are astonishing, and impossible to quote here without causing justified offence.
    - throaway89 2y ago
      yeah what people dont always understand (not saying you dont) is that FLQ supporters see themselves as basically being occupied by Anglo Canadians. Until the 60's there was entrenched discrimination in Montreal against catholics and french-speakers. The city even used to have two hockey teams, one for Anglos and one for Francos.
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. As opposed to using it to curtail support? It was used against occupiers and there is no Charter right to that (2011 ONSC 6862; 2024 ONSC 3755). > We basically have 0 rights rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. I guess that's the perks of having an incredibly ineffective constitution. Wat? * https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/ https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and... There are multiple cases where governments (with majorities) have passed legislation that was successfully challenged under the Charter. Further, the Emergencies Act was written post-Charter, with it in mind: > AND WHEREAS the Governor in Council, in taking such special temporary measures, would be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights and must have regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly with respect to those fundamental rights that are not to be limited or abridged even in a national emergency; * https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - throw0101d 2y ago
      > * But I hope you realize that it doesn't show anything. A federal or even provincial government can absolutely pass any law, with a simple majority, that doesn't respect the charter simply by invoking the non withstanding clause.* And the use of the withstanding clause has to be re-up every five years, as that is the maximum time before a new election is held so that The People™ can decide if they want to continue with it: > (3) A declaration made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect five years after it comes into force or on such earlier date as may be specified in the declaration. * https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art33.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec... > Can you show me a single piece of legislation that used that clause and that was still overturned? The point of the clause was so that The People™, through their duly elected representatives, would have the final say in matters of government and not judges (who are potentially answerable to no one). Whether it should be judges that have the final say (like in the US) or legislators (like in the UK) is up for debate: in Canada it was decided to split the difference.
- staplers 2y ago
  We basically have 0 rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. That's literally what a democracy is and has been.. It will always seem great until you are the minority. America had human slaves built into its democracy until the majority said otherwise. Unsure why this is so shocking.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    America is specifically designed not to be this and to prevent a tyranny of the majority because original immigrants to the USA were from minority religions where they lived in Europe and had been terrorized plenty.
    - krapp 2y ago
      The Puritans were a minority group among the original settlers to the US, among the Dutch, French, Spanish, other British settlers and others. The founders and architects of the Constitution and US government were not Puritans.
    - scheme271 2y ago
      And that designed failed spectacularly from the beginning. As the post you're replying to points out, slavery is essentially the majority deciding that a minority and their descendants have no rights whatsoever. This state of affairs lasted until the 1860s and even then those rights for the minority were severely curtailed until at least the 1960s.
      - IncreasePosts 2y ago
        I wouldn't say it failed spectacularly. The trade-off was well known amongst many even at the founding of america. There would simply be no America if slavery was disallowed from the beginning. A hospital could still be a net positive for society, even if sometimes people go there and die who otherwise would have lived if they did not go to the hospital.
      - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
        Was there a majority that was pro-slavery? My understanding was the agreement was that it was a minority that wanted slavery, and that slavery would be kept to that minorities states?
- deanCommie 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - BrandoElFollito 2y ago
      Maybe it's because other countries are too soft (talking from the perspective of a French who saw suburbs in fire because some people did not want to stop when the police told them so).
    - akdev1l 2y ago
      > No, the point is that that's two times more than any other western nation. Citation needed.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 2y ago
      Would you please stop perpetuating this flamewar? I asked you upthread not to go in that direction, and instead you've gone full bore in that direction. Not cool. (I don't care what side of the argument people are on—I care who is breaking the site guidelines and making HN a more hellish place.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - dangraper 2y ago
        [dead]
      - mardifoufs 2y ago
        Sorry about that, I didn't read your earlier comment. I'll tone it down.
  - dang 2y ago
    Your account has been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread. Would you please stop? Regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are, It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to ask you this before not long ago, so it would be good if you would review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please fix this.
    - dangraper 2y ago
      [dead]
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
- dang 2y ago
  Please don't cross into the flamewar style on HN. This comment is only dipping a toe in that direction, but still—it's the opposite direction to what we're trying for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42616298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42616298.
morkalork 2y ago
It's absolutely astounding that there have not been harsher consequences for the police who abandoned their duty in Ottawa. Where is the of rule of law here?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The Police Chief lost his job over it. What other consequences would you think appropriate?
  - morkalork 2y ago
    Investigations and penalties for everyone up the chain, starting with the frontline officers who were on the ground refusing to issue tickets. If an officer chooses to not do their job over their political beliefs they do not belong on the force.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      Absolutely. I'm a paramedic. I will be in front of a licensing hearing defending why should be allowed to continue as a paramedic to the DOH if I refuse to treat a patient because of politics/beliefs, as an EMS provider. Depending on the severity, I can even be facing administrative charges of patient abandonment under my state's Administrative Code for standards of care for providers.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - parineum 2y ago
        "Over politics" does some legwork for you here as does the singling out of you vs the entire cadre of EMS. Consider it, instead, that the police, as a whole, joined the protest which also had a decent amount of support from the populous. That's a far cry from one person refusing to do their job with very little (almost none) support from the populous, as your analogy would be. If it was a single cop refusing to arrest a Nazi for a crime because they agreed with them, that cop would be fired.
a-priori 2y ago
I was a resident of downtown Ottawa during this period. It was bad. We had a young kid and didn't feel even safe walking her to a park, because the route crossed over convoy lines and there were all sorts of stories of harassment and assaults. We didn't even experience the worst of it; lots of people dealt with truck horns blaring 24/7, but at least our street at least was kept clear as an emergency route. We put up with the occupation for about two weeks, but we saw a steady escalation and decided to leave town. We stayed with family for two weeks until the convoy was cleared. I'm very proud of the residents who were brave enough to put up a resistance (the so-called "Battle of Billings Bridge"), and I'm appalled by the response by the local police and the province. I absolutely believe the federal government made the correct choice, and this was proven out in the public hearing after the fact on the use of the Emergency Act.
- tsunamifury 2y ago
  Its interesting how as of late the working-class's totally self-sabatoging ways of protesting almost universally piss off their fellow men and women, rather than taking their grievances to the powers that support them.
  - AlexandrB 2y ago
    All of the protests I see lately, besides strikes, are college students. Which working class protests are you thinking of?
    - tsunamifury 2y ago
      basic hotel strikes around SF are focused on bullying customers
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      There's been massive popular protests in France, Germany and Great Britain in the past few years. Maybe in more countries? But they don't always get media coverage. One that you should have heard of is the yellow vest protests in France.
mbrumlow 2y ago
So the threat of violence against a non violent protest resulted in the non violent protestors being labeled terrorist and justified all the action that followed?
- HappySweeney 2y ago
  95dB air-horn for 16 to 20 hours per day is not non-violent.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - parineum 2y ago
    How close do you have to be for it to be 95dB?
    - InitialLastName 2y ago
      A quick search shows 120dB at 1m isn't abnormal for a truck air horn. A line of them from far enough away will decrease in level by 3dB per doubling of distance. 8 doublings would make it ~96dB at 256m.
marcosdumay 2y ago
It takes half a day to get the details over with a judge and decide exactly whose and what accounts to lock, those truckers were allowed to stay there for months. (And if you don't know what exactly to block, you shouldn't be allowed to block anything. Maybe you still have enough reason to look at their movement, maybe not.) Also, it takes a couple of hours to get the police to unblock a road. Last time I checked, money movement in bank accounts does not block roads.
rand_r 2y ago
I don’t know why they couldn’t do the friggen obvious move of asking the police to unblock the roads by force, and impounding the vehicles for repeat offences. Going after bank accounts was a coward move that never made sense. If I just sat down in the middle of a subway tunnel, I would be removed by force immediately, no matter what I was protesting. They created problems for themselves by not doing the obvious solution. Blocking a road is a fire hazard and should never have been tolerated by local police for that reason alone. You cannot impede transit in a city.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The city or the province could have done that. They didn't. The Feds could only use federal reasons. The mishandled response to the trucker protest should be blamed on the city and the province, not on Trudeau.
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    Trudeau was the one who triggered the protests in the first place. The liberal, moral, fast and peaceful solution to the trucker protests was simple: stop forcing people to take experimental drugs against their will. The vaccines didn't reduce transmission, and there is no rule against living life in a risky way (even if you believe the vaccines worked at all), so there was never any moral argument for the mandates. The truckers were right to protest, as Trudeau and the Canadian people were doing them a severe injustice.
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - NikolaNovak 2y ago
        I'm an Ontario resident. Every single vaccine or gathering mandate I experienced was either provincial (Conservatives) or municipal (also conservative for Toronto and georgetown where I live).that they barked up the completely wrong tree is the breathtakingly depressing stupidity behind the whole thing. Don't believe me? Alberta Conservatives did not have same policies. Then they begged BC and Saskatchewan for ICU beds but that's besides the point - provinces and municipalities had freedom to enact different policies.
maerF0x0 2y ago
> concerns that the residents of Ottawa were ready to take matters into their own hands, and it would be a bloodbath Similar concerns happened when Harper and Ottawa mayor at the time denied the rights and freedoms of protestors of the G20. It's concerning how the "true north, strong, and free" is losing that last part. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protests#Criticism_of_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protes...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
itsoktocry 2y ago
>Declaring the Emergency acts was overwhelmingly popular in Canada and remains one of the most popular things Trudeau ever did. Where on earth does this stat come from?
- b112 2y ago
  I don't know, but I live in the NCR, and few I know thought it was right. The real issue was the Ottawa police. The RCMP and OPP were willing to help, and use legal means to clear the blockade. The Ottawa Police dropped the ball, didn't organize, and just made a mess.
  - itsoktocry 2y ago
    I'm sure people directly affected agree with you, but it's been downhill for this regime since the trucker protest. We are literally still talking about it, right now. I cannot comprehend how it could be overwhelmingly supported.
    - mlekoszek 2y ago
      To be honest, I can't shake the suspicion that a fair share of the talking is not homegrown. > Facebook stated that they had removed fake users that were set up in overseas content farms, in Romania, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, which were promoting the convoy protests in Canada. (https://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-congress-asks-facebook-role-225804159.html https://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-congress-asks-facebook-role-2258...) > An Economist/YouGov poll conducted from February 12 to 15 found that 80% of Americans had heard of the convoy protests. [...] Among Republicans, 71 per cent supported the convoy protests, compared to 18 per cent of Democrats. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest#Opinion_polls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest#Opinion_...) When you consider how much attention the convoy got in America, and how sympathies fell on such partisan grounds, it gets more concerning. Suddenly, Canadian politics is a hunting ground for the likes of Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, online bot mobs... I think you see where I’m going. It’s difficult to approach these discussions and not feel like bad-faith actors are artificially making a bugbear out of it. This is especially true when many of the loudest defenders of the convoy weren’t even there, aren't even Canadian, and -- three years later -- may not even be people. That said, I can agree the Emergencies Act probably shouldn't have been used here, and I have question marks about freezing people's bank accounts -- but this is really a conversation actual Canadians should be owning, since it concerns us most directly.
clwg 2y ago
I live in Ottawa. We were failed by all levels of government, our police services, and our intelligence services. The convoy drove across the country, broadcasting their intentions on social media. Yet, everyone acted shocked when they did exactly what they said they were going to do. I hesitate to call them protesters because I don't think they had a permit or a cohesive message beside F* Trudeau, but they were completely disrespectful to other citizens, and I could never defend their actions. However, irrespective of how unpopular their actions were, the courts have deemed the federal government's response unreasonable and unconstitutional, and I agree with that assessment. The government could have dealt with this earlier and more directly, but whatever passes for "leadership" these days in Canada has proven itself completely inept. Personally, I would like to see an inquiry into foreign interference in our elections, but I guess that’s not considered a pressing issue anymore.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  >I hesitate to call them protesters because I don't think they had a permit or a cohesive message beside F* Trudeau I would assert that so-called "votes of no-confidence" in politicians are legitimate protest, even if they do not criticize any specific policy or behavior. It would be a strange world to live in where protests could or would be shut down and everyone would taunt the protesters with "but you didn't have a cohesive message except Stalin is bad".
  - eumenides1 2y ago
    There is a giant chasm between "F* Trudeau" and "Stalin is bad". Some people would like you to believe it's close, and they would be wrong. Stalin murdered/tortured people en masse. Trudeau oversaw a government (democratically elected mine you) through a once in a century pandemic. The convoy of protesters made a point, was allow to make it for sufficient period of time, and was told to go away when a majority of Canadians didn't agree with their stance. When faced with reality of their unpopular nature and their inability to build a momentum or consensus. They dug in. At some point, enough is enough. The Pandemic ended, public heath was restore, and none of what the protesters did mattered. None of the protesters continue to be persecuted by the Government of Canada, Ontario, or the City.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Manuel_D 2y ago
You're over an order of magnitude off. Over 200 people were debunked. A donation of just $20 could result in someone being debanked: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/even-small-donation-to-freedom-convoy-after-feb-15-enough-to-have-donors-bank-accounts-frozen-finance-committee-told https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/even-small-donation-t...
- selfmodruntime 2y ago
  The show of power - that even a democratic government will target your families - is far worse than the relatively small number of people it hit.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Not around in the 00s when the US federal government leaned on banks and payment processors as a way of debanking pornography businesses?
    - selfmodruntime 2y ago
      Or - rather recently - when the German government stormed people's apartments for calling politicians idiots.
- jart 2y ago
  If I'm reading this thread correctly, it sounds like truckers staged a protest in Canada blockading roads. The government couldn't move the trucks because the cops sympathized with the protestors. So the government debanked the truckers as well as anyone caught donating more than $20 to them. Damn.
curmudgeon22 2y ago
I don't think it was overwhelmingly popular - nor was it overwhelmingly unpopular. It was both in certain groups. I agree a police response or similar was sensible for the situations you mentioned, but they didn't rise to the level of national emergency.

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
[flagged]
- busterarm 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - 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.
  - jknoepfler 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - nradov 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - razakel 2y ago
        >Freedom of movement is more important than safety. Tell that to Typhoid Mary.
    - mardifoufs 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - bitwize 2y ago
        BLM protestors were masking and social distancing. They were doing the right things wrt COVID.
        baggy_trough 2y ago
        [flagged]
        mardifoufs 2y ago
        Okay, so if I show you an example of a protest with people that weren't masking or social distancing, you'd be in favor of using emergency powers against protestors that were protesting for racial justice?
        slaw 2y ago
        Did you miss? /s
      - segasaturn 2y ago
        The BLM protestors in 2020 were cracked down on by the police, often violently, so I'm not sure what your point is.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - slackfan 2y ago
      Per Miriam Webster: 1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority 2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people It was quite pointedly, exactly neither of these. Words have meanings.
      - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        What glib nonsense. We had authoritarian right wing protesters -- who don't believe in democracy -- trying to topple our elected government. Imposing their will on the people in Ottawa for weeks, threatening violence and disturbing the peace. i.e. Not constitutionally responsible to the people. Words have meaning, as do actions, sir, and you're choose to ignore both because of your partisan blind spots.
        slackfan 2y ago
        [flagged]
        cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        [flagged]
        slackfan 2y ago
        [flagged]
        cmrdporcupine 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago
- mathgeek 2y ago
  It’s also so very weird that both sides of this issue are likely nodding their head agreeing with you. I couldn’t get a good inference on which side of the comments you meant, personal opinion and assumptions notwithstanding.
- yoavm 2y ago
  I don't have a horse in this race, but I would have found it useful if you wrote what exactly you find terrifying. It's often in this kind of discussions that someone says "Things said here are X", but there are things said on both sides and I literally cannot tell even which side the speaker is on.
toasteros 2y ago
The guy likely to take over is going to use non-emergency powers to curtail the rights of trans people. The sanctioned individuals were involved with blocking an international border. They had the stated intention of causing mischief and preventing leaving or entering Canada. They were blockading their own economy; they deserved what they got. You don't disrupt life and economy just because you've been asked to help keep a virus from spreading and get to get away with it. And now we'll curtail the rights of people who absolutely do NOT deserve it. The lurch to the right is deeply inspired by attitudes like this. We even have the Premier of Alberta claiming that unvaccinated people are "the most discriminated against group in history", which, whatever "side" of the vaccination "debate" you fall on, you know is an unbelievably stupid thing to say. Please, help prevent a drastic lurch to the right by at least reading the lede of an article as well as the headline.
- stretchwithme 2y ago
  [flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - toasteros 2y ago
    As I'm just a lowly computer technician, no I do not get to choose who gets rights. That is typically the domain of judges, lawmakers, and more fundamentally the founders of nations. Preventing goods from crossing an international border is called a blockade. In most jurisdictions, this is regarded as a crime and is generally done to harm an economy. Crimes are often punished. Some aren't (like wage theft, not since 1955), but a lot are. Interfering with a country's ability to trade with another country, as well as publicly threatening to kill law enforcement officers, is quite a serious offence. I am not certain left-leaning government should not punish crimes, as it's generally seen as a good idea to ensure that activity that disrupts life or liberty of others doesn't happen, and judiciary measures are a part of that. I guess we COULD try an idea in which people are trusted not to do harm, that could be an interesting experiment.
catgary 2y ago
Are you talking about the militant separatists who had already committed mailbombings and escalated to assasinating a government official and kidnapping a foreign diplomat on Canadian soil in 1970? It’s also important to note that afterwards Quebec separatism continued to be a legitimate political movement without a terrorist wing, with parties represented in federal and provincial governments.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - GamerUncle 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    You think the US has not been doing exactly the same thing? What do you think the patriot act was? There are a million examples of this.
    - mardifoufs 2y ago
      The Patriot act doesn't even come close to emergency powers. And the Patriot act would've been insanely worse if the US had the equivalent of our non withstanding clause. So no, it hasn't been doing the same. Bush and his cronies sure would've wanted to go further though, I agree. Also, another difference is that the Patriot act has been very controversial in the years since. Whereas the same hasn't been true in Canada for the usage of emergency power. And no one seems to care that we see more and more laws passed with the non-withstanding clause either.
  - wbl 2y ago
    There was a literal British army deployment to Northern Ireland for decades.
hackandthink 2y ago
"In 1971, official date of the birth of topos theory, unfortunately the dream team at Dalhousie was dispersed. What happened, that made you go to Denmark ? Some members of the team, including myself, became active against the Vietnam war and later against the War Measures Act proclaimed by Trudeau. That Act,similar in many ways to the Patriot Act 35 years later in the US, suspended civil liberties under the pretext of a terrorist danger. (The alleged danger at the time was a Quebec group later revealed to be infiltrated by the RCMP, the Canadian secret police.) Twelve communist bookstores in Quebec (unrelated to the terrorists) were burned down by police; several political activists from various groups across Canada were incarcerated in mental hospitals, etc. etc. I publicly opposed the consolidation of this fascist law, both in the university senate and in public demonstrations. The administration of the university declared me guilty of “disruption of academic activities”. Rumors began to be circulated, for example, that my categorical arrow diagrams were actually plans for attacking the administration building. My contract was not renewed" https://www.mat.uc.pt/~picado/lawvere/interview.pdf https://www.mat.uc.pt/~picado/lawvere/interview.pdf
- catgary 2y ago
  I love Bill Lawvere, but he punched the president of his university in the face, he was genuinely lucky to find a position in academia afterwards.
- fidotron 2y ago
  Amazingly there is someone living very close to the airport where they found the body of the Deputy Premier of Quebec (Pierre Laporte) in 1970 that flies the flags of allegiance to the successors of the terrorists (i.e. the MNLQ following from the FLQ) from a pole in his yard for everyone on the highway to see. For some people all this stuff is very much part of their reason for being, but the FLQ took being obnoxious to make a point to staggering new levels. Just the titles of their books alone are astonishing, and impossible to quote here without causing justified offence.
  - throaway89 2y ago
    yeah what people dont always understand (not saying you dont) is that FLQ supporters see themselves as basically being occupied by Anglo Canadians. Until the 60's there was entrenched discrimination in Montreal against catholics and french-speakers. The city even used to have two hockey teams, one for Anglos and one for Francos.
throw0101d 2y ago
> Crazy how only Canada has used emergency powers to curtail opposition. As opposed to using it to curtail support? It was used against occupiers and there is no Charter right to that (2011 ONSC 6862; 2024 ONSC 3755). > We basically have 0 rights rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. I guess that's the perks of having an incredibly ineffective constitution. Wat? * https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/ https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and... There are multiple cases where governments (with majorities) have passed legislation that was successfully challenged under the Charter. Further, the Emergencies Act was written post-Charter, with it in mind: > AND WHEREAS the Governor in Council, in taking such special temporary measures, would be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights and must have regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly with respect to those fundamental rights that are not to be limited or abridged even in a national emergency; * https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - throw0101d 2y ago
    > * But I hope you realize that it doesn't show anything. A federal or even provincial government can absolutely pass any law, with a simple majority, that doesn't respect the charter simply by invoking the non withstanding clause.* And the use of the withstanding clause has to be re-up every five years, as that is the maximum time before a new election is held so that The People™ can decide if they want to continue with it: > (3) A declaration made under subsection (1) shall cease to have effect five years after it comes into force or on such earlier date as may be specified in the declaration. * https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art33.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/chec... > Can you show me a single piece of legislation that used that clause and that was still overturned? The point of the clause was so that The People™, through their duly elected representatives, would have the final say in matters of government and not judges (who are potentially answerable to no one). Whether it should be judges that have the final say (like in the US) or legislators (like in the UK) is up for debate: in Canada it was decided to split the difference.
staplers 2y ago
We basically have 0 rights the moment a majority decides that we don't. That's literally what a democracy is and has been.. It will always seem great until you are the minority. America had human slaves built into its democracy until the majority said otherwise. Unsure why this is so shocking.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  America is specifically designed not to be this and to prevent a tyranny of the majority because original immigrants to the USA were from minority religions where they lived in Europe and had been terrorized plenty.
  - krapp 2y ago
    The Puritans were a minority group among the original settlers to the US, among the Dutch, French, Spanish, other British settlers and others. The founders and architects of the Constitution and US government were not Puritans.
  - scheme271 2y ago
    And that designed failed spectacularly from the beginning. As the post you're replying to points out, slavery is essentially the majority deciding that a minority and their descendants have no rights whatsoever. This state of affairs lasted until the 1860s and even then those rights for the minority were severely curtailed until at least the 1960s.
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      I wouldn't say it failed spectacularly. The trade-off was well known amongst many even at the founding of america. There would simply be no America if slavery was disallowed from the beginning. A hospital could still be a net positive for society, even if sometimes people go there and die who otherwise would have lived if they did not go to the hospital.
    - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
      Was there a majority that was pro-slavery? My understanding was the agreement was that it was a minority that wanted slavery, and that slavery would be kept to that minorities states?
deanCommie 2y ago
[flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - BrandoElFollito 2y ago
    Maybe it's because other countries are too soft (talking from the perspective of a French who saw suburbs in fire because some people did not want to stop when the police told them so).
  - akdev1l 2y ago
    > No, the point is that that's two times more than any other western nation. Citation needed.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
[flagged]
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 2y ago
    Would you please stop perpetuating this flamewar? I asked you upthread not to go in that direction, and instead you've gone full bore in that direction. Not cool. (I don't care what side of the argument people are on—I care who is breaking the site guidelines and making HN a more hellish place.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - dangraper 2y ago
      [dead]
    - mardifoufs 2y ago
      Sorry about that, I didn't read your earlier comment. I'll tone it down.
- dang 2y ago
  Your account has been breaking the site guidelines badly in this thread. Would you please stop? Regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are, It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to ask you this before not long ago, so it would be good if you would review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and please fix this.
  - dangraper 2y ago
    [dead]
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
dang 2y ago
Please don't cross into the flamewar style on HN. This comment is only dipping a toe in that direction, but still—it's the opposite direction to what we're trying for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42616298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42616298.

morkalork 2y ago

It's absolutely astounding that there have not been harsher consequences for the police who abandoned their duty in Ottawa. Where is the of rule of law here?

bryanlarsen 2y ago
The Police Chief lost his job over it. What other consequences would you think appropriate?
- morkalork 2y ago
  Investigations and penalties for everyone up the chain, starting with the frontline officers who were on the ground refusing to issue tickets. If an officer chooses to not do their job over their political beliefs they do not belong on the force.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Absolutely. I'm a paramedic. I will be in front of a licensing hearing defending why should be allowed to continue as a paramedic to the DOH if I refuse to treat a patient because of politics/beliefs, as an EMS provider. Depending on the severity, I can even be facing administrative charges of patient abandonment under my state's Administrative Code for standards of care for providers.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - parineum 2y ago
      "Over politics" does some legwork for you here as does the singling out of you vs the entire cadre of EMS. Consider it, instead, that the police, as a whole, joined the protest which also had a decent amount of support from the populous. That's a far cry from one person refusing to do their job with very little (almost none) support from the populous, as your analogy would be. If it was a single cop refusing to arrest a Nazi for a crime because they agreed with them, that cop would be fired.

a-priori 2y ago

I was a resident of downtown Ottawa during this period. It was bad. We had a young kid and didn't feel even safe walking her to a park, because the route crossed over convoy lines and there were all sorts of stories of harassment and assaults. We didn't even experience the worst of it; lots of people dealt with truck horns blaring 24/7, but at least our street at least was kept clear as an emergency route. We put up with the occupation for about two weeks, but we saw a steady escalation and decided to leave town. We stayed with family for two weeks until the convoy was cleared. I'm very proud of the residents who were brave enough to put up a resistance (the so-called "Battle of Billings Bridge"), and I'm appalled by the response by the local police and the province. I absolutely believe the federal government made the correct choice, and this was proven out in the public hearing after the fact on the use of the Emergency Act.

tsunamifury 2y ago
Its interesting how as of late the working-class's totally self-sabatoging ways of protesting almost universally piss off their fellow men and women, rather than taking their grievances to the powers that support them.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  All of the protests I see lately, besides strikes, are college students. Which working class protests are you thinking of?
  - tsunamifury 2y ago
    basic hotel strikes around SF are focused on bullying customers
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    There's been massive popular protests in France, Germany and Great Britain in the past few years. Maybe in more countries? But they don't always get media coverage. One that you should have heard of is the yellow vest protests in France.

mbrumlow 2y ago

So the threat of violence against a non violent protest resulted in the non violent protestors being labeled terrorist and justified all the action that followed?

HappySweeney 2y ago
95dB air-horn for 16 to 20 hours per day is not non-violent.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- parineum 2y ago
  How close do you have to be for it to be 95dB?
  - InitialLastName 2y ago
    A quick search shows 120dB at 1m isn't abnormal for a truck air horn. A line of them from far enough away will decrease in level by 3dB per doubling of distance. 8 doublings would make it ~96dB at 256m.

marcosdumay 2y ago

It takes half a day to get the details over with a judge and decide exactly whose and what accounts to lock, those truckers were allowed to stay there for months. (And if you don't know what exactly to block, you shouldn't be allowed to block anything. Maybe you still have enough reason to look at their movement, maybe not.) Also, it takes a couple of hours to get the police to unblock a road. Last time I checked, money movement in bank accounts does not block roads.

rand_r 2y ago

I don’t know why they couldn’t do the friggen obvious move of asking the police to unblock the roads by force, and impounding the vehicles for repeat offences. Going after bank accounts was a coward move that never made sense. If I just sat down in the middle of a subway tunnel, I would be removed by force immediately, no matter what I was protesting. They created problems for themselves by not doing the obvious solution. Blocking a road is a fire hazard and should never have been tolerated by local police for that reason alone. You cannot impede transit in a city.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
The city or the province could have done that. They didn't. The Feds could only use federal reasons. The mishandled response to the trucker protest should be blamed on the city and the province, not on Trudeau.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  Trudeau was the one who triggered the protests in the first place. The liberal, moral, fast and peaceful solution to the trucker protests was simple: stop forcing people to take experimental drugs against their will. The vaccines didn't reduce transmission, and there is no rule against living life in a risky way (even if you believe the vaccines worked at all), so there was never any moral argument for the mandates. The truckers were right to protest, as Trudeau and the Canadian people were doing them a severe injustice.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - NikolaNovak 2y ago
      I'm an Ontario resident. Every single vaccine or gathering mandate I experienced was either provincial (Conservatives) or municipal (also conservative for Toronto and georgetown where I live).that they barked up the completely wrong tree is the breathtakingly depressing stupidity behind the whole thing. Don't believe me? Alberta Conservatives did not have same policies. Then they begged BC and Saskatchewan for ICU beds but that's besides the point - provinces and municipalities had freedom to enact different policies.

maerF0x0 2y ago

> concerns that the residents of Ottawa were ready to take matters into their own hands, and it would be a bloodbath Similar concerns happened when Harper and Ottawa mayor at the time denied the rights and freedoms of protestors of the G20. It's concerning how the "true north, strong, and free" is losing that last part. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protests#Criticism_of_policing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_G20_Toronto_summit_protes...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

itsoktocry 2y ago

>Declaring the Emergency acts was overwhelmingly popular in Canada and remains one of the most popular things Trudeau ever did. Where on earth does this stat come from?

b112 2y ago
I don't know, but I live in the NCR, and few I know thought it was right. The real issue was the Ottawa police. The RCMP and OPP were willing to help, and use legal means to clear the blockade. The Ottawa Police dropped the ball, didn't organize, and just made a mess.
- itsoktocry 2y ago
  I'm sure people directly affected agree with you, but it's been downhill for this regime since the trucker protest. We are literally still talking about it, right now. I cannot comprehend how it could be overwhelmingly supported.
  - mlekoszek 2y ago
    To be honest, I can't shake the suspicion that a fair share of the talking is not homegrown. > Facebook stated that they had removed fake users that were set up in overseas content farms, in Romania, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, which were promoting the convoy protests in Canada. (https://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-congress-asks-facebook-role-225804159.html https://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-congress-asks-facebook-role-2258...) > An Economist/YouGov poll conducted from February 12 to 15 found that 80% of Americans had heard of the convoy protests. [...] Among Republicans, 71 per cent supported the convoy protests, compared to 18 per cent of Democrats. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest#Opinion_polls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest#Opinion_...) When you consider how much attention the convoy got in America, and how sympathies fell on such partisan grounds, it gets more concerning. Suddenly, Canadian politics is a hunting ground for the likes of Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, online bot mobs... I think you see where I’m going. It’s difficult to approach these discussions and not feel like bad-faith actors are artificially making a bugbear out of it. This is especially true when many of the loudest defenders of the convoy weren’t even there, aren't even Canadian, and -- three years later -- may not even be people. That said, I can agree the Emergencies Act probably shouldn't have been used here, and I have question marks about freezing people's bank accounts -- but this is really a conversation actual Canadians should be owning, since it concerns us most directly.

clwg 2y ago

I live in Ottawa. We were failed by all levels of government, our police services, and our intelligence services. The convoy drove across the country, broadcasting their intentions on social media. Yet, everyone acted shocked when they did exactly what they said they were going to do. I hesitate to call them protesters because I don't think they had a permit or a cohesive message beside F* Trudeau, but they were completely disrespectful to other citizens, and I could never defend their actions. However, irrespective of how unpopular their actions were, the courts have deemed the federal government's response unreasonable and unconstitutional, and I agree with that assessment. The government could have dealt with this earlier and more directly, but whatever passes for "leadership" these days in Canada has proven itself completely inept. Personally, I would like to see an inquiry into foreign interference in our elections, but I guess that’s not considered a pressing issue anymore.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
>I hesitate to call them protesters because I don't think they had a permit or a cohesive message beside F* Trudeau I would assert that so-called "votes of no-confidence" in politicians are legitimate protest, even if they do not criticize any specific policy or behavior. It would be a strange world to live in where protests could or would be shut down and everyone would taunt the protesters with "but you didn't have a cohesive message except Stalin is bad".
- eumenides1 2y ago
  There is a giant chasm between "F* Trudeau" and "Stalin is bad". Some people would like you to believe it's close, and they would be wrong. Stalin murdered/tortured people en masse. Trudeau oversaw a government (democratically elected mine you) through a once in a century pandemic. The convoy of protesters made a point, was allow to make it for sufficient period of time, and was told to go away when a majority of Canadians didn't agree with their stance. When faced with reality of their unpopular nature and their inability to build a momentum or consensus. They dug in. At some point, enough is enough. The Pandemic ended, public heath was restore, and none of what the protesters did mattered. None of the protesters continue to be persecuted by the Government of Canada, Ontario, or the City.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Manuel_D 2y ago

You're over an order of magnitude off. Over 200 people were debunked. A donation of just $20 could result in someone being debanked: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/even-small-donation-to-freedom-convoy-after-feb-15-enough-to-have-donors-bank-accounts-frozen-finance-committee-told https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/even-small-donation-t...

selfmodruntime 2y ago
The show of power - that even a democratic government will target your families - is far worse than the relatively small number of people it hit.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Not around in the 00s when the US federal government leaned on banks and payment processors as a way of debanking pornography businesses?
  - selfmodruntime 2y ago
    Or - rather recently - when the German government stormed people's apartments for calling politicians idiots.
jart 2y ago
If I'm reading this thread correctly, it sounds like truckers staged a protest in Canada blockading roads. The government couldn't move the trucks because the cops sympathized with the protestors. So the government debanked the truckers as well as anyone caught donating more than $20 to them. Damn.

curmudgeon22 2y ago

I don't think it was overwhelmingly popular - nor was it overwhelmingly unpopular. It was both in certain groups. I agree a police response or similar was sensible for the situations you mentioned, but they didn't rise to the level of national emergency.