BOOK EXCERPT: Not only did police not call for the invocation of the Emergencies Act; talks between organizers and police were beginning to bear fruit just as the crackdown began.
Talks bearing fruit? All talks were about how to continue the protest, which had already been allowed to go on too long. There were no talks about ending the protest with the organizers. The protest closed down 2-3 interprovincial bridges for a period of 3 weeks, which was more than a minor inconvenience. The talks would not have changed that. Regardless if you agree with the protesters (I don't), they have a right to legal protest. Parking vehicles in streets for weeks on end is not legal, and should not have been allowed. The majority of the protesters may have been peaceful people, but the actions of blaring horns all hours of the day was too much, and could rightly be defined as a provocation to invite non-peaceful recourse. They got what they asked for and they needed to go. Whether the emergency act was necessary, I can't say, but talks to keep them in the city should never have even begun.
So to be clear, the protests on the interprovincial bridges were not part of the Freedom Convoy 2022 or related to the Ottawa protest organizers. Those were essentially independent copycat protests and negotiations with the Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers in this story would have no relevance to those separate protests. Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers are on record saying they disagreed with the methods of those other protests. And, those other protests were already cleared prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
While he put in the injunction banning the use of train horns and air horns, he did not ban honking in general nor the parking of the trucks on Wellington as part of the protest, stating, "THIS COURT ORDERS that, provided the terms of this Order are complied with, the Defendants and other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest."
I understand that this protest annoyed a lot of people. But, annoyance of citizens does not directly supercede the right to protest. There is a constitutional right to protest. There is not a constitutional right to not be annoyed by a protest.
And, the protestor organizers did understand that annoyance and after the first few days did indeed agree to limiting the honking to "Coordinated unified honk every half an hour for 1 minute, between the hours of 08:00 a.m. and 08:00 p.m., followed by silence between the hours of 08:00 p.m. to 08:00 a.m." That is part of their affidavit in the court proceeding in the link above.
This was all taken care of and in the works. What I'm hearing in these complaints is that some Canadians, including yourself, are open to protests so long as they don't annoy non-protestors. It isn't clear to me where that fair boundary lies, but I am deeply concerned that people are willing to throw away their own, and their fellow citizens', rights to protest. Just remember that if things get so bad that you need to protest something, that the people you are complaining about here might not be there to back you up, in a tit-for-tat support of cracking down on you and your causes. My hope is that they would be more forgiving and still stand by your right to protest.
This is why statements like the "First they came ..." poem have such importance in recognizing the slippery slope of ignoring the rights and plights of others when it does not directly affect you, or affects you negatively.
The bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau were closed because of the trucks parked on either side of them that were part of the convoy. And they were closed for at least a few weeks after the protest cleared. I'm not talking about the international bridges. Many people use these bridges on a daily basis to commute to work/school/social engagements. Ottawa/Gatineau is one big metropolitan area that was essentially split in half as a result of these protests.
I'm guessing you don't live in Ottawa/Gatineau and didn't have to endure the weeks of unrest and uncertainty that the residents did. Please consider how you would feel if you lived there, and let me know if that would impact your opinion. Frankly, I was in a state of confusion and extremely stressed during the entire occupation (not knowing whether I was going to be able to get my kids to school each day or whether I could report to work). People who live in the south of Ottawa did not experience the same thing.
A judge obviously felt that the horn honking was unlawful, and that was one of the main parts of the protest for a week and a half (not a couple of days as you indicated). Plus, the honking did not cease immediately and little to no enforcement occurred. Furthermore, Wellington street was only part of the protest. Vehicles were parked throughout downtown, along the Sir John A MacDonald Parkway for a long stretch next to the war museum, in Gatineau, and many other locations during the 3 weeks.
Furthermore, the judge did not declare the protest to be legal, he just simply said that Canadians have a right to legal protest, and I don't disagree with that. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.
Where's the line on legal or illegal protest? That's a good question that I'm not equipped to answer. But I will say this, blocking off many blocks of a downtown area for weeks seems like something that shouldn't be allowed to happen, at least in my opinion. There was nothing stopping the protesters from parking legally and trekking to Parliament hill (or other public locations) daily to continue their protest. But we all know that would not have had the same impact as their blockades and campground setups.
Ultimately I think the police failed the city. If the protest wasn't illegal, why didn't Toronto and Quebec city let truckers set up their camps in downtown areas? Was it illegal for those police forces to prevent the (legal?) blockades?
I'm sad for our country too, but sadly not for the same reasons as you. We don't live in a country where people can do whatever they want just because Fuck Trudeau. That's the sad part.
Fair point on the bridges. You did say interprovincial, not international. I was not aware any of them were shut down and, as indicated even in the story here, bridges were not listed as any point of concern either as being closed or needing to open. I would assume this was the Portage Bridge, given proximity to Wellington. Though, could have been Alexandra.
Certainly if that were the case then, as with this article, the solution would have been to work with the convoy to move trucks to open the bridge, which should have been much easier than the Rideau/Sussex issue. That location was central to the protestors on foot who surrounded the effort in the story, misunderstanding the situation. The bridge(s) were at the periphery so should have been quite easy to open via agreement/arrangement.
Yes, I do live in the Ottawa area. Not downtown, but I did go to take a look. I do sympathize with those annoyed by it, but I also sympathize with those annoyed by any protest. I also note the affidavit of the United Way worker in the injunction case (as previously linked) who did live downtown, and had the opposite experience and welcomed it. And there's hundred of hours of live video that include people getting pretty easy access to drive downtown. (And as in the article, the organizers always made sure there was even an open emergency lane so that nothing was fully blocked.)
My experience, and from some of those downtown, was that the O Train tunnel dig through downtown was far more disruptive for far longer. But, as I mentioned, I don't live there.
As for the honking, the uncontrolled honking with air horns and train hors was the several days I was referring to. Per the injunction and the 8 AM to 8 PM hourly plan, honking was still allowed but was subdued and more controlled, and appeared to be compliant with the injunction. (Anybody violating it could have been arrested on the spot, and the police knew that and was even highlighted in the injunction.)
Fundamentally it's a tough issue. If you put residential areas right next to the federal center of government, Parliament, then in some sense that is a terrible choice and at high risk, because it is where protests happen, Canada Day celebrations, etc. While the protests might seem unfair to those who live right there, we can't make so easy for government to eliminate protests simply by putting residences next to government buildings, and saying, "Sorry, you can't protest at Parliament because ... residents."
It's tough. I don't at all support how it ended up, and would have like to have seen the negotiations play out as they had been as in this article. But, fundamentally in my mind, we have to lean heavily on the side of protecting the right to protest government, even indefinitely. The issue to me was/is setting the boundaries, not shutting down the protest as a whole.
Perhaps the irony here is that the very act of shutting it down caused more national and international damage to the very government being protested than the protest itself did. Then again, the point wasn't to damage the government's image, but to address the mandates, and that still hasn't completely resolved.
Lets be clear the protestors had 3 demands, first that the democratically elected government be forced out and be replaced by the Governor General among other parties. Second that the federal government, at the point in the pandemic when case counts were at their very highest force an end to all health mandates everywhere, including provincial ones .. forever. Finally force the US government to suspend their requirement that all people entering the US from Canada not be vaccinated. These were literally crazy demands that the government of the could not entertain let alone negotiate with a bunch of truckers who had occupied the downtown core of our capital city. I live about a 1 1/2 km from the protest cite and visited numerous times. To say that this was all bouncy castles and hot tubs and the local citizens welcomed the protestors is sheer lunacy. While not all the protestors were aggressive, a significant number of them were. Yes people have to right to protest, but not like this, this was lawless mayhem. While the protestors were bad enough, the collapse of the Ottawa Police Serves was worse, as was the utter indifference from the province and the OPP. The feds had no option to act because the other 2 tiers of government were either too indifferent or too incompetent to act.
So what. They disagreed. They were the genesis of the protests. The border ones are likely why the whole thing was shut down. They lost control of what they created. Cheap platitudes about it mean nothing....and thus, Trudeau found himself in another issue for which he should resign.
Really appreciate that someone took the time to lay out what happened. As an inhabitant of Ottawa during that time, all I can say is that Canadians managed themselves very well on the ground even if the leadership of all levels of government and the convoy were in disarray. When I took my pride flag down to Wellington street without any trouble, I knew it was a peaceful protest.
When you realize Andrew Lawton writes for True North - it is understandable why he presents this softened picture. If everything was indeed so civil, why were people charged and jailed under Canadian law?
It *was* civil. Thousands of people gathering to demonstrate in support of their cause, without burning buildings, without tearing down statues, etc. Authorities could have put a stop to it early (illegal parking?), but were caught flat-footed (ha!). The main crime of those charged was embarrassing those in government. We now see how inept they really are.
Watch some of Viva Frei's YouTube coverage. Great fun.
Civil, you say? Tell that to the teenage girl who was punched in the head and knocked down by some of those cretins. Why? Because she was wearing a mask and they wanted her to take it off, which she declined to do -- so they did it for her. Civil actions? I think not. Civil, you say? Tell that to the people who had gay pride flags on their property and then found human excrement on their lawns. Civil? Hardly. I could go on ....
Utter hooey, I live in Ottawa and no one who lived through that would have thought that this was actually safer. These thugs occupied occupied the dowtown core of our capital city people couldn't walk around safely, drive their cars or for that matter even get downtown.
There were only three reports of street crime in that district since the protest began: For mischief, robbery and auto theft.
In the week before the protest, the same district saw 31 police calls for robbery, assault, drug trafficking, public drunkenness, stolen vehicles, store break-ins and other crimes.
“There have been no riots, injuries or deaths,” Police Chief Peter Sloly said Wednesday at the municipal Police Services Board.
/Quote
This was early in the protest, I can't find a follow up.
I agree, blocking access is bad, but when it's a left wing protest (we had one a few years back in Edmonton, blocking 109st bridge completely, violating the highway act) I'm told I have to tolerate it. No charges laid.
Sloly was trying to put a positive spin on a bad situation, much of it his own making. Yes, no one was raped or killed, but many many people, including myself were harassed and hassled endlessly for weeks on end. Those protestors in Edmonton briefly blocked the 109 St bridge some were arrested and the protest was over in few hours, so yeah not an apt comparison. In Ottawa they parked a couple of hundred HGVs right in the middle of the parliamentary district for nearly 4 weeks, that includes 3 interprovincial bridges (which were re-opened after about 10 days), nearly 50 blocks of the downtown core. Direct cost to the city was $35M (ironically mostly to OPS overtime) and another $250M in economic costs due to business shutdown during that period of time.
Pfft! Tell that to the teenager who was hit in the head and shoved to the ground for wearing a mask. Tell that to the people who couldn't go to work because of the fiasco on the streets. Tell that to the people who were afraid to even walk their dogs on the streets where the Convoy Idiots were. Tell that to the business owners who lost millions because they had to shut down due to the actions of the Idiots. Tell that to the honest, working truckers who couldn't get their loads across the international border, so sat and waited ... losing money for every minute of the days that they had to just wait. Again, I could go on ...
I agree those are bad things and any crimes should be punished. Normally when it's a left wing protest any chaos seems to be tolerated, I'm glad you're on the law and order bandwagon.
I wonder what happened with that coastal gaslink protest where equipment was damaged and someone was attacked with an axe.
You cannot compare a protest by Native Canadians on their own land with a collection of imbeciles occupying the nation's capital. They are apples and oranges.
Again with things that have nothing to do with each other. The topic being the Freedum Convoys and how it was not all happy cheery nice nice. People were abusive. Millions of dollars were lost to the shops in that area.
Honest working truckers were out and about being honest working truckers but the lazy SOBs messed it up for them. This lot obviously could afford weeks in Ottawa in the cold and snow. Covidiots!
I was amazed at how the corporate media chose to cover this story as compared to independent media. It proved to me that mainstream media were no longer interested in conveying a story to Canadian's but were more interested in making up a story to aid the very politicians that are paying their wages. The corporate media used to cover stories to expose the corruption of the politicians to keep them honest and hold them accountable. Today they propogate for those same politicians and make up stories to cover for their blatant over reach and corrupt endevours.
The policital elite that have been voted into Parliament now work to harm the very people they are suppose to be serving. Its also apparent to me that not only has the Governing body become removed and corrupted by ideology but so too have our institutions we once relied on and trusted. I see no way forward to keep Canada a country under these circumstances. I believe that ship was set adrift before the convoy arrived in Ottawa. What happened with the invokation of the Emergencies Act and then the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry or trial in a lower court has even taken place, is our Institutions can no longer be trusted. Regardless if you agree with the actions of the protesters, politicians, or the police, and the justice system, the divide is deep and the feasure irripairable and many have lost all trust in the institutions we all believed in and that is what made us a nation. Its what made this a country. It is no longer.
I was in Ottawa for the second weekend and saw a CTV crew doing a report on the convoy. I was puzzled by the odd way they were positioning themselves until I realized that they were doing it to keep bouncy castles out of the frame.
"mainstream media were no longer interested in conveying a story to Canadian's but were more interested in making up a story to aid the very politicians that are paying their wages": nonsense
"they propogate for those same politicians and make up stories to cover for their blatant over reach and corrupt endevours": illiterate nonsense
"not only has the Governing body become removed and corrupted by ideology but so too have our institutions we once relied on and trusted": word-salad nonsense
"I see no way forward to keep Canada a country under these circumstances": blind nonsense
"the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry": utter nonsense and a jejune insult to the judiciary
"the divide is deep and the feasure irripairable and many have lost all trust in the institutions we all believed in and that is what made us a nation. Its what made this a country. It is no longer.": incomprehensible nonsense
While I agree with you, Martin, you're not really defending your "total bs" position! Simply calling all of her statements "nonsense" of one form or another is accurate but doesn't explain your reasoning. Maybe it's not worth trying, I know it isn't for me. Anytime a person uses such broad sweeping generalizations (not to mention terrible spelling and grammar) you can almost guarantee it's being copied from somewhere/someone else. Ah well, free speech and all that....
ML dishes up almost the exact same declarations whenever a convoy article shows up. Many of us have tried to get her past the rhetoric but no one can. Martin is dead to rights with his response to ML.
Yes, I see that she comments a lot and I'm probably too harsh in my judgement. It just took me back a few months when I had to step away from those kind of arguments!
Marty, you are, of course, entitle to your opinion. On the other hand, Marylou is entitled to hers.
I will not deal with your opinions as I largely disagree. I will, however, call you out on "the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry." In fact, that is what happened: Richard Wagner (Claude's son, good Liberals, father and son) did that very thing.
If any case arising from those events was ever heard by the Supreme Court, would he recuse himself? I truly think not! In any event, he did say it, so I absolutely say your contention of "utter nonsense" is, well, utter nonsense. As for it being a "jejune insult to the judiciary" if it is true then it is true [to paraphrase J. Chretien] and is not an insult except insofar as the statements / actions of Richard Wagner were themselves insults to the judiciary. And, "jejune"? Well, if there was no insult by Marylou, then there was no naivete arising from an insult.
I have searched high and low, using my considerable research skills as an experienced litigator, to find ANY statement from Chief Justice Wagner that "announces the leaders guilty".
He did have a lot to say about Supreme Court of Canada security and how that issue was accented by the deplorable situation taking place right outside his SCC building in Ottawa.
But that is not the same as declaring anyone guilty of anything. Far from it. Wagner is administratively responsible for the safe operation of the Supreme Court of Canada. Security is part of his job. ML's point of view is unfounded.
Marty, I absolute defer to your asserted skills as a litigator.
Perhaps I recall my comment incorrectly and if I stated that he asserted them to be "guilty" then I am guilty [please note: no equivocation in my confession] of overstating his comments.
As I recall his position, in his discussion of security of the SCC he used as an example and denigrated the participants in the recent Ottawa convoy. He used them as an example of the potential for harm that could occur at the SCC. From that, I inferred that he believed those folks to be "guilty" [yes, my interpretation of his words] or potentially "guilty" of heinous acts. At the very least, I found his words to be troubling and indicative of bias.
The Epoch Times, The NaPo, the Western Standard, Andrew Lawton, Saltwire, assorted twitter, FB, etc, all had a hand in SC Justice Richard Wagnar's bias story. (the same exact story) Of course they did, that's what they do. Find something contrary and run with it, never doing a follow up, or an interview with the judge, or actually looking at someone like Justice Rogers and the work he's done towards expanding legal rights for everyone, even the convoy scofflaws. You get clicks if you are nasty.
Wagner's father,Claude Wagner PC QC, a Crown Prosecutor, a law professor and a judge, died in 1977. Wagner has been on the SC since 2017. We don't gift our political buddies a seat on the SC like the US does (please note Trump's 3 picks and where he found them). That they were/are Liberals is neither here nor there. He had no reason to recuse himself to appease the hysterically/historically indignant.
MLs screed is just that. It doesn't matter what is going on, she's on about her great sweeping statements. Martin's list of MLs "best statements" is just that. Nothing new there. Like your dis of Wagner and his father it's shallow and uninformed.
Wagner wasn't insulting the convoy or the judiciary. You tho, think that insulting a man and his dead father, without actual facts is ok.
Wagner has spoken recently on how he would like to see better protections for the SC building. The SC falls outside of the parliamentary precinct and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Protective Service police force. The jurisdictional lines between the Ottawa Police Service, the RCMP and the Parliamentary Protective Service made policing the protesters difficult. No one actually knew who the leaders of the convoy were which was only one more reason the convoy lasted as long as it did. That there were talks that would actually have changed anything, I doubt.
Buy the book. It's at #14 on Amazon and it came out today. You can buy new and used too. Oh, it's also on sale. Or you can choose among the approximately 50 convoy books available. Half of them are blank lined notebooks with a truck on the cover (or F* Trudeau) but are good for phone numbers, recipes and your innermost thoughts.
Lou, I read (both present and past tense) none of the "publications" that you reference, not even FB. If you say that they published something or even the same thing I say, "Oh, they did? So what?" If the did or did not do follow up that is for you, the reader, to note and about which to complain if you feel it necessary. Me, as a non-reader I simply don't care.
Yup, Claude was a relatively okay guy in many ways - well, he was himself controversial in his day but then that is politics. On the other hand, I do look at the Liberal (note, not liberal) connection. I did not insult or defame Richard, I simply am aware of their Liberal connections. I did not say he was not in some ways worthy of his judgeship; I am not qualified to compare one candidate for the bench with another.
What I am qualified to do is to worry about bias. The federal government declared the Emergency Act with no apparent reasons, or at least none of which they are willing to disclose as required by law, and Richard complained about the demonstrators who were subject of the EA. Is that bias? Well, it appears so to me.
On the other hand, his family was Liberal, the EA was declared by a Liberal, the EA is not obviously justified based on the evidenced so far adduced at the appropriate place, Richard has commented negatively about the protestors, so why wouldn't I be worried about bias?
You want, Richard wants, better protection for the SC? Fine; let him make his case. But do not, DO NOT, vilify people or events that may be subject to cases to be heard by the Court.
Oh, now you are a shill for the book and other books? I will or I will not purchase one of the various books, as I choose. Your recommendations are, obviously, highly important to me.
I read some of the other excerpts from this book printed in the National Post over the past week. It's far more favorable to the protesters than anything I'd seen elsewhere in the media, including what felt like fairly balanced coverage in The Line.
One thing that comes through in these excerpts is the fact that these protests really didn't have any leadership. Lots of people claimed to speak for the protesters, there were certainly people who could be described as organizers, but there was no authority and little central organization. It also seems more like the protesters had coalesced around certain broad themes which had never been translated into specific goals. Ultimately, this means negotiation was never going to work - nobody was quite sure what the protesters wanted, and there was nobody with whom to conduct effective negotiations.
This lack of coherence on the side of the protesters was met with confusion and an absence of leadership on the government side as well. After acting like a deer in headlights for weeks, they finally snapped into action and cleared the protests as they could've weeks earlier, no Emergencies Act required.
So you are unaware of their "Memorandum of Understanding"? In it they said they were going to Ottawa with the express determination to meet with the Governor General (why she would do that is beyond me) and the Senate (ditto). At that meeting their plan was to kick the government out of office and run the country as a triumvirate: the GG, the Senate and the Convoy Leaders. (I am not making this up.) That, sir, is sedition. And in Canada, that is punishable by 14 years in prison. Those clowns were lucky to get away without facing that. Their Memorandum was published before they even left Vancouver. Now, I grant you that many of the buffoons who joined in knew nothing of this ... but that's on them! They should have found out what they were participating in. I, for one, think the government was far too lenient with them.
I'm aware of it, its half-baked unconstitutional demands, and the fact that many or most of the protesters had no clue of what was really in it or what it meant. There were many groups and individuals trying to set themselves up as "leaders" of a largely inchoate and unorganized mass of people, and it points to the huge problem with the idea of "negotiating" with these grassroots mass protests. There *is no* leadership or authority to negotiate with! It's much the same with the Black Lives Matters protests or the anti-pipeline protests. What governments need to do is enforce the law.
Jane, please realize that most of these protesters were very naive insofar as they thought that the letter of the constitution as they understood it was an accurate representation of the power and responsibility of the various political actors.
For example, by meeting with the GG, they would have thought that the GG had the actual power to dismiss the PM. In fact, if you look at the letter of the law that would be so but those of us who had taken courses, read about constitutional matters, etc., etc. knew about King - Byng, precedents, constitutional customs, etc., etc., etc.
Please recall that it wasn't that many decades ago that the GG of the day actually DID dismiss the PM. Could that occur now? Of course not, under our constitutional conventions but they did not understand those conventions.
My point is, they THOUGHT they were following the law. Just because they had not taken constitutional law courses does not make them criminals. No, that is not sedition; it is not understanding that the black letter law is very much accompanied by common law and tradition. My dictionary defines sedition as "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch." If the black letter law stated that the GG had the power to dismiss the PM and if they were calling on the GG to follow the law then that could not have been sedition. Misguided? Certainly, but only misguided and not seditious.
As for "too lenient" I take the opposite view; I truly believe that the government was far, far too harsh.
As you are aware [I hope!] we are entitled to diverging opinions in Canada [at least for now; perhaps under the new law just passed my commentary will be declared fake news and will be proscribed]. I encourage you to have your opinion but I also encourage others to have their contrary opinions, with which, in this case, I happen to concur in full.
Ken, those who wrote the MOU knew EXACTLY what they were doing. These were, are, and likely always will be, western separatists. Just by reading it, you can plainly see that that MOU was written by a lawyer. Their lawyer. So suggesting that they were naive doesn't cut it. Yes, the dopes behind the wheels were duped by the separatists, but once they got a head of steam up, they were not about to listen to anyone. That is on them. And yes, those who were responsible for the writing of the MOU, *are* seditionists. It's right there in black and white and it falls fully within the definition of sedition.
Tell me Jane, is it illegal to be a western separatist? Last I heard (perhaps the SCC has ruled to the contrary recently?) I am allowed to be a western separatist just as I am allowed to be a Quebec separatist. Or, perhaps you don't agree with that interpretation of the law and I have to conform to your "view" of the arrangement of this country?
As for a lawyer, I don't know that it was or was not written by a lawyer and, quite frankly, neither do you. You can surmise but that is all you can do. Either way, I do not expect that the folks driving those trucks [the ones you and others accuse of sedition] graduated from law school or perhaps you know otherwise; if so, please advise.
And, again, where is it written that it is illegal to be a separatist?
If the truck drivers wanted to be seditious they wouldn't have asked to GG to dismiss JT. The dismissal of a PM is part of Canadian history - it has happened! The fact that they wanted it to again occur simply reflects their lack of knowledge, not seditious behavior.
And yet again I want to know why it is that you seem to want to denigrate someone who has a legal political position, such as wishing for western separation?
Remember, sedition is defined as "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch." Clearly, the MOU was naive but it called on the GG to act within the powers that are nominally those of the GG. The fact that those powers are not exercised a whole lot these days does not eliminate those powers from the nominal powers of the GG. So, sedition? Nope. On the other hand, your SCC of Canada has already made it's thoughts clear with the bias of R. Wagner so perhaps you can get your interpretation. Oh, and while you are at it, go ahead and get we western separatists declared illegal; and the Quebec variety too.
Hmmmm..... could it be that it is the same reason that you didn't negotiate with the various folks?
It is my best understanding that YOU were not authorized to negotiate with them but you still could have done so. Of course, you had no authority to negotiate; the authority was with the entirely absent governments of Canada and Ontario and, of course, the City of Ottawa. As near as I can tell from your writings, you opposed the folks in the demo so that would have made you a good representative to negotiate a settlement, yes?
So, tell me why YOU did not negotiate with them. Then you will have your answer about the two individuals that you have named.
Jane, that MOU was written at least 3 years ago. They brought it out at the 2019 Truckers Convoy 0.1. Pat King was one of the organizers of that one too, at least to hear him tell it:)
George I agree with everything you say until the last sentence. We don't know if the convoy could have been cleared out earlier, we just know they didn't. Thus the EA, which was only a week, did the trick.
I’m afraid it’s become increasingly clear that the reason the government needed to invoke the Emergencies Act was to explain why they hadn’t acted weeks earlier. They didn’t need the powers provided by the act; they needed TO act.
My understanding is that the feds could not act without the EA. Prior to that, it was all up to the province and the feds' hands were tied, hence the EA.
Does the book get into the Jan and Feb-2020 blockades that were allegedly in protest of Coastal GasLink and why law enforcement doesn't treat that series of events identically to what happened two years later in Ottawa and at several border crossings?
I work downtown Ottawa and was subjected to these so-called freedom protesters enjoying their bouncy castles and hot tubs while bellowing “freedom” at the top of their lungs and honking air horns. What a pathetic, annoying, middle-finger-in-your face spectacle it was to the residents of Ottawa. I feel that my hometown was hijacked by a very sorry bunch of discontented yahoos who really didn’t have a clue what having no freedom means or how a democracy works. The idea that they are planning to return here on July 1 to disrupt Canada Day celebrations is upsetting to say the least.
I hope the chapter on the breaking up of the protest gives fair treatment to the police officers and their leadership. This was without doubt the gentlest mass police operation I have ever seen. Part of that may be the realization that the real arm-bending was being done with insurance companies, provincial licence bureaus, and of course the towing companies. In the face of massive peer pressure from across Canada, the Ottawa Police and OPP sympathizers chose to lie low until the thing ended, even though they had contributed to the chaos over the entire protest.
I agree with the idea of gentle (with a couple of exceptions). The police and protestors overall were engaged in a sort of dance along Wellington street. Quite a site to see and another slap in the face of those who thought the Emerg Act was necessary.
Just how long do you think this "dance" ought to have been allowed to run? People couldn't sleep at night for more than 3 weeks due to the honking. Honking isn't dancing. It's aggressive.
"Andrew Lawton is a broadcaster and columnist, currently serving as a fellow at True North and writing a weekly column for Loonie Politics.
Most recently, he hosted The Andrew Lawton Show on 980 CFPL in London, and wrote a national column for Global News. His written work has been published across the world, including in the Washington Post, the National Post, the Toronto Sun, the Edmonton Sun, and Global News. Andrew has appeared as a commentator on CBC, CTV, TVO, CTS, and on BBC World.
Andrew ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election."
The part you missed is "he was there on the ground throughout the protest." The same can not be said for the partisan Liberal Corporate Media. Andrew is for the people and the cause, where the Corporate Government paid media is for the Government. That is where the difference lies in the reporting. Remember the Government has the money and power, the people only have each other and the independent media, paid for by the people.
None of this needed to happen and could have been avoided through conversation. Just remember Trudeau refused to speak to those Canadian's protesting for a cause and instead demonized them as did the Liberal Paid for Corporate Media. So if you want to discuss partisan news I think its ovious where your bias lays.
Of course, the protestors were "on the ground" as well, not sure I'd describe their views as 'journalism'.
Yes, you are correct, my bias lies with presenting the various points of view as accurately as possible. That's the bias I associate with 'journalism'. Picking a side and pitching the story is a perfectly legitimate task in a democratic society. Pretending you're doing the one while doing the other, pretty much gets us deeper into the zeitgeist of misinfo, disinfo, gaslighting and mistrust. You know, that crisis of 'expectations' discussed at an early point in the history of The Line.
How is it misinformation, disinformation, gaslighting if its a different point of view. Like you said the mainstream media is the same, they pick a side, so they too must be spreading misinformation and disinformation and doing a whole lot of gaslighting. Your confused yourself in the difference between bias and disinformation and misinformation. What you don't mention is that the mainstream media is paid by the Government, who can get positive op eds anytime it wants. (Liberal Cabinet Minister's words, not mine). You know that as do I. What makes it unrelieable is that the Government is paying the mainstream media and that in itself makes them unreliable. If you have been watching the Committe on the Invokation of the Emergency Act in Parliament you would be more informed as to just who is spreading the misinformation. Perhaps concentrating on that would be to your benefit as even thy have exposed the lies used to bring it to fruitation. So please tell me again about that misinformation, disinformation and gaslighting. It stems from the Trudeau Liberal Government itself.
A sales pitch for his book. Amazing to think there is a couple of dozen out there written by people who were there! Not including the blank notebook with a picture of a big truck on the cover. We will never know how this book measures up to the others in the trucker genre.
I remember that article but I didn't know who AL was and I didn't really care but it was shocking. Such a pig.
He won't be interested in anything I might say because I'm a left-wing Greenpeace card-carrying feminazi enviro activist LGBTQI & First Nations supporting 1st generation Canadian of immigrant parents and siblings pro-choice conspiracy-free socialist.
Amen to that. Despite the literal headache it would cause me some nights, it was also a lot of fun to see people smiling, dancing, walking around, loving the flag, high-fiving each other and just reveling in a bit of freedom after such darkness under lockdowns we were told would last 2 weeks. Ha!
Tony - you revelled at the expense of people who lived in the area. Yes there was a bouncy castle and dancing. Would you want that and the constant noise outside your home for four weeks? I know I certainly would not.
Something had to give and it did. I was affected too but I got really good ear plugs and tried to understand people's frustrations. I'm not so weak as to stay holed up in my apartment worrying about the hoard outside my building. They were Canadians having a rowdier than usual block party to tell their government they were suffering and needed change. All JT gave them was opprobrium the likes this country has never seen, to his eternal shame.
Perhaps if you ignore the horn honking at all hours of the night, but that's a really hard thing to ignore. I could hear them from my house in Gatineau while inside with the lights out. Let me ask this, do you think the horn honking was peaceful?
So they didn't know it was disruptive (they didn't think residents could hear the horns?) until the injunction? They thought blaring truck horns at all hours of the night was peaceful until they were enlightened by the injunction, is that your argument?
Of course they knew it was disruptive. Exactly what is it about a protest that you think is suppose to be silent so no one even knows they are there? Did those who protested on behalf of the Wetsuwetin and the gas pipeline in BC not create havoc and disrupt the trains and supply chain? Funny how people can forget what does not effect them personally or is the same thing yet treated completely different. I did not see any emergency act get put in place even though personal property was being trespassed on and purposely destroyed. The same protest that brought many on buses from the US! The police did not put on Jack boots and push back unarmed citizens and in fact talking was encouraged. As long as the protesters run on the same ideology of those in charge, it’s all peaches and roses . Suddenly people are upset in Ottawa as they, for once, had to put up with protests. In fact Ottawa is where the Federal Government is and they were upset because the people came to them. As it should be if one is serious about protesting. Protesting Ottawa’s Mandates, does nothing if you protesting in Manitoba now does it? Protests about climate change or those that block all the traffic in BC as they are doing right now. No jack boots going in there, as Ottawa is unaffected. The hypocrisy of those who believe they should not suffer any disruption while it’s fine for others, is blatant and it appears to come from the lap top class who sit at home getting lunch delivered by the very people protesting. Yes, you know the ones who risked their life when there was no vaccine. Imagine they provided for all those same people who were complaining , the very ones that had the luxury of working from home. Sorry your life was disrupted but it was a necessary thing to protest the lack of compassion and pure non scientific policies that were put in against the same hero’s that made sure you had something to eat during the pandemic.
Not sure why I said with the lights out :-). Sorry, meant to say with doors and windows closed (it was winter). It wasn't quite loud enough to keep me up, but I was an entire Ottawa River away.
Did you include any kind of discussion as to the legality of the protest in your book? To me this seems like an important factor in making determinations about the efficacy and necessity of the response by the city/police. I'll remind you that it was framed by both the city and the police as an illegal protest.
Police failed to do their job properly. Instead of telling them to do their job local leaders decided to have federal leaders deal with it after it went on way to long. OPS should have had way more firings, along with inquiry about why the Ottawa municipal and Ontario leaders didn't take proper action.
I think the feds and the province played politics about who was going to have to deal with it...but it certainly write all the attack ads for the next election.... outside of the ones SCOTUS created yesterday.
Fluff. The convoy should never have been allowed to reach downtown Ottawa. It created an unpleasant few weeks for the entire country. The concept of fighting for all Canadian's freedoms was simply wrong. Most of us despised the entire charade. This is a free and civilized country.
How can you say it's free and civilized and then deny people the right to protest? We can talk all day about what protest tactics are good/bad/whatever, but the unpleasantness was worth it to tell those in power they had overstepped.
My mother used to say that "fish and visitors smell after three days" which is exactly what happened. Canadians need no lessons from a self appointed minority.
Canadians are different than Americans. Our education, media and values are better coupled with the fact that we are not governed by a faulty constitution and thus we ARE better thinkers. So, when confronted by simplistic rhetoric promoting extreme views [left of right] we are generous towards people who promote shallow arguments but we don't buy in as does the extreme right in the US. Have you ever thought of moving?
Like I said, we are a generous people. We can make room for shallow which brings me to the next point, why did the Line give any credit to Lawton? Perhaps I should rethink my subscription.
So what I am understanding is that the Convoy "leadership" really didn't have control over the protest. They opened Pandora's box and then couldn't close it. All the talks in the world were not going to solve this mess. Trudeau did the right thing. Protest all you want but don't camp out for weeks and infringe on the rights of the citizens of Ottawa.
So a free-for-all? That sounds safe. Not going to debate the mandates. Not going down the world wide conspiracy to stick it to the little people hole. People have the freedom and right to protest. This was not a protest. It became an occupation of the downtown of our capital that had citizens of Ottawa not able to work, move about freely or enjoy their homes/neighborhoods. Make your point on the weekend and go home.
"mandates whose only real purpose was political"???????? They certainly aren't needed now. While Omicron, Delta and Alpha raged they were essential to attempt to save the few remaining threads of our healthcare system. Saskatchewan had to shut down its organ donation program due to a lack of ICU space FFS. Imagine waiting 3 years for a kidney only to learnt that a usable one got tossed into the scrap bucket because there was no room at the Inn. Trudeau is useless and plays stupid games, and needs to go more than any PM we've probably ever had, but pretending doing something to address the COVID crisis with the few tools he had available wasn't needed is patently absurd.
The convoy was nothing more than a collection of whining fools, whose entire reason for being was nullified the second the US put the same rules in place. They arrived with an ultimatum, no plan, no knowledge, and took over a city....and morphed into an attack on the economy. It should have lasted 3 days. That it was "love and hugs" doesn't make it any less of a gathering of dullards.
The "truckers" knew for months before the mandate for cross-border travel was coming into effect. I wonder why they never spoke to their MP about their concerns or even wrote to assorted ministers who may have done something. Nope, they went off half-cocked and the rest is history. They can command tables of beer at their local hole. Some made off like bandits with a decent pile of cash too. And now they plan to drive back to Ottawa with the price of gas and diesel what it is. Not a rocket scientist in the bunch. There never was.
This account tells me there was very little representative negotiations going on by anyone on the convoy side. Its leaders seem to be people who appointed themselves leaders, opportunists who elbowed their way to the head of the parade.
“We don’t control them,” Wilson said. “We don’t even know who they are. No one signed up. It’s not a curling bonspiel, it’s not a golf tournament. We can’t say ‘Oh no, sorry, this is your tee time sir. You can’t tee off from here now.’”
That I now think these convoy ‘leaders’ were phoney, doesn’t justify the government’s use of the Emergency Act.
I’m glad this book excerpt is here, but it doesn’t convince me about any realistic attempts to negotiate.
Talks bearing fruit? All talks were about how to continue the protest, which had already been allowed to go on too long. There were no talks about ending the protest with the organizers. The protest closed down 2-3 interprovincial bridges for a period of 3 weeks, which was more than a minor inconvenience. The talks would not have changed that. Regardless if you agree with the protesters (I don't), they have a right to legal protest. Parking vehicles in streets for weeks on end is not legal, and should not have been allowed. The majority of the protesters may have been peaceful people, but the actions of blaring horns all hours of the day was too much, and could rightly be defined as a provocation to invite non-peaceful recourse. They got what they asked for and they needed to go. Whether the emergency act was necessary, I can't say, but talks to keep them in the city should never have even begun.
So to be clear, the protests on the interprovincial bridges were not part of the Freedom Convoy 2022 or related to the Ottawa protest organizers. Those were essentially independent copycat protests and negotiations with the Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers in this story would have no relevance to those separate protests. Freedom Convoy 2022 organizers are on record saying they disagreed with the methods of those other protests. And, those other protests were already cleared prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
As to the legality of the protest, that had already been addressed by the judge in the injunction: https://adnausica.substack.com/p/judge-court-orders-for-yourself
While he put in the injunction banning the use of train horns and air horns, he did not ban honking in general nor the parking of the trucks on Wellington as part of the protest, stating, "THIS COURT ORDERS that, provided the terms of this Order are complied with, the Defendants and other persons remain at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest."
I understand that this protest annoyed a lot of people. But, annoyance of citizens does not directly supercede the right to protest. There is a constitutional right to protest. There is not a constitutional right to not be annoyed by a protest.
And, the protestor organizers did understand that annoyance and after the first few days did indeed agree to limiting the honking to "Coordinated unified honk every half an hour for 1 minute, between the hours of 08:00 a.m. and 08:00 p.m., followed by silence between the hours of 08:00 p.m. to 08:00 a.m." That is part of their affidavit in the court proceeding in the link above.
This was all taken care of and in the works. What I'm hearing in these complaints is that some Canadians, including yourself, are open to protests so long as they don't annoy non-protestors. It isn't clear to me where that fair boundary lies, but I am deeply concerned that people are willing to throw away their own, and their fellow citizens', rights to protest. Just remember that if things get so bad that you need to protest something, that the people you are complaining about here might not be there to back you up, in a tit-for-tat support of cracking down on you and your causes. My hope is that they would be more forgiving and still stand by your right to protest.
This is why statements like the "First they came ..." poem have such importance in recognizing the slippery slope of ignoring the rights and plights of others when it does not directly affect you, or affects you negatively.
It all makes me a bit sad for our country.
The bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau were closed because of the trucks parked on either side of them that were part of the convoy. And they were closed for at least a few weeks after the protest cleared. I'm not talking about the international bridges. Many people use these bridges on a daily basis to commute to work/school/social engagements. Ottawa/Gatineau is one big metropolitan area that was essentially split in half as a result of these protests.
I'm guessing you don't live in Ottawa/Gatineau and didn't have to endure the weeks of unrest and uncertainty that the residents did. Please consider how you would feel if you lived there, and let me know if that would impact your opinion. Frankly, I was in a state of confusion and extremely stressed during the entire occupation (not knowing whether I was going to be able to get my kids to school each day or whether I could report to work). People who live in the south of Ottawa did not experience the same thing.
A judge obviously felt that the horn honking was unlawful, and that was one of the main parts of the protest for a week and a half (not a couple of days as you indicated). Plus, the honking did not cease immediately and little to no enforcement occurred. Furthermore, Wellington street was only part of the protest. Vehicles were parked throughout downtown, along the Sir John A MacDonald Parkway for a long stretch next to the war museum, in Gatineau, and many other locations during the 3 weeks.
Furthermore, the judge did not declare the protest to be legal, he just simply said that Canadians have a right to legal protest, and I don't disagree with that. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.
Where's the line on legal or illegal protest? That's a good question that I'm not equipped to answer. But I will say this, blocking off many blocks of a downtown area for weeks seems like something that shouldn't be allowed to happen, at least in my opinion. There was nothing stopping the protesters from parking legally and trekking to Parliament hill (or other public locations) daily to continue their protest. But we all know that would not have had the same impact as their blockades and campground setups.
Ultimately I think the police failed the city. If the protest wasn't illegal, why didn't Toronto and Quebec city let truckers set up their camps in downtown areas? Was it illegal for those police forces to prevent the (legal?) blockades?
I'm sad for our country too, but sadly not for the same reasons as you. We don't live in a country where people can do whatever they want just because Fuck Trudeau. That's the sad part.
Fair point on the bridges. You did say interprovincial, not international. I was not aware any of them were shut down and, as indicated even in the story here, bridges were not listed as any point of concern either as being closed or needing to open. I would assume this was the Portage Bridge, given proximity to Wellington. Though, could have been Alexandra.
Certainly if that were the case then, as with this article, the solution would have been to work with the convoy to move trucks to open the bridge, which should have been much easier than the Rideau/Sussex issue. That location was central to the protestors on foot who surrounded the effort in the story, misunderstanding the situation. The bridge(s) were at the periphery so should have been quite easy to open via agreement/arrangement.
Yes, I do live in the Ottawa area. Not downtown, but I did go to take a look. I do sympathize with those annoyed by it, but I also sympathize with those annoyed by any protest. I also note the affidavit of the United Way worker in the injunction case (as previously linked) who did live downtown, and had the opposite experience and welcomed it. And there's hundred of hours of live video that include people getting pretty easy access to drive downtown. (And as in the article, the organizers always made sure there was even an open emergency lane so that nothing was fully blocked.)
My experience, and from some of those downtown, was that the O Train tunnel dig through downtown was far more disruptive for far longer. But, as I mentioned, I don't live there.
As for the honking, the uncontrolled honking with air horns and train hors was the several days I was referring to. Per the injunction and the 8 AM to 8 PM hourly plan, honking was still allowed but was subdued and more controlled, and appeared to be compliant with the injunction. (Anybody violating it could have been arrested on the spot, and the police knew that and was even highlighted in the injunction.)
Fundamentally it's a tough issue. If you put residential areas right next to the federal center of government, Parliament, then in some sense that is a terrible choice and at high risk, because it is where protests happen, Canada Day celebrations, etc. While the protests might seem unfair to those who live right there, we can't make so easy for government to eliminate protests simply by putting residences next to government buildings, and saying, "Sorry, you can't protest at Parliament because ... residents."
It's tough. I don't at all support how it ended up, and would have like to have seen the negotiations play out as they had been as in this article. But, fundamentally in my mind, we have to lean heavily on the side of protecting the right to protest government, even indefinitely. The issue to me was/is setting the boundaries, not shutting down the protest as a whole.
Perhaps the irony here is that the very act of shutting it down caused more national and international damage to the very government being protested than the protest itself did. Then again, the point wasn't to damage the government's image, but to address the mandates, and that still hasn't completely resolved.
Lets be clear the protestors had 3 demands, first that the democratically elected government be forced out and be replaced by the Governor General among other parties. Second that the federal government, at the point in the pandemic when case counts were at their very highest force an end to all health mandates everywhere, including provincial ones .. forever. Finally force the US government to suspend their requirement that all people entering the US from Canada not be vaccinated. These were literally crazy demands that the government of the could not entertain let alone negotiate with a bunch of truckers who had occupied the downtown core of our capital city. I live about a 1 1/2 km from the protest cite and visited numerous times. To say that this was all bouncy castles and hot tubs and the local citizens welcomed the protestors is sheer lunacy. While not all the protestors were aggressive, a significant number of them were. Yes people have to right to protest, but not like this, this was lawless mayhem. While the protestors were bad enough, the collapse of the Ottawa Police Serves was worse, as was the utter indifference from the province and the OPP. The feds had no option to act because the other 2 tiers of government were either too indifferent or too incompetent to act.
So what. They disagreed. They were the genesis of the protests. The border ones are likely why the whole thing was shut down. They lost control of what they created. Cheap platitudes about it mean nothing....and thus, Trudeau found himself in another issue for which he should resign.
Really appreciate that someone took the time to lay out what happened. As an inhabitant of Ottawa during that time, all I can say is that Canadians managed themselves very well on the ground even if the leadership of all levels of government and the convoy were in disarray. When I took my pride flag down to Wellington street without any trouble, I knew it was a peaceful protest.
When you realize Andrew Lawton writes for True North - it is understandable why he presents this softened picture. If everything was indeed so civil, why were people charged and jailed under Canadian law?
It *was* civil. Thousands of people gathering to demonstrate in support of their cause, without burning buildings, without tearing down statues, etc. Authorities could have put a stop to it early (illegal parking?), but were caught flat-footed (ha!). The main crime of those charged was embarrassing those in government. We now see how inept they really are.
Watch some of Viva Frei's YouTube coverage. Great fun.
Civil, you say? Tell that to the teenage girl who was punched in the head and knocked down by some of those cretins. Why? Because she was wearing a mask and they wanted her to take it off, which she declined to do -- so they did it for her. Civil actions? I think not. Civil, you say? Tell that to the people who had gay pride flags on their property and then found human excrement on their lawns. Civil? Hardly. I could go on ....
I saw an interview with a local who said the neighborhood was actually safer while the protests were happening.
Utter hooey, I live in Ottawa and no one who lived through that would have thought that this was actually safer. These thugs occupied occupied the dowtown core of our capital city people couldn't walk around safely, drive their cars or for that matter even get downtown.
Quote/
There were only three reports of street crime in that district since the protest began: For mischief, robbery and auto theft.
In the week before the protest, the same district saw 31 police calls for robbery, assault, drug trafficking, public drunkenness, stolen vehicles, store break-ins and other crimes.
“There have been no riots, injuries or deaths,” Police Chief Peter Sloly said Wednesday at the municipal Police Services Board.
/Quote
This was early in the protest, I can't find a follow up.
I agree, blocking access is bad, but when it's a left wing protest (we had one a few years back in Edmonton, blocking 109st bridge completely, violating the highway act) I'm told I have to tolerate it. No charges laid.
Sloly was trying to put a positive spin on a bad situation, much of it his own making. Yes, no one was raped or killed, but many many people, including myself were harassed and hassled endlessly for weeks on end. Those protestors in Edmonton briefly blocked the 109 St bridge some were arrested and the protest was over in few hours, so yeah not an apt comparison. In Ottawa they parked a couple of hundred HGVs right in the middle of the parliamentary district for nearly 4 weeks, that includes 3 interprovincial bridges (which were re-opened after about 10 days), nearly 50 blocks of the downtown core. Direct cost to the city was $35M (ironically mostly to OPS overtime) and another $250M in economic costs due to business shutdown during that period of time.
So there was a protest in Edmonton a few years back and that makes the convoy protest ok? You should know it doesn't work that way.
Pfft! Tell that to the teenager who was hit in the head and shoved to the ground for wearing a mask. Tell that to the people who couldn't go to work because of the fiasco on the streets. Tell that to the people who were afraid to even walk their dogs on the streets where the Convoy Idiots were. Tell that to the business owners who lost millions because they had to shut down due to the actions of the Idiots. Tell that to the honest, working truckers who couldn't get their loads across the international border, so sat and waited ... losing money for every minute of the days that they had to just wait. Again, I could go on ...
I agree those are bad things and any crimes should be punished. Normally when it's a left wing protest any chaos seems to be tolerated, I'm glad you're on the law and order bandwagon.
I wonder what happened with that coastal gaslink protest where equipment was damaged and someone was attacked with an axe.
You cannot compare a protest by Native Canadians on their own land with a collection of imbeciles occupying the nation's capital. They are apples and oranges.
Again with things that have nothing to do with each other. The topic being the Freedum Convoys and how it was not all happy cheery nice nice. People were abusive. Millions of dollars were lost to the shops in that area.
Honest working truckers were out and about being honest working truckers but the lazy SOBs messed it up for them. This lot obviously could afford weeks in Ottawa in the cold and snow. Covidiots!
He was there with them on the ground. Thats the difference.
Lol, It's like Trump's version of Jan 6. A lovefest.
I was amazed at how the corporate media chose to cover this story as compared to independent media. It proved to me that mainstream media were no longer interested in conveying a story to Canadian's but were more interested in making up a story to aid the very politicians that are paying their wages. The corporate media used to cover stories to expose the corruption of the politicians to keep them honest and hold them accountable. Today they propogate for those same politicians and make up stories to cover for their blatant over reach and corrupt endevours.
The policital elite that have been voted into Parliament now work to harm the very people they are suppose to be serving. Its also apparent to me that not only has the Governing body become removed and corrupted by ideology but so too have our institutions we once relied on and trusted. I see no way forward to keep Canada a country under these circumstances. I believe that ship was set adrift before the convoy arrived in Ottawa. What happened with the invokation of the Emergencies Act and then the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry or trial in a lower court has even taken place, is our Institutions can no longer be trusted. Regardless if you agree with the actions of the protesters, politicians, or the police, and the justice system, the divide is deep and the feasure irripairable and many have lost all trust in the institutions we all believed in and that is what made us a nation. Its what made this a country. It is no longer.
I was in Ottawa for the second weekend and saw a CTV crew doing a report on the convoy. I was puzzled by the odd way they were positioning themselves until I realized that they were doing it to keep bouncy castles out of the frame.
Total BS.
How so?
"mainstream media were no longer interested in conveying a story to Canadian's but were more interested in making up a story to aid the very politicians that are paying their wages": nonsense
"they propogate for those same politicians and make up stories to cover for their blatant over reach and corrupt endevours": illiterate nonsense
"not only has the Governing body become removed and corrupted by ideology but so too have our institutions we once relied on and trusted": word-salad nonsense
"I see no way forward to keep Canada a country under these circumstances": blind nonsense
"the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry": utter nonsense and a jejune insult to the judiciary
"the divide is deep and the feasure irripairable and many have lost all trust in the institutions we all believed in and that is what made us a nation. Its what made this a country. It is no longer.": incomprehensible nonsense
While I agree with you, Martin, you're not really defending your "total bs" position! Simply calling all of her statements "nonsense" of one form or another is accurate but doesn't explain your reasoning. Maybe it's not worth trying, I know it isn't for me. Anytime a person uses such broad sweeping generalizations (not to mention terrible spelling and grammar) you can almost guarantee it's being copied from somewhere/someone else. Ah well, free speech and all that....
ML dishes up almost the exact same declarations whenever a convoy article shows up. Many of us have tried to get her past the rhetoric but no one can. Martin is dead to rights with his response to ML.
Other than that, ML is a sweetie.
Yes, I see that she comments a lot and I'm probably too harsh in my judgement. It just took me back a few months when I had to step away from those kind of arguments!
Marty, you are, of course, entitle to your opinion. On the other hand, Marylou is entitled to hers.
I will not deal with your opinions as I largely disagree. I will, however, call you out on "the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry." In fact, that is what happened: Richard Wagner (Claude's son, good Liberals, father and son) did that very thing.
If any case arising from those events was ever heard by the Supreme Court, would he recuse himself? I truly think not! In any event, he did say it, so I absolutely say your contention of "utter nonsense" is, well, utter nonsense. As for it being a "jejune insult to the judiciary" if it is true then it is true [to paraphrase J. Chretien] and is not an insult except insofar as the statements / actions of Richard Wagner were themselves insults to the judiciary. And, "jejune"? Well, if there was no insult by Marylou, then there was no naivete arising from an insult.
Kenny:
I have searched high and low, using my considerable research skills as an experienced litigator, to find ANY statement from Chief Justice Wagner that "announces the leaders guilty".
He did have a lot to say about Supreme Court of Canada security and how that issue was accented by the deplorable situation taking place right outside his SCC building in Ottawa.
But that is not the same as declaring anyone guilty of anything. Far from it. Wagner is administratively responsible for the safe operation of the Supreme Court of Canada. Security is part of his job. ML's point of view is unfounded.
Marty, I absolute defer to your asserted skills as a litigator.
Perhaps I recall my comment incorrectly and if I stated that he asserted them to be "guilty" then I am guilty [please note: no equivocation in my confession] of overstating his comments.
As I recall his position, in his discussion of security of the SCC he used as an example and denigrated the participants in the recent Ottawa convoy. He used them as an example of the potential for harm that could occur at the SCC. From that, I inferred that he believed those folks to be "guilty" [yes, my interpretation of his words] or potentially "guilty" of heinous acts. At the very least, I found his words to be troubling and indicative of bias.
The Epoch Times, The NaPo, the Western Standard, Andrew Lawton, Saltwire, assorted twitter, FB, etc, all had a hand in SC Justice Richard Wagnar's bias story. (the same exact story) Of course they did, that's what they do. Find something contrary and run with it, never doing a follow up, or an interview with the judge, or actually looking at someone like Justice Rogers and the work he's done towards expanding legal rights for everyone, even the convoy scofflaws. You get clicks if you are nasty.
Wagner's father,Claude Wagner PC QC, a Crown Prosecutor, a law professor and a judge, died in 1977. Wagner has been on the SC since 2017. We don't gift our political buddies a seat on the SC like the US does (please note Trump's 3 picks and where he found them). That they were/are Liberals is neither here nor there. He had no reason to recuse himself to appease the hysterically/historically indignant.
MLs screed is just that. It doesn't matter what is going on, she's on about her great sweeping statements. Martin's list of MLs "best statements" is just that. Nothing new there. Like your dis of Wagner and his father it's shallow and uninformed.
Wagner wasn't insulting the convoy or the judiciary. You tho, think that insulting a man and his dead father, without actual facts is ok.
Wagner has spoken recently on how he would like to see better protections for the SC building. The SC falls outside of the parliamentary precinct and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Parliamentary Protective Service police force. The jurisdictional lines between the Ottawa Police Service, the RCMP and the Parliamentary Protective Service made policing the protesters difficult. No one actually knew who the leaders of the convoy were which was only one more reason the convoy lasted as long as it did. That there were talks that would actually have changed anything, I doubt.
Buy the book. It's at #14 on Amazon and it came out today. You can buy new and used too. Oh, it's also on sale. Or you can choose among the approximately 50 convoy books available. Half of them are blank lined notebooks with a truck on the cover (or F* Trudeau) but are good for phone numbers, recipes and your innermost thoughts.
Lou, I read (both present and past tense) none of the "publications" that you reference, not even FB. If you say that they published something or even the same thing I say, "Oh, they did? So what?" If the did or did not do follow up that is for you, the reader, to note and about which to complain if you feel it necessary. Me, as a non-reader I simply don't care.
Yup, Claude was a relatively okay guy in many ways - well, he was himself controversial in his day but then that is politics. On the other hand, I do look at the Liberal (note, not liberal) connection. I did not insult or defame Richard, I simply am aware of their Liberal connections. I did not say he was not in some ways worthy of his judgeship; I am not qualified to compare one candidate for the bench with another.
What I am qualified to do is to worry about bias. The federal government declared the Emergency Act with no apparent reasons, or at least none of which they are willing to disclose as required by law, and Richard complained about the demonstrators who were subject of the EA. Is that bias? Well, it appears so to me.
On the other hand, his family was Liberal, the EA was declared by a Liberal, the EA is not obviously justified based on the evidenced so far adduced at the appropriate place, Richard has commented negatively about the protestors, so why wouldn't I be worried about bias?
You want, Richard wants, better protection for the SC? Fine; let him make his case. But do not, DO NOT, vilify people or events that may be subject to cases to be heard by the Court.
Oh, now you are a shill for the book and other books? I will or I will not purchase one of the various books, as I choose. Your recommendations are, obviously, highly important to me.
Well, if you choose to stick your head in the sand, you too can determine that all is well with the world.
I read some of the other excerpts from this book printed in the National Post over the past week. It's far more favorable to the protesters than anything I'd seen elsewhere in the media, including what felt like fairly balanced coverage in The Line.
One thing that comes through in these excerpts is the fact that these protests really didn't have any leadership. Lots of people claimed to speak for the protesters, there were certainly people who could be described as organizers, but there was no authority and little central organization. It also seems more like the protesters had coalesced around certain broad themes which had never been translated into specific goals. Ultimately, this means negotiation was never going to work - nobody was quite sure what the protesters wanted, and there was nobody with whom to conduct effective negotiations.
This lack of coherence on the side of the protesters was met with confusion and an absence of leadership on the government side as well. After acting like a deer in headlights for weeks, they finally snapped into action and cleared the protests as they could've weeks earlier, no Emergencies Act required.
So you are unaware of their "Memorandum of Understanding"? In it they said they were going to Ottawa with the express determination to meet with the Governor General (why she would do that is beyond me) and the Senate (ditto). At that meeting their plan was to kick the government out of office and run the country as a triumvirate: the GG, the Senate and the Convoy Leaders. (I am not making this up.) That, sir, is sedition. And in Canada, that is punishable by 14 years in prison. Those clowns were lucky to get away without facing that. Their Memorandum was published before they even left Vancouver. Now, I grant you that many of the buffoons who joined in knew nothing of this ... but that's on them! They should have found out what they were participating in. I, for one, think the government was far too lenient with them.
I'm aware of it, its half-baked unconstitutional demands, and the fact that many or most of the protesters had no clue of what was really in it or what it meant. There were many groups and individuals trying to set themselves up as "leaders" of a largely inchoate and unorganized mass of people, and it points to the huge problem with the idea of "negotiating" with these grassroots mass protests. There *is no* leadership or authority to negotiate with! It's much the same with the Black Lives Matters protests or the anti-pipeline protests. What governments need to do is enforce the law.
Jane, please realize that most of these protesters were very naive insofar as they thought that the letter of the constitution as they understood it was an accurate representation of the power and responsibility of the various political actors.
For example, by meeting with the GG, they would have thought that the GG had the actual power to dismiss the PM. In fact, if you look at the letter of the law that would be so but those of us who had taken courses, read about constitutional matters, etc., etc. knew about King - Byng, precedents, constitutional customs, etc., etc., etc.
Please recall that it wasn't that many decades ago that the GG of the day actually DID dismiss the PM. Could that occur now? Of course not, under our constitutional conventions but they did not understand those conventions.
My point is, they THOUGHT they were following the law. Just because they had not taken constitutional law courses does not make them criminals. No, that is not sedition; it is not understanding that the black letter law is very much accompanied by common law and tradition. My dictionary defines sedition as "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch." If the black letter law stated that the GG had the power to dismiss the PM and if they were calling on the GG to follow the law then that could not have been sedition. Misguided? Certainly, but only misguided and not seditious.
As for "too lenient" I take the opposite view; I truly believe that the government was far, far too harsh.
As you are aware [I hope!] we are entitled to diverging opinions in Canada [at least for now; perhaps under the new law just passed my commentary will be declared fake news and will be proscribed]. I encourage you to have your opinion but I also encourage others to have their contrary opinions, with which, in this case, I happen to concur in full.
Ken, those who wrote the MOU knew EXACTLY what they were doing. These were, are, and likely always will be, western separatists. Just by reading it, you can plainly see that that MOU was written by a lawyer. Their lawyer. So suggesting that they were naive doesn't cut it. Yes, the dopes behind the wheels were duped by the separatists, but once they got a head of steam up, they were not about to listen to anyone. That is on them. And yes, those who were responsible for the writing of the MOU, *are* seditionists. It's right there in black and white and it falls fully within the definition of sedition.
Tell me Jane, is it illegal to be a western separatist? Last I heard (perhaps the SCC has ruled to the contrary recently?) I am allowed to be a western separatist just as I am allowed to be a Quebec separatist. Or, perhaps you don't agree with that interpretation of the law and I have to conform to your "view" of the arrangement of this country?
As for a lawyer, I don't know that it was or was not written by a lawyer and, quite frankly, neither do you. You can surmise but that is all you can do. Either way, I do not expect that the folks driving those trucks [the ones you and others accuse of sedition] graduated from law school or perhaps you know otherwise; if so, please advise.
And, again, where is it written that it is illegal to be a separatist?
If the truck drivers wanted to be seditious they wouldn't have asked to GG to dismiss JT. The dismissal of a PM is part of Canadian history - it has happened! The fact that they wanted it to again occur simply reflects their lack of knowledge, not seditious behavior.
And yet again I want to know why it is that you seem to want to denigrate someone who has a legal political position, such as wishing for western separation?
Remember, sedition is defined as "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch." Clearly, the MOU was naive but it called on the GG to act within the powers that are nominally those of the GG. The fact that those powers are not exercised a whole lot these days does not eliminate those powers from the nominal powers of the GG. So, sedition? Nope. On the other hand, your SCC of Canada has already made it's thoughts clear with the bias of R. Wagner so perhaps you can get your interpretation. Oh, and while you are at it, go ahead and get we western separatists declared illegal; and the Quebec variety too.
Ken, can you tell us why PePo or Candi or any of the cons didn't negotiate them out of there?
Hmmmm..... could it be that it is the same reason that you didn't negotiate with the various folks?
It is my best understanding that YOU were not authorized to negotiate with them but you still could have done so. Of course, you had no authority to negotiate; the authority was with the entirely absent governments of Canada and Ontario and, of course, the City of Ottawa. As near as I can tell from your writings, you opposed the folks in the demo so that would have made you a good representative to negotiate a settlement, yes?
So, tell me why YOU did not negotiate with them. Then you will have your answer about the two individuals that you have named.
Jane, that MOU was written at least 3 years ago. They brought it out at the 2019 Truckers Convoy 0.1. Pat King was one of the organizers of that one too, at least to hear him tell it:)
George I agree with everything you say until the last sentence. We don't know if the convoy could have been cleared out earlier, we just know they didn't. Thus the EA, which was only a week, did the trick.
I’m afraid it’s become increasingly clear that the reason the government needed to invoke the Emergencies Act was to explain why they hadn’t acted weeks earlier. They didn’t need the powers provided by the act; they needed TO act.
My understanding is that the feds could not act without the EA. Prior to that, it was all up to the province and the feds' hands were tied, hence the EA.
Does the book get into the Jan and Feb-2020 blockades that were allegedly in protest of Coastal GasLink and why law enforcement doesn't treat that series of events identically to what happened two years later in Ottawa and at several border crossings?
I work downtown Ottawa and was subjected to these so-called freedom protesters enjoying their bouncy castles and hot tubs while bellowing “freedom” at the top of their lungs and honking air horns. What a pathetic, annoying, middle-finger-in-your face spectacle it was to the residents of Ottawa. I feel that my hometown was hijacked by a very sorry bunch of discontented yahoos who really didn’t have a clue what having no freedom means or how a democracy works. The idea that they are planning to return here on July 1 to disrupt Canada Day celebrations is upsetting to say the least.
Thank you, Truckers. I was very happy to host them in my city and neighbourhood.
Tell us where you live Tony.
I hope the chapter on the breaking up of the protest gives fair treatment to the police officers and their leadership. This was without doubt the gentlest mass police operation I have ever seen. Part of that may be the realization that the real arm-bending was being done with insurance companies, provincial licence bureaus, and of course the towing companies. In the face of massive peer pressure from across Canada, the Ottawa Police and OPP sympathizers chose to lie low until the thing ended, even though they had contributed to the chaos over the entire protest.
I agree with the idea of gentle (with a couple of exceptions). The police and protestors overall were engaged in a sort of dance along Wellington street. Quite a site to see and another slap in the face of those who thought the Emerg Act was necessary.
Just how long do you think this "dance" ought to have been allowed to run? People couldn't sleep at night for more than 3 weeks due to the honking. Honking isn't dancing. It's aggressive.
The dance I'm referring to was the removal of the protest. Calm yourself and think before belting out a reply.
Don't go getting all high and mighty with me, son. I happen to be a pretty cool cucumber by nature ... and a philosopher by choice.
The dance was only possible because the EA was in effect.
"Andrew Lawton is a broadcaster and columnist, currently serving as a fellow at True North and writing a weekly column for Loonie Politics.
Most recently, he hosted The Andrew Lawton Show on 980 CFPL in London, and wrote a national column for Global News. His written work has been published across the world, including in the Washington Post, the National Post, the Toronto Sun, the Edmonton Sun, and Global News. Andrew has appeared as a commentator on CBC, CTV, TVO, CTS, and on BBC World.
Andrew ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election."
-- https://canadastrongandfree.network/speakers/andrew-lawton/
"True North is a Canadian digital media platform with a conservative editorial position."
-- https://tnc.news/
So the description as simply a "journalist" seems to be less than fulsome regarding partisan affiliations. Which speaks to...
So if this is the view from the inside, we have a right if not an obligation to ask, inside what?
So is this journalism or a sales pitch? Selling the story...
The part you missed is "he was there on the ground throughout the protest." The same can not be said for the partisan Liberal Corporate Media. Andrew is for the people and the cause, where the Corporate Government paid media is for the Government. That is where the difference lies in the reporting. Remember the Government has the money and power, the people only have each other and the independent media, paid for by the people.
None of this needed to happen and could have been avoided through conversation. Just remember Trudeau refused to speak to those Canadian's protesting for a cause and instead demonized them as did the Liberal Paid for Corporate Media. So if you want to discuss partisan news I think its ovious where your bias lays.
So you think our Prime Minister should sit down and negotiate with seditionists? No! Absolutely not. He did the right thing ... if not early enough.
You watch far too much CNN.
Thank you for demonstrating my point : )
Of course, the protestors were "on the ground" as well, not sure I'd describe their views as 'journalism'.
Yes, you are correct, my bias lies with presenting the various points of view as accurately as possible. That's the bias I associate with 'journalism'. Picking a side and pitching the story is a perfectly legitimate task in a democratic society. Pretending you're doing the one while doing the other, pretty much gets us deeper into the zeitgeist of misinfo, disinfo, gaslighting and mistrust. You know, that crisis of 'expectations' discussed at an early point in the history of The Line.
How is it misinformation, disinformation, gaslighting if its a different point of view. Like you said the mainstream media is the same, they pick a side, so they too must be spreading misinformation and disinformation and doing a whole lot of gaslighting. Your confused yourself in the difference between bias and disinformation and misinformation. What you don't mention is that the mainstream media is paid by the Government, who can get positive op eds anytime it wants. (Liberal Cabinet Minister's words, not mine). You know that as do I. What makes it unrelieable is that the Government is paying the mainstream media and that in itself makes them unreliable. If you have been watching the Committe on the Invokation of the Emergency Act in Parliament you would be more informed as to just who is spreading the misinformation. Perhaps concentrating on that would be to your benefit as even thy have exposed the lies used to bring it to fruitation. So please tell me again about that misinformation, disinformation and gaslighting. It stems from the Trudeau Liberal Government itself.
ditto...
https://pressprogress.ca/here-are-pc-candidate-andrew-lawtons-worst-moments-so-far/
A sales pitch for his book. Amazing to think there is a couple of dozen out there written by people who were there! Not including the blank notebook with a picture of a big truck on the cover. We will never know how this book measures up to the others in the trucker genre.
Is THIS the Andrew Lawton who is the author of this book? https://pressprogress.ca/here-are-pc-candidate-andrew-lawtons-worst-moments-so-far/
I remember that article but I didn't know who AL was and I didn't really care but it was shocking. Such a pig.
He won't be interested in anything I might say because I'm a left-wing Greenpeace card-carrying feminazi enviro activist LGBTQI & First Nations supporting 1st generation Canadian of immigrant parents and siblings pro-choice conspiracy-free socialist.
I have the tee-shirt that says so too!
Thanks, Lorna.
Not sure about the author but this was an okay excerpt.
Can I ask if you feel this was a legal protest?
I'm not a lawyer so I won't draw a legal conclusion, but it was certainly a peaceful protest.
Amen to that. Despite the literal headache it would cause me some nights, it was also a lot of fun to see people smiling, dancing, walking around, loving the flag, high-fiving each other and just reveling in a bit of freedom after such darkness under lockdowns we were told would last 2 weeks. Ha!
Tony - you revelled at the expense of people who lived in the area. Yes there was a bouncy castle and dancing. Would you want that and the constant noise outside your home for four weeks? I know I certainly would not.
Something had to give and it did. I was affected too but I got really good ear plugs and tried to understand people's frustrations. I'm not so weak as to stay holed up in my apartment worrying about the hoard outside my building. They were Canadians having a rowdier than usual block party to tell their government they were suffering and needed change. All JT gave them was opprobrium the likes this country has never seen, to his eternal shame.
Perhaps if you ignore the horn honking at all hours of the night, but that's a really hard thing to ignore. I could hear them from my house in Gatineau while inside with the lights out. Let me ask this, do you think the horn honking was peaceful?
It was disruptive to be sure but they stopped when the injuntion was given.
So they didn't know it was disruptive (they didn't think residents could hear the horns?) until the injunction? They thought blaring truck horns at all hours of the night was peaceful until they were enlightened by the injunction, is that your argument?
Of course they knew it was disruptive. Exactly what is it about a protest that you think is suppose to be silent so no one even knows they are there? Did those who protested on behalf of the Wetsuwetin and the gas pipeline in BC not create havoc and disrupt the trains and supply chain? Funny how people can forget what does not effect them personally or is the same thing yet treated completely different. I did not see any emergency act get put in place even though personal property was being trespassed on and purposely destroyed. The same protest that brought many on buses from the US! The police did not put on Jack boots and push back unarmed citizens and in fact talking was encouraged. As long as the protesters run on the same ideology of those in charge, it’s all peaches and roses . Suddenly people are upset in Ottawa as they, for once, had to put up with protests. In fact Ottawa is where the Federal Government is and they were upset because the people came to them. As it should be if one is serious about protesting. Protesting Ottawa’s Mandates, does nothing if you protesting in Manitoba now does it? Protests about climate change or those that block all the traffic in BC as they are doing right now. No jack boots going in there, as Ottawa is unaffected. The hypocrisy of those who believe they should not suffer any disruption while it’s fine for others, is blatant and it appears to come from the lap top class who sit at home getting lunch delivered by the very people protesting. Yes, you know the ones who risked their life when there was no vaccine. Imagine they provided for all those same people who were complaining , the very ones that had the luxury of working from home. Sorry your life was disrupted but it was a necessary thing to protest the lack of compassion and pure non scientific policies that were put in against the same hero’s that made sure you had something to eat during the pandemic.
Not sure why I said with the lights out :-). Sorry, meant to say with doors and windows closed (it was winter). It wasn't quite loud enough to keep me up, but I was an entire Ottawa River away.
Did you include any kind of discussion as to the legality of the protest in your book? To me this seems like an important factor in making determinations about the efficacy and necessity of the response by the city/police. I'll remind you that it was framed by both the city and the police as an illegal protest.
Thanks for your coverage on this.
Police failed to do their job properly. Instead of telling them to do their job local leaders decided to have federal leaders deal with it after it went on way to long. OPS should have had way more firings, along with inquiry about why the Ottawa municipal and Ontario leaders didn't take proper action.
I think the feds and the province played politics about who was going to have to deal with it...but it certainly write all the attack ads for the next election.... outside of the ones SCOTUS created yesterday.
Fluff. The convoy should never have been allowed to reach downtown Ottawa. It created an unpleasant few weeks for the entire country. The concept of fighting for all Canadian's freedoms was simply wrong. Most of us despised the entire charade. This is a free and civilized country.
How can you say it's free and civilized and then deny people the right to protest? We can talk all day about what protest tactics are good/bad/whatever, but the unpleasantness was worth it to tell those in power they had overstepped.
My mother used to say that "fish and visitors smell after three days" which is exactly what happened. Canadians need no lessons from a self appointed minority.
Canadians are different than Americans. Our education, media and values are better coupled with the fact that we are not governed by a faulty constitution and thus we ARE better thinkers. So, when confronted by simplistic rhetoric promoting extreme views [left of right] we are generous towards people who promote shallow arguments but we don't buy in as does the extreme right in the US. Have you ever thought of moving?
Like I said, we are a generous people. We can make room for shallow which brings me to the next point, why did the Line give any credit to Lawton? Perhaps I should rethink my subscription.
So what I am understanding is that the Convoy "leadership" really didn't have control over the protest. They opened Pandora's box and then couldn't close it. All the talks in the world were not going to solve this mess. Trudeau did the right thing. Protest all you want but don't camp out for weeks and infringe on the rights of the citizens of Ottawa.
So a free-for-all? That sounds safe. Not going to debate the mandates. Not going down the world wide conspiracy to stick it to the little people hole. People have the freedom and right to protest. This was not a protest. It became an occupation of the downtown of our capital that had citizens of Ottawa not able to work, move about freely or enjoy their homes/neighborhoods. Make your point on the weekend and go home.
"mandates whose only real purpose was political"???????? They certainly aren't needed now. While Omicron, Delta and Alpha raged they were essential to attempt to save the few remaining threads of our healthcare system. Saskatchewan had to shut down its organ donation program due to a lack of ICU space FFS. Imagine waiting 3 years for a kidney only to learnt that a usable one got tossed into the scrap bucket because there was no room at the Inn. Trudeau is useless and plays stupid games, and needs to go more than any PM we've probably ever had, but pretending doing something to address the COVID crisis with the few tools he had available wasn't needed is patently absurd.
The convoy was nothing more than a collection of whining fools, whose entire reason for being was nullified the second the US put the same rules in place. They arrived with an ultimatum, no plan, no knowledge, and took over a city....and morphed into an attack on the economy. It should have lasted 3 days. That it was "love and hugs" doesn't make it any less of a gathering of dullards.
The "truckers" knew for months before the mandate for cross-border travel was coming into effect. I wonder why they never spoke to their MP about their concerns or even wrote to assorted ministers who may have done something. Nope, they went off half-cocked and the rest is history. They can command tables of beer at their local hole. Some made off like bandits with a decent pile of cash too. And now they plan to drive back to Ottawa with the price of gas and diesel what it is. Not a rocket scientist in the bunch. There never was.
Mr Lawton writes for True North. It’s always worth knowing where people are coming from.
This account tells me there was very little representative negotiations going on by anyone on the convoy side. Its leaders seem to be people who appointed themselves leaders, opportunists who elbowed their way to the head of the parade.
“We don’t control them,” Wilson said. “We don’t even know who they are. No one signed up. It’s not a curling bonspiel, it’s not a golf tournament. We can’t say ‘Oh no, sorry, this is your tee time sir. You can’t tee off from here now.’”
That I now think these convoy ‘leaders’ were phoney, doesn’t justify the government’s use of the Emergency Act.
I’m glad this book excerpt is here, but it doesn’t convince me about any realistic attempts to negotiate.