[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Grey Fox]

Yes, Pierre Laporte is the assassinated one. Jean is his son.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As an American with no firm grasp on Canadian law, I don't understand why the Prime Minister of Canada needed to use a never-before-used emergency enabling act piece of legislation to clear a bunch of trucks out of a city center. Does Canada not have typical ordinances and laws on the books already empowering the government to clear out such obstructions? It seems strange to me it would not.

I understand the financial aspects of the law that allow them to do some things with access to funding--but I'm not even super comfortable with that concept, it shouldn't generally be illegal in a free country to donate to a political cause you support. Especially not when they had made no good faith attempt to clean out the protesters before using this enabling act law, it's easy to claim the "well-funded" nature is why they haven't been able to dislodge them, but even a casual observer can note no real attempt had been made to dislodge them from Ottawa in the first place. Where attempts have been made in other parts of the country, They seemed to mostly be successful.

"Never before used law" is a bit misleading.  Canada had a law, since at least 1914, but possibly since the beginning in 1867; 1914 was the first time it was used, to intern Ukrainians, and shoot French Canadians protesting against the conscripton in 1917.  The law was in vigor for tuphe whole war.

It'used again for WWII, and this time the government used it to intern Japanese citizens, and of course crush any protest against conscription.

It was used in 1970 by Trudeau the elder to arrest any Parti Quebecois member they could get their hands on after stealing the member's list   they then provided them witha single, brightly lit rooom, albeit small, for many days and offered their prisoners a game of russian roulette, and other fun sports, but there were never more than one participant at the time, and the military police did not play themselves.

The city of Montreal was on lockdown, only the army could circulate at night.
To this day, a majority of Liberal supporters insist it was justified.

Meanwhile, the terrorist holding Quebec Minister Jean Laporte were left alome with their charge, a few hundred metersnfrom the army/police command, until they excecuted this vile symbol of the english capitalism.

Flash forwardnto 1988, a new government, and itn8s trying to get Quebec to sign the Constitutiiom, over the dead bodiesmof the Trudeau momkeys who were apparrantly deaf, blind and mute dur8ng most  of this prior episode, where tuey mever saw anything objrpectionable aa excluding Quebec from the talkS.

The Conservatives enact this current law, based on the old one, but much more restrictive time.  Mainly, th3 gov now has t9 respect its own charter of rights ans liberties this time, so no  m9ck execution.. it can't be renewed indefinately either.

S9, mostly the same lawz but np shootmp firsr and settle later.

It's a shame they don't still do stuff like that w/the Quebecois.

[Grey Fox]

They are afraid that it will destroy their country if they do.

[crazy canuck]

Viper is becoming radicalized.

[crazy canuck]

They are afraid that it will destroy their country if they do.

Don't feed the troll

[Jacob]

The people of Ottawa fighting back using... the law:

Ottawa fights back. On behalf of downtown residents, businesses and workers, we are suing the Freedom Convoy organizers, truckers and donors for $306-million  and counting. Each day is another $15M in personal harm and lost revenues and wages. Here is the Occupation Zone. /1

If you live, work or do business in this Zone, you will be a part of the class action. You don't have to register, but keep records of your losses. Email us at [email protected] if you want to provide us with your story. We will create a website soon for updates. 2/2

https://twitter.com/PaulChampLaw/status/1494371413578420225?s=20&t=m766hejrR_R82fJNVJOF8g

There's also a video with a message from the lawyer to the occupiers:

Essentially he says "go home; get independent legal advice - do not rely on the organizers; you have been led down a path that will have serious financial consequences for you; if you do get a lawyer encourage them to reach out to me now, we are prepared to settle with people who reach out early."

https://twitter.com/glen_mcgregor/status/1494383706374553602?s=20&t=m766hejrR_R82fJNVJOF8g

[Syt]

It's a similar angle to how discussions re: protests in Vienna are going. With protests shutting down parts of the inner city every Saturday for months on end, business owners are saying their freedom of trade and economic freedoms are unduly affected at this point. Though here it's currently a discussion among city, districts, and federal government.

It's not exactly a new discussion, and in fact the business owners say that every time there's more than one protest per month. But in recent memory there was not such a sustained impact on one of the main shopping days (Saturdays) like this.

[Syt]

[Jacob]

Did Elon Musk really tweet that, or is it a photoshop?

[Syt]

Did Elon Musk really tweet that, or is it a photoshop?

According to this article he did post it but deleted it 12 hours later: https://nypost.com/2022/02/17/elon-musk-tweet-compares-justin-trudeau-to-adolf-hitler

What his tweet was in response to:

[Jacob]

Not particularly impressive.

[crazy canuck]

The people of Ottawa fighting back using... the law:

Ottawa fights back. On behalf of downtown residents, businesses and workers, we are suing the Freedom Convoy organizers, truckers and donors for $306-million  and counting. Each day is another $15M in personal harm and lost revenues and wages. Here is the Occupation Zone. /1

If you live, work or do business in this Zone, you will be a part of the class action. You don't have to register, but keep records of your losses. Email us at [email protected] if you want to provide us with your story. We will create a website soon for updates. 2/2

https://twitter.com/PaulChampLaw/status/1494371413578420225?s=20&t=m766hejrR_R82fJNVJOF8g

There's also a video with a message from the lawyer to the occupiers:

Essentially he says "go home; get independent legal advice - do not rely on the organizers; you have been led down a path that will have serious financial consequences for you; if you do get a lawyer encourage them to reach out to me now, we are prepared to settle with people who reach out early."

https://twitter.com/glen_mcgregor/status/1494383706374553602?s=20&t=m766hejrR_R82fJNVJOF8g

I am not sure that is much of a threat.  It is going to be hard for anyone to prove a breach of any obligation to themselves (eg you trespassed on my land) and the tort of intentional interference with economic relations is also going to be hard to prove.  Combine that with the restrictions on the ability to recover damages for pure economic loss, absent a breach of contract, and it becomes a tough case to prove.

But as an in terrorem tactic, full marks.

[Jacob]

I am not sure that is much of a threat.  It is going to be hard for anyone to prove a breach of any obligation to themselves (eg you trespassed on my land) and the tort of intentional interference with economic relations is also going to be hard to prove.  Combine that with the restrictions on the ability to recover damages for pure economic loss, absent a breach of contract, and it becomes a tough case to prove.

But as an in terrorem tactic, full marks.

I guess they'll find that out if they get independent legal advice.

I guess the organizers may get legal advice and tell their followers that, but then again... they'd probably say that no matter what. So best get independent legal advice.

[Tamas]

https://www.economist.com/leaders/justin-trudeaus-crackdown-on-protests-could-make-things-worse/21807707

Canada's reputation for impeccable politeness is taking a knocking. In recent weeks crowds of lorry-drivers and other Canadians protesting against covid-19 restrictions have blocked public highways and camped outside parliament in Ottawa. Many wave placards reading "Fuck Trudeau", referring to their youthful prime minister, though the expletive often appears with a maple leaf as an asterisk. Nastier messages have cropped up, too. One or two protesters carried flags emblazoned with swastikas, perhaps to suggest, absurdly, that Canada's covid restrictions are akin to Nazism.

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The freedom convoy, as the hundreds of lorry-drivers call themselves, was sparked by the introduction of a covid vaccine mandate in January. This requires all truckers who enter Canada from the United States, as thousands of Canadian drivers do every day, either to be jabbed or to endure a two-week quarantine.

Although most Canadians think such rules are reasonable, the protesters have struck a chord with some. A vocal minority are fed up with burdensome pandemic restrictions. Many of the young, who have suffered job losses because of lockdowns designed to protect their elders, are especially grumpy. The truckers have received both verbal and monetary support from abroad. Donald Trump, Fox News and a cacophony of populists praise them. Well-wishers have crowdfunded their cause.


Faced with this ruckus, Canada's government should have drawn a clear distinction between harmful acts and obnoxious or foolish words. Peaceful protests are fine; blocking crucial highways so that others cannot go about their business is not. Some of the truckers shut down a bridge over which 25% of Canada's goods trade with the United States passes. The police took six days to remove them. Given that the protest blocked an estimated $350m of trade each day, this was needlessly slow.

The truckers are wrong about the vaccine mandate at the border. Such rules are a reasonable precaution to slow the spread of a deadly and highly infectious disease. Canada's government is right to enforce them. But the truckers have every right to express their disagreement. A wise government would listen to them and respond politely, taking their complaints seriously and patiently explaining why covid restrictions, though onerous, are necessary for the time being.

Justin Trudeau has done the opposite. First, he refused to meet them. Then, seizing on the fact that a few of the protesters appear to be bigots, he attempted to put all of them outside the boundaries of reasonable debate by condemning "the anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-black racism, homophobia and trans phobia that we've seen on display in Ottawa over the past number of days". The police already have ample powers to quell disorder. Yet on February 14th Mr Trudeau invoked emergency powers under a 34-year-old law that had never been used before. It would allow the government to declare protests illegal and freeze the bank accounts of protesters without a court order.

Meanwhile, his Liberal government is mulling two worrying changes to Canada's already illiberal hate-speech laws. One would allow Canada's Human Rights Tribunal to impose large fines on those it deems to have used hateful language. It has in the past taken an expansive view of what counts as hateful, and defendants would enjoy fewer safeguards than they do under criminal law. The other proposed change would let individuals file legal complaints against people pre-emptively, if they fear that they may be about to say something hateful.


These are both terrible ideas. The Economist has long argued that free speech should be restricted only under exceptional circumstances, such as when the speaker intends to incite physical violence. Canada's laws are already more restrictive than this, and the country's illiberal left would like them to be still more so. Academics have been suspended or disciplined for writing that Canada is "not racist" or for holding gender-critical views. The proposed amendments would give illiberal activists legal tools to harass conservative religious folk, traditional feminists and many more besides, simply for holding views that the left finds offensive. Worse, it would allow some to be gagged before they speak.

Canada is not yet a rancorous or bitterly divided society. If Mr Trudeau wants to keep it that way, he should stop trying to police Canadians' thoughts.

[crazy canuck]

I cancelled my subscription to the Economist some time ago because of shoddy reporting and analysis.  This confirms I made the correct decision.  It has really slipped.