Then perhaps you’re making unsupported assumptions about what my views are grounded on. If you’re leaping to assuming that I’m building on some ‘racist/mysoginistic’ narrative, I respectfully suggest you have your own biases to check.Perhaps your righteous indignation towards the issue is based on a personal bias. I have no other conclusion to come to. But, I lived in Ottawa during the Trucker Convoy. I support the rights of "protesters" (not so-called occupiers) to protest anything they want in Canada, even though I strongly disagree with many of their crusades.
That is democracy, not freezing bank accounts and enacting a totally over the top EA.
I’m only speaking to what I observed on the ground in the role I played. I’m not in a position to speak to what was happening behind the scenes on the financials front. I’ll be interested to learn more about that once the commission’s report is out. Likewise, I’ve also said many times now that I am not yet convinced about the necessity of the EA, save for noting that for me personally it granted me no new powers that I lacked or that were necessary to lawfully clear people out of downtown and arrest those who tried to be difficult about it.
It might surprise you, but I - and others - are capable of having informed and nuanced opinions based on some portions of an event of this scale, while being comfortable saying that there are other aspects that we aren’t very informed on, or in a position to speak to. I’m very comfortable opining on the blatant illegality of certain behaviours and actions in downtown Ottawa that went well beyond what courts recognize as lawful protest. It’s well established in prior case law that the right to protest is a right enjoyed by humans; not vehicles. There are already convictions happening for people arrested in the clearing of downtown Ottawa on Feb 18-19. There are many more to come.
If you want to hold a personal opinion that what the convoy protesters did in downtown Ottawa was substantially legal, that’s of course an opinion you get to have. It’s just not one grounded in reality in Canadian criminal law.