Freedom Convoy protests [Split from All things 2019-nCoV]

[Edward Campbell]

A bit of a rant ... and Geezer Eruption

Interesting interview; it illustrates, I think, the depts of misunderstanding - sometimes deliberate and, occasionally, created by disinformation campaigns - on both sides.

For the record:

1. I live in centre-town Ottawa, two blocks away from one of the major "parking lots" (Laurier and Kent) and about six blocks from the epicentre at Parliament Hill;​

2. The "occupation" - you cannot, in any honesty, call it anything else - was broadly and generally peaceful. It was NOT "law abiding;"​

3. Thousands of Ottawa residents were more than just inconvenienced - some (NOT all, but some) of the truckers were trying to "terrorize" residents. The lawsuit filed by a neighbour was a good thing. My wife is still nervous when she hears truck horns. BUT, those would-be-"terrorists" were only a few - a few arseholes who should have been stopped on the first day; stopped forcefully by strong, even violent police action. In my opinion Chief Peter Stoly made only one serious mistake - he didn't take down that few arseholes on the very first day - sending about a dozen truckers to jail ... after a week or so in the local hospital. The rest of his "strategy" - to end things peacefully - was, in my view, OK;​

4. There was NO coherent, overall, protest leadership but Keith Wilson is right - many protest leaders were ready to de-escalate because they could see that they had lost too much public support;​

5. Law enforcement did have some real problems - BUT NOT insurmountable ones: the OPP and RCMP and other police could have and should have been called in earlier - with the bill being sent, personally and very publicly, by Chief Story to Justin Trudeau; there were available heavy vehicles that could have started hauling away some big rigs - likely doing serious damage in the process; and some of the truckers were hell-bent on creating the biggest possible public relations mess, they actually wanted police violence and were willing to provoke it, too; but​

6. Jim Watson and Peter Stoly could have settled this - with some but not too much violence - after a few days, not a few weeks, with some support from Doug Ford.​

​

In my opinion partisan politics - the "alliance" between Justin Trudeau and Jim Watson against Doug Ford (and vice versa) - played a role. Trudeau, especially, wanted to "solve" this on his own terms and he didn't want Ford to get any credit, as he did at Windsor. Ford, for his part, was happy to see Watson flail about and not ask for help.

/rant

 

[Good2Golf]

In my opinion partisan politics - the "alliance" between Justin Trudeau and Jim Watson against Doug Ford (and vice versa) - played a role. Trudeau, especially, wanted to "solve" this on his own terms and he didn't want Ford to get any credit, as he did at Windsor. Ford, for his part, was happy to see Watson flail about and not ask for help.

^This piece of prescient wisdom/insight.

Trudeau deserves owning his very formative part in the fiasco, including the ineptly clumsy and entirely unnecessary enacting of the EA.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

^This piece of prescient wisdom/insight.

Trudeau deserves owning his very formative part in the fiasco, including the ineptly clumsy and entirely unnecessary enacting of the EA.

He also needs to own his unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric at the outset of Convoy, which pretty much set the stage for what came after. It was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[Kat Stevens]

He also needs to own his unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric at the outset of Convoy, which pretty much set the stage for what came after. It was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Don’t be surprised when you call everyone a racist or an extremist, that eventually, the real racists and extremists show up…

 

[Edward Campbell]

Don’t be surprised when you call everyone a racist or an extremist, that eventually, the real racists and extremists show up…

I agree, fully, but, again, as a local "eye-witness" it remains my firm belief that they were few and far between - some, to be sure, but the evidence of my own eyes, from my almost daily walk-about through the "occupation" zones is that most "occupiers" were decent, albeit misguided Canadians who felt that they had a real, valid grievance with the national government. Some were, as I said, above, arseholes and a few were, almost certainly racists and extremists and so on but most were not - misguided?: yes; lawbreakers?: yes, in too many cases; rude and noisy?: yes, indeed.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I am not saying the Convoy was all racist or Extremist.

What I am saying is that when you demonize everyone who opposes you, eventually, the moderates either leave the field to the extremists or they themselves become radicalized out of frustration.

It was more of a general observation, than a specific one.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Don’t be surprised when you call everyone a racist or an extremist, that eventually, the real racists and extremists show up…

“All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.”
― William Butler Yeats

 

[Brad Sallows]

Once you've been made to pay for the ticket, you may as well enjoy the ride.

 

[Good2Golf]

It was more of a general observation, than a specific one.

 

[Lumber]

I am not saying the Convoy was all racist or Extremist.

What I am saying is that when you demonize everyone who opposes you, eventually, the moderates either leave the field to the extremists or they themselves become radicalized out of frustration.

It was more of a general observation, than a specific one.

Except that he didn't call them all racists and extremists, he called a small group of them as such.

 

[Lumber]

Trudeau deserves owning his very formative part in the fiasco, including the ineptly clumsy targeted and proportionate and entirely unnecessary necessary enacting of the EA.

Fixed that for you.

 

[RedFive]

Fixed that for you.

Ok so again, as I've pointed out. The Commissioner of the RCMP and other municipal Chiefs of Police are on record as stating they didn't need or ask for the EA. If that is so, how was it necessary? What specific power granted under the EA enabled Police to end the protest that didn't exist in other routine legislation?

 

[QV]

JT wanted his "just watch me" moment and he fumbled the ball in his zeal to get it.

 

[QV]

Fixed that for you.

A national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that

• (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
• (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada

and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.

Trudeau clearly didn't believe the "fringe minority" with "unacceptable views" were threatening the integrity of the nation, did he? Although he did ask at one time if we "should tolerate" those kinds of people. Imagine for a moment that Trudeau probably believes he embodies the character of the person we should all aspire to.

The circumstances did not meet the threshold. Period.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Except that he didn't call them all racists and extremists, he called a small group of them as such.

Wait a minute.

You cannot have this both ways, Lumber.

If he called a small group of the Convoy racists and extremists (as you contend) then where is the threat to National Security that justified the EA?

Conversely, I seem to recall Trudeau declaring the whole lot of them racists, even before they hit the Manitoba/Ontario border (I cannot seem to find the news clip, so I am fully prepared to eat humble pie on this point.

The whole question of the EA turns on the legal test of the EA, that QV posted above.

I personally think the so called leaders of the convoy are duffuses. But I also live/lived in parts of Canada that are getting pretty angry with how Ottawa dismissively wipes out their livelihoods and then insults them ontop of it. Both things (idiot convoyers and legitimate grievances) can be simultaneously true.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I think the underlying cause of this was really the completely useless response by the city and OPS to control it to begin with. Windsor police showed you can clear up the blockages by actually doing something. OPS chose the COA of doing SFA and hoping for the best.

Stopping extremely loud, continuous honking shouldn't have taken a random citizen to get a court order when it's already against the city by laws and something they regulate everywhere else. If I have limited hours I can do construction, run a concert etc due to noise, they could have easily quickly stopped it at the begining.

Between the LRT and this, really just showed what an absolutely useless shower were in key positions. So relieved Watson is retiring, but really need a bit of a purge of his enablers on council as well. I really can't understate my contempt for their criminal levels of ineptitude and arrogance.

 

[mariomike]

I think the underlying cause of this was really the completely useless response by the city and OPS to control it to begin with.

Control the streets at all times. Call reinforcements, if necessary.

 

[Lumber]

Wait a minute.

You cannot have this both ways, Lumber.

If he called a small group of the Convoy racists and extremists (as you contend) then where is the threat to National Security that justified the EA?

You can have it both way. The EA wasn't enacted to deal with the small group of racists and extremists, it was to deal with the whole group. Anyone who was occupying downtown and blaring their horns all hours of the day was part of the problem, not just the few among them who were "racists and extremists".

A national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that

• (a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
• (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada

and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.

Trudeau clearly didn't believe the "fringe minority" with "unacceptable views" were threatening the integrity of the nation, did he? Although he did ask at one time if we "should tolerate" those kinds of people. Imagine for a moment that Trudeau probably believes he embodies the character of the person we should all aspire to.

The circumstances did not meet the threshold. Period.

The occupiers were seriously endangering the mental health of those living in and around the occupied area.

You can argue to death that the OPS and OPP had the capacity to deal with the problem, but capacity means nothing unless you actually use it. What else were the Feds suppose to do? Just let it keep going on? "Well, they the have the capacity to do something, so we can't step in, even though they aren't actually doing anything, our hands are tied!". I.e. while it may not have exceeded the capabilities of the OPS and OPP, it exceeded their capacity to actually take action.

 

[dimsum]

The occupiers were seriously endangering the mental health of those living in and around the occupied area.

Not just mental health. Ambulances could not get to certain areas for weeks, so one could argue that physical health was also affected.