Your dispatch seems a pretty reasonable assessment of what's been a crazy week capping off a crazy 3 weeks in Canada. I would add a few points.
You may have actually understated the shocking lack of self-awareness, unbelievable naivete, and lack of political / marketing sophistication of the vast majority of protesters in Ottawa, Windsor, Coutts, and other scattered protests across the country (with the exception of the few lunatics and 'hard men' that Matt described, who I am leaving out of this paragraph). The decision to camp out on streets rather than, say, staying in hotels or even camping in public areas so businesses could still run and local folks could still get around and function. The F**k Trudeau signs (so classy). The honking without regard to the impact on (more or less) innocent locals. The lack of coherent and consistent spokespeople, and the almost nonsensical list of demands. My overall take on the lot is that they are well meaning, may be correct in at least a few of the expressed concerns and frustrations, but absolutely, utterly clueless as to how they came accross on TV, radio, and social media to a majority of Canadians.
From my vantage point here in 'berta, I have been watching the positions of some of my aquaintances, friends, and family in both in-person conversations and online ones harden to the point of (at least) concrete. There may be a few who have 'flipped sides', either towards sympathy for the protesters or (gasp) sympathy for Trudeau and the government, but the vast majority of the folks I have even the slightest interaction wtih have only hardened their positions one way or the other. Polarization to the degree I have NEVER seen in my 50-odd years. The most radical of of either side are increasingly brazen in what they'd perscribe to 'fix' the problems. Not quite advocating violence toward the others (whichever side they hate), but they're much closer to those extreme solution than I could have ever imagined. People on both sides are PISSED OFF.
The police (particularly in Ottawa) generally did not come off well optics-wise from either extreme position, though the combined police forces may have pitched a hail mary pass with those who wanted the protests to end with their generally calm, orderly breakup of the protests. Those firmly on the side of the protesters, well, their view of the police is leaning heavily toward jackbooted thugs. Not good. Not sure where this will go in the next several weeks and months. Not an easy time to be in law enforcment at the street level.
Politicians on all sides have generally come out as clowns. Rather than designate them by their parties, I'll boil it down to two political camps. Canadian Progressives & Conservatives in all of our parties today either ignore and/or are ignorant of history's lessons, consider it virtuous to shamelessly use situational ethics, and conduct themselves with no honour whatsoever.
This is worrisome, as many of we ordinary voters are rendered politically homeless, both federally and provincially (municipally, it's a bit better). I don't know if it means more potential voters will simply not vote in subsequent elections, but speaking for myself, I have no clue who to vote for going forward either federally or provincially. The choices as presented now are all horrible.
Finally, the media. With rare exceptions (such as The Line, I continue to feel my subscription is money well invested), the media have predictably shown themselves to be the attention whores and paid shills the protesters have been mocking them for. My respect for most of the media was low before this series of events, and is nearing the point of disbelief as to how incredibly shameless they are in their pronouncements. Matt and Jen, I know may of these folks are your colleagues and friends, but I have to tell you, the view of the media in most of the country (on both sides of the divisions on this crisis) has them lower than the Police, Protesters, and Politicians. They are literally swimming below the PPP at the bottom of the ocean.
It is becoming very difficult to have a civil conversation with anyone about the state of all of the above, at least in my own life. Most, however, will gladly share with you their polarized view, and fully expect you to be on their side. I'm not sure how we swing back from the current abyss. The rest of the world must think Canada has well and truly gone (as Jen coined) bug fuck crazy.
Thank you for your fair and balanced view of current events. I find myself looking forward to your columns and dispatches as islands of sanity in an ocean of insanity.
I agree about the polarization completely, but there is a fundamental asymmetry: one group wants to force vaccines on and generally punish the other; and the other group just wants to be left alone. One group feels justified in their aggression, and the other feels justified in self-defence.
Well, how about all the anti-vax crowd completely agree to be 'left alone'. Agree to not be hospitalized if you get covid under any circumstances. You can be left alone to deal with what you have decided to do (rather not to do).
Although, I suppose, to be truly fair, that would mean that people who do get the shots (or boosters) wouldn't be eligible for treatment for adverse events. But, since they don't exist, I'm sure you would take that deal, right?
I get what you're saying, if you mean the pro-vaccine zealots who demonize those who have not been jabbed. There are also pro-vaccine libertarians (I'd be one), vaccine agnostics, vaccine hesitant, don't vax me ever-ever crowd, and then of course the x-file crew. It's a really mixed bag of nuts we are.
There’s a certain childishness that’s spread through society where people actively seek out information confirming what they already believe, and ignoring or rejecting anything that contradicts them. The right wing has fallen into this trap with the conservative media ecosystem. The Liberals are convinced of their own brilliance and righteousness because that’s all they let into their bubble. The anti-vax activists desperately seek affirmation for their views anywhere they can, on Twitter or in comments sections. The problem is that reality is what it is, and ignoring the inconvenient parts doesn’t change it. Instead, it just leads to an increasing divergence between what is and what people think it should be. That’s when people start to get unhinged, because they won’t revise their beliefs and instead look for explanations (often conspiratorial) that salve the cognitive dissonance.
...and if 70 percent of the population can't trample over the rights of a mere 30 percent minority--hey!--what's democracy for!
In keeping with this political philosophy we need to broaden the definition of 'marginalized' to include any individual or group that isn't part of the main mob. Unfortunately, as this entails including conservatives, the new, more honest and accurate definition will create lip-pursing problems for ideologues accustomed to using 'marginalized' as a virtue criterion; but that's diversity and inclusion for you.
Not at all. They've simply been inconvenienced in the same way that strikes often inconvenience the public, a form of civic 'disruption' politicians on the left have historically been quite prepared to tolerate. It isn't the supposed illegality of the protesters' actions that irks Trudeau, but their "unacceptable" political views. He has no objection to sitting cross-legged in front of a tepee and negotiating with disruptive, aboriginal protesters. It makes for a more politically correct photo op.
No, they did have their right to carry on their daily lives without disruption and, really, fear, obliterated. The noise alone was torturous; in fact, incessant loud noise is used as a torture technique. Do you live in that area? Do you have any reason to suppose that all was just fine for those three weeks? You weaken your argument by lack of any empathy for the residents who suffered real harm.
"You weaken your argument by lack of any empathy for the residents who suffered real harm."
You weaken your own when you jump to conclusions based on no evidence. We aren't acquainted; how can you possibly pretend to know the extent of my empathy for the residents, the protesters, or anyone else? This is simply an unwarranted personal attack, which doesn't even address my argument.
If you want to take issue with the argument, by all means try explaining why accepting disruption you claim people have a "right" to be free of when it results from strikes, while not accepting it when it's a consequence of political protest, isn't both logically inconsistent and hypocritical. I look forward to reading your creative defense of such conveniently selective rights abridgement and empathy for the harmed.
The left should realize the tactics used against the convoy will be used against their causes in turn? But they won't will they? These tactics are being used because it is NOT a left-wing cause, in my humble opinion. Left-wing activists seem to be able to illegally blockade and damage pipelines as much as they like!
The current situation doesn't contrast directly to the nation-wide BLM or recent indigenous-based protests. The PM took a knee at an Ottawa BLM protest and there was an extremely light police touch across the country. When rail lines are blocked the federal government sends ministers out to negotiate. I can see the media and activists trying to force identity politics into this but it doesn't really square up.
This trucker thing is an entirely different beast. People who would never think of engaging in civil disobedience are now doing so on a large scale. Although largely conservative/right leaning, it is not exclusively so, and the left/liberal bloc is now playing the law and order/reactionary role that used to be the preserve of conservatives.
Whether this is a persistent movement or merely a temporary phenomenon given life by the pandemic, I guess we'll see. One thing for sure, the reaction of the federal gov't with the EA, and for sure the PM, has just added fuel to this fire.
And tired of the pandemic, although you can't wish the virus away. What we can do (we being the gov't and health officials) is be much more prudent in the application of health restrictions, especially those that deeply affect our personal lives directly (funerals, home gatherings and the like). And for heavens sake, share all the data - all of it - and thoroughly explain the rationale, every time.
This will help this fall (or sooner) when the next wave comes.
I watch Dr. Scott Gottlieb on CNBC. He is the former Commissioner of the FDA & a member of the BOD of Pfizer. His view is that public health officials should be as quick to remove public health restrictions as they were to implement them, so that the public will still have faith that the guidelines are in place for medical reasons as opposed to political ones.
There's no shortage of data - after all, Ontario has shown data which proves the uselessness of mandates for months now, and the data has shown the uselessness of masks and lockdowns for 18 months. The problem is that the data which drives policy is actually polls.
What data is that? I'm really curious. For 2 years, we've had no significant flu season, yet flu spreads exactly the same way as COVID, but at a far lower level, and you think masks don't make a difference? Supporting data please.
It seems obvious that you are not a medical doctor, nurse, respiratory therapist, or have any role in health care or hospitals where they have been and continue to be overworked to the point of damaging their health and their families by the number of covid patients (unvaccinated persons composing 10-15% of the population accounting for 5-10X the number of hospitalizations compared to vaccinated), the cancelled cancer, heart and orthopedic and all kinds of other needed surgeries, patients sick and dying in corridors because of lack of beds taking up by covid patients. Getting rid of all the convid-minimization mandates (as opposed to the ones that no longer make complete sense), will not satisfy those problems.
I feel obliged to repeat my refrain which is beginning to feel too much like the strategy of doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result, nevertheless...
How much coverage has daily relevant covid data received over the past 3 weeks relative to the protests? My estimation, almost zero. How much ongoing coverage has the effectiveness of the vaccines relative to hospitalizations, ICU patients, and deaths, received over the past 3 weeks relative to the protests? Appears to be zero. Even though, apparently vaccines are what the protests are all about, i.e., mandating them like laws disallowing smoking in closed public spaces or stopping at stop signs.
Instead all we get is the complete politicized play-by-play of the protests, who's winning or losing. So the pols and the media have been offered a pint of pure partisan political intoxication, the Emergencies Act, and now they are as drunk on themselves as the crack heads dancing naked in front of Parliament Hill.
As for the preoccupation with Trudeau, an oversimplification for those who find it too difficult to deal with the complexities of reality. Which pretty much describes the carnival of chaos unfolding around Parliament for the past weeks. An oversimplification amplified by those who hope to profit by it. None of which helps us understand or deal with those complexities or our shared reality.
If the EA provides review and renewal for our failed institutions, fine. However, it's hard to have faith that the folks installed in those failed institutions will do any better with the task of review or renewal. What is most clear is that the carnival of chaos is not a government in waiting. It's nothing more than more chaos in waiting. So while folks understandably want relief from pandemic restrictions, embracing the chaos threatening our institutions looks more like the mental illness animating the chaos than anything that might host a future worth embracing.
It gives sweeping new powers of detention and surveillance to the law enforcement agencies, and depriving the Courts of meaningful judicial oversight to ensure that the law enforcement powers are not being abused.
It gives the administration the authority to designate any group, foreign or domestic, as a terrorist organization, an authority that is not subject to review.
It creates a broad new crime of “domestic terrorism” which is defined as “activities that (A) involves acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws ; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion
It permits investigations based on lawful speech activity, if that activity can be tied somehow to intelligence purposes.
================
....no, not our Emergency Act; that's the ACLU summary of the USAPATRIOT act's main concerns. It just had it's 20th birthday last October. We should perhaps count our blessings.
You're starting to realize that the emergency declaration is a big problem. Good. Maybe you are even realizing that lifting the mandates would have been better than going down this road. But what you still haven't realized is that one of the things driving the populist reaction against elite rule is that the obvious lies (eg mandates are justified despite the fact that the vaccines don't reduce transmission) are manifestations of contempt for regular people and make them very angry. Nor have you realized that opposition among journalists to lifting the mandates has made this crisis much worse.
We all know what we have done our homework and understand the issues in a way that you journalists just can't be bothered to do. You focus on elite relationships and in-group politics, and you do that very well. But when you view actual real issues through that lens, you are blinding yourselves. The truth is out there, and government-anointed "experts" aren't spoon feeding it to you. You have to dig for it. Do better.
How can you lift the mandates after you've called truckers a fringe minority of racists and misogynists? Kinda painted himself into a corner --- again.
Based on an admittedly belated reading of the Constitution and the Criminal Code, I'm pretty sure the PM showed a lot of forbearance waiting for the provincial Attorneys General to show up. When they failed to, he and Canada's Attorney General had to step in, but it's more their dereliction than the PM's overreach.
Good article. Thank you. I too worry about Trudeau but am so thankful for Chrystia Freeland. My fear is that now the far right has been let out of the bag and openly encouraged by all the anti-mask, anti-vax, anti public health measures, fact immune, conspiracy believers (see comments below), that the movement will continue to grow. Whether the PPC will pick up more votes or the CPC will swing farther to the right remains to be seen but we have not seen the last of them by any stretch. Trumpism is moving north.
I agree that the pandemic was not always wisely handled and some measures made no sense. But I am glad Canada does not have the same problem with sickness and death that USA has. Masks work if used properly. Vaccines are safe and effective. fully vaccinated people can still get Covid but much less likely and much milder usually. Saying both vaccinated and unvaccinated can still spread Covid is like saying that I and Mario Andretti both drive cars.
There's a lot of competition in our history for PM errors so what is this "worst ever" stuff? I get that he has an annoying manner and a lot of men's wives fantasize about him which causes resentment. When one try and label him weak or effeminate one has to remember that he punched out the toughest Conservative = more resentment. The attitude is irrational and maybe entirely emotional.
As to your second point, O'Toole tried to move the CPC TOWARDS the centre and his people hated him for it. The CPC has a real identity problem. Right now it looks like they will tack farther to the right to stop the bleeding to Max's PPC. That will not help them win a general election.
I'm relieved that the clearing of the Ottawa protesters has been relatively non-violent so far. My understanding is that police attempt to minimize the risk of violence by mobilizing overwhelming numbers, which is why the Ottawa Police weren't able to deal with the protest without massive reinforcements.
As a Hobbesian, I think the rule of law is a crucial institution whether you're on the left or the right. We have a legal system so that we can settle our conflicts without violence, by battling it out in the courts rather than on the streets. (With TMX, for example, opponents presented their case in court, and in August 2018 the Federal Court of Appeal overturned cabinet approval and halted the project. After the government held more consultations with First Nations, the FCA upheld the subsequent re-approval.)
Regarding vaccine mandates ... in BC, Covid hospitalizations peaked around January 31, and have slowly declined since then. So are we now at the point where we can say, look, if you don't want to get vaccinated, you're mostly putting yourself at risk, since we're no longer concerned that the hospitals will be overloaded? (Risk of hospitalization is 5X for people who are unvaccinated.) Maybe. I think that's going to be up to each province to decide, based on their projections; the federal government should follow what the provinces are doing. Also, I would expect employers who want to prevent workplace outbreaks may keep vaccine requirements in place, as a workplace safety measure. (This is especially true for hospitals and long-term care facilities.)
On crypto: Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous. That is, each transaction is published with an identifiable Bitcoin wallet. What's missing is the identity of the wallet's owner.
When you buy or sell Bitcoin, through a Bitcoin exchange, you need to provide your real identity.
In this case, I think there may be a lot of technologically unsophisticated donors who overestimate how much privacy Bitcoin gives you.
(It is possible to exchange cash for Bitcoin without giving up your real identity, using a Bitcoin ATM.)
This was all very interesting, but isn't it time to stop hyperventilating about the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act? The tone in some of what you and others have written might lead a few readers to believe that we are witnessing the epitaph of rights and freedoms in Canada.
Look, there are limits built into the Act itself. It must end 30 days after invocation. Period. It will also be subject to an automatic review after all is said and done.
We have independent courts (which will have to rule on at least three suits prompted by the decision to invoke). I have no doubt that they will call bull-s__t on the federal government--or on those who do not put forward convincing arguments to justify their opposition (which is not to say that they will do that).
Either way, these decisions will be made by Canadian judges (or the Supreme Court of Canada) in light of Canadian law and the Charter.
We also have lively political debate in the country, mediated by political parties and activists, journalists, and experts working through social media platforms, the print and broadcast news media and so on.
Finally, we have this thing called elections.
Give most voting Canadians credit for brains. If they believe that governments (in this case the federal government) have over stepped, they can let them know by voting against them when it comes time to do so.
Finally, WRT your take on Mr Trudeau's strengths and weaknesses, this was credible enough. But have both Jim Watson and Doug Ford morphed into Voldemort (they who must not be named)?
Surely both men deserve a flurry of brickbats for the respective roles they played in the gestation of this almighty cluster-F?
And let's not forget Jason Kenney, Scott Moe and others (like the now retired Bryan Pallister), who have also frequently sought to politicize (and Americanize) the discussions about pandemic suppression measures (sometimes with misleading declarations).
The truckers and various hangers on should have disbanded their protest before there was a need for the police.
It appears that the police have done their jobs well and are achieving their goal of clearing the streets of Ottawa.
This protest did not achieve its intended goal of convincing Canadians that preventative vaccination did not need to be universal and that can be construed as a failure.
What the protest did achieve, unintentionally, however, was far more important: it exposed the overweening political bias of the MSM and federal government in the manner both reacted.
From the start of the dissentients campaign, the was a concentrated effort to associate it with events, specifically the rioting that occurred on Capitol Hill.
The MSM was filled with dire warnings that the American right was a threat to Canada’s democracy and that the trucker convoy was a potential Trojan Horse for these radicals.
Both the MSM and federal government ginned up fear by the us of egregious propaganda.
When the convoy approached Ottawa, the warnings of calamitous conflict reached a fevered pitch.
In the event, nothing near a calamitous event took place - none of the predicted violence occurred.
Not to be deterred, both of the actual antagonists, the MSM and feds, took to seeking offence and inflating minor incidents of mischief into major offences.
What the protest actually caused was a prolonged nuisance and inconvenience to the citizens of Ottawa but there was no rioting, loss of life, injury, arson and looting.
What the protestors did was fail to see there was absolutely no purpose in staying in the city.
They had won a victory - albeit not the one they were seeking.
In overstaying their squat in Ottawa, they simply gave the government further opportunity to frame the issue.
Again the fear factor was invoked, massive force would be required to forcibly dislodge the protestors.
(The police were there but not at all afraid of confronting the protestors - what they were leery of was the propensity for the MSM and the feds to feed them to the wolves if, in the event , there was violence.)
The government used this fear factor to invoke the Emergency Measures Act - a hammer to kill a mosquito.
On the eve of invoking the Act, a legitimately fearful and calamitous act of Ecco-terrorism unfolded in northern British Columbia.
A violent armed attack took place against a camp involved in the support of a gas pipeline.
The response from the MSM and the federal government could not be more telling in its inconsistency: except for BC’s outlets, the media tip-toed about as did the federal government given the was a high likelihood that FN people were involved.
Thus far, there has been no indication from the government that the Emergency Measures Act will be used to deal with the attack- indeed, the Emergency Measures Act apparently excludes FNs.
It is clear that Canada’s liberal progressives have two distinctly different approaches when it comes to dealing with dissent - one for their darling causes and one for others.
If its their darlings, tolerance and empathy are the order of the day.
If it is the deplorables, tolerance is deemed a hazard.
Liberal progressives view themselves as morally and intellectually superior to anyone who disagrees with their agenda.
They have cast themselves as the new Aryans of our society and broke no contradiction from those they consider their inferiors - the new untnrmenchen.
Essentially, in their view of the world, those who do not share their morality fibre and/or intellectual perfection cannot be allowed participate in democracy nor can they be afforded the freedom to contest the society their betters have allocated to them.
The new tolerables, in contrast, are allowed to assault the intolerables.
FN’s, ecco-terrorists, social equality warriors, race agitators and most leftists are not held to a standard of accountability anywhere near that of those identified as the deplorable element.
The treatment of the Ottawa protest compared with that afforded the terrorist attack in BC has laid bare the colours of the MSM and the federal government - it does not bode well for the unity we so desperately need to hold Canada together.
"The truckers and various hangers on should have disbanded their protest before there was a need for the police."
Obviously. Failing to do so provided Trudeau with the "law and order" pretext he was cynically waiting for, to escalate from simply refusing to negotiate with the protesters to employing strong arm tactics and financial coercion to crush them. You more or less acknowledge this later on in your post, but it's worth noting that the Freedom Convoy is hardly the first movement inspired by principles to run afoul of its own strategic overreach and the enthusiasm of foot soldiers on the ground.
"This protest did not achieve its intended goal of convincing Canadians that preventative vaccination did not need to be universal and that can be construed as a failure."
I'd be curious to know the source of this opinion. Have you done a survey? You can't possibly believe that institutional media is giving you a representative cross-section of public opinion on the matter. My own sense is that vaccine skepticism was fairly widespread well before the Freedom Convoy took to the road, and that the increasing gulf between what Canadians now know about COVID viruses (and the ineffectiveness, even counter-productiveness, of government policies against them), and the official narratives they're expected to swallow, helped create a climate that made organizing and launching the convoy possible in the first place. I don't mean to imply the protesters are anti-vaxers, as accused--we know this isn't true, and many of them are vaccinated--just that they have a realistic idea of the limitations of vaccines and the possible long-term risks of mRNA vaccines in particular, especially for young people. They did not form this view on the basis of information available from CBC, The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star, of course, ideologically captured sources which they've sensibly learned to distrust and are cognizant of the need to outflank (nothing has happened during the past few weeks to show them wrong about this).
"What the protest did achieve, unintentionally, however, was far more important: it exposed the overweening political bias of the MSM and federal government in the manner both reacted."
Anyone for whom this exposé came as a revelation hasn't been paying attention for at least half a decade. Everyone from Jill LePore to Kevin Williamson to Mark Dice has lamented institutional media's downward spiral and its abandonment of objectivity and basic journalistic ethics. Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc provides a good historical overview of the decline, but subjecting yourself to a few minutes of CNN or MSNBC coverage suffices to make the point. Institutional media no longer 'covers' the culture wars, as it hypocritically pretends, but does its best to win them for one side, and every story at bottom hammers home the same, unvarying message.
"From the start of the dissentients campaign, the[re] was a concentrated effort to associate it with events, specifically the rioting that occurred on Capitol Hill."
Predictably, yes?
"The MSM was filled with dire warnings that the American right was a threat to Canada’s democracy and that the trucker convoy was a potential Trojan Horse for these radicals."
*Yawn.* Let's skip over the rest of the routine, to...
"It is clear that Canada’s liberal progressives have two distinctly different approaches when it comes to dealing with dissent... [etc.] ...If it is the deplorables, tolerance is deemed a hazard."
If you're looking for logical consistency from ideologues you're misconstruing their motives and aims. Both the logical and ethical status of double standards and selective empathy are secondary considerations when the end being pursued justifies any means. Today's so-called 'liberal progressives' (who are anything but) believe their ends are indeed that important. Consequently, the case you're making, sound as it is, is also superfluous: those in the dock are undeniably 'guilty,' but of an irrelevant charge as far as they're concerned, while the rest of us are beyond needing persuading.
"Liberal progressives view themselves as morally and intellectually superior to anyone who disagrees with their agenda."
The implicit major premise underlying this particular conceit goes further: intelligence and morality (virtue) are two sides of the same coin. The intelligent and well-educated are particularly prone to assuming this claim's truth, and not just for the obvious reason that it's self-flattering. That it's rational to be virtuous is an attractive idea (Bertrand Russell was convinced of it); and to the extent that rationality is associated with the ability to reason logically, it must be linked with intelligence. How wonderful to be intelligent if the rational life is also the virtuous life... and how deeply suspect the morality of the intellectually less well-endowed! You can see where this is leading: welcome to Social Stratification 2.0's respectable justification for class division.
If you're like me, experience has engendered a certain skepticism toward this line of thinking. Intelligence and morality are equally hierarchical concepts--relatively speaking one is smart or stupid, good or evil--but these gradations are on different continua, and the evaluative criteria for where you rank (i.e., are situated) on each continuum differ accordingly. Your score on an I.Q. test tells us nothing about how trustworthy or generous you are; and it's very much an open question whether, if the human race suddenly gained an additional 500 cc. in cranial capacity, everyone would then become fairer and kinder or simply develop more ingenious methods of exploiting each other.
"Essentially, in their view of the world, those who do not share their morality fibre and/or intellectual perfection cannot be allowed participate in democracy nor can they be afforded the freedom to contest the society their betters have allocated to them."
That's part of the argument all right, but the ultimate justification for two-tiered 'participation' is that justice issues are too important for those lacking the elite's superior cognitive decision-making tools to be permitted significant input (ditto for existential crises like global warming--and pandemics, of course). The world is in a constant state of emergency, and this explains why Trudeau can't afford to talk with mere truckers--certainly not about the wisdom of vaccine mandates (stay in your lane, trucker, and don't obstruct my vision, the fruits of which, expressed in policy, benefit everybody!). Far from revealing him to be an arrogant autocrat, or corrupt and selfish, Trudeau's stand marks him, on this account, as a praiseworthy social engineer, labouring (what a guy!) under the burden of responsibilities lesser mortals don't understand and would be unable to bear if they did.
If you're gagging at this point, let's pause to reflect on the difference between possessing "higher education" credentials and actually being intelligent, a difference this shoddy reasoning highlights. It may in fact be the nub of the problem. Reasoning so transparently faulty and oblivious to the lessons of history (the sample, alas, is neither hyperbolic, satirical nor a travesty--would that it were) is less a sign of intelligence than of ideological indoctrination and conviction. Trudeau, who hit his peak as a high school teacher, isn't a thinker; he's simply internalized every bromide of his generation's cultural environment and re-externalizes it all like a parrot, without, evidently, having subjected any it to critical scrutiny even once. This is not how superior intelligence works.
What if Trudeau and his fellow elitists actually were more intelligent than the evidence suggests they are? Shouldn't it be obvious to anyone of even moderate intelligence that ethical government policy in democracies must take into account not just the needs and aspirations of citizens with political science degrees but those of truckers and Whalemart cashiers as well? All citizens are equally entitled to follow their own paths and live their lives, in a society that reflects their understandings and interests and is responsive to their input; this is basic. Policies of division that, explicitly or implicitly, confer special, higher-tier citizenship privileges on physics professors and philosopher kings than on 'deplorables' are undemocratic, and first steps on the road to autocracy, oppression, and re-education camps.
You don't have to be a genius to see this; the average trucker seems to get the picture well enough, a reality that suggests the contempt in which Trudeau holds protesting truckers is rooted in class distaste after all, not in a vast intelligence disparity. People of truly formidable intelligence and effortless class (the two go together in my experience; but, then, perhaps my experience has been overly lucky) are courteous and unpretentious. It's those less confident of their intelligence and class status who become the most vigilant border police, being themselves so much closer to it. There's a defensiveness to the gratuitous discourtesy and arrogance they direct at those they're determined to keep on the far side of the wall that, if I were a better man, might elicit my sympathy; but when I see it so nakedly displayed by our Prime Minister it just makes me want give him a return slap in the face. I imagine many truckers feel the same. Nobody enjoys being spit on, and being called a pseudo-Canadian--even a Nazi--is the verbal equivalent.
The source of my opinion was the reaction of Canadians to the protest. From what I heard and read, the preponderance of opinion did not support the notion that vaccination was an issue so far as its utility as a preventative measure was concerned. The political machinations around the entire covid containment strategy was a different matter but, for whatever reason, the former message seemed to be the one that people were hearing.
Admittedly, being in the pro-vaccination constituency, I disagreed with the former while agreed to the latter.
I would venture to say that, had there been a survey, my conclusion would be vindicated.
That said, I agree with the balance of your reply.
My skepticism with both the MSM and the federal government far predates this issue but for others as yet unconvinced of the bias, the evidence of partiality is overwhelming as is the chauvinism of the liberal progressive element.
We may disagree on the efficacy of the the protest message in terms of covid policy but I can say without reservation that the treatment of the protest itself has brought the inconsistency of the media and government to the point where it can be construed as an indisputable fact.
Trust in these two institutions has been diminished as never before - how our society will react to this situation is yet to be seen.
One can only hope that our democracy can be used as a vehicle of rehabilitation
As reprehensible as the BC incident is can you not see there's a significant difference in magnitude between that and some people demanding the overthrow of the government? I agree that the media has tunnel vision and that it is significant problem. As you say they tend to have their "darlings" but also by failing to ask protesters deeper questions such as "Have you no regard for the medical community or system?" Or "Where do you get your information?" they gave the protesters far more credibility than they deserved. I believe most of them would have looked very foolish trying to answer those questions because they never gave it any thought whatsoever. I was shocked by the naivete of a lot of the protesters. They've been radicalized by Facebook etc. and that is another huge issue.
The fact that the point was to overthrow the duly-elected government seems to continue to be under-emphasised is a worry. I don't think the withdrawal of the MOU (!) means a thing except that, in the eyes of its proponents, the time has proven to be not now. Stay tuned.
As for the naivete - I was not overly surprised to see that 6 of the rigs are owned by people from a hamlet with an interesting history and culture. Naive, maybe. Nasty, for sure.
If the point was to overthrow the government, it was obvious it was not widely shared with the majority of the protestors.
There was no public disclosure of a widely supported manifesto and no evidence that whatever was unearthed would have motivated the protestors to support it.
As for the latter part of your comment, it is innuendo you might want to elaborate on.
I saw no evidence that the majority of protestors were demanding the overthrow of our government. No one physically attempted to occupy the House of Parliament as occurred in the US. There was no incitement to violence whatsoever.
As I have stated here, I did not agree with or support the message regarding covid measures that was the object of the protest.
What I did agree with was their right to protest.
What I disagreed with was the concentrated effort of both the media and the federal government to cast the protest and protestors as a danger to Canadian democracy by fear-mongering and malignant propaganda.
The fact remains that while the protest was a nuisance, aggravating to the people of Ottawa and needlessly over-extended, none of the forecasts made by the media and federal government came to pass.
It has ended with none of the violent mayhem predicted by the MSM or the federal government.
This has not been the case in the GasLink attack in BC.
Neither the media or the federal government has been focused on the possibility of such an attack in spite of incitement by the radical environmental element and the intransigent position of the FN involved.
The kid glove treatment afforded to ecco - protestors, FNs and leftist causes has been highlighted by the response to the truckers protest.
The terrorist attack on GasLink and the response of the media and federal government has only affirmed it.
To me the magnitude of the GasLink attack far surpasses the non-violent trucker protest.
The truckers were conveying their message, no matter how questionable, in a peaceful manner in spite of the dire warnings from the media and federal government.
In my eyes the GasLink attack is of eminently greater concern and downplaying its significance compared with the truckers protest is simply further proof that what is good for the liberal progressive gander not being extended to the rest of our society.
Trying to invoke moral and intellectual superiority to condemn the message of the truckers while using these same self-attributed elements to claim that the terrorist attack was of lesser import reflects a contradiction in thinking that I just can’t accept.
It appears to me that you have misread this comment:
"If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried," said Lametti.
The minister is not referencing the vast majority of folks on the hill, he is saying that they have evidence that "members (likley Amiericans) of pro-Trump movements are funneling funds to these folks on the hill." This much is public knowledge. If I am right in this reading, then any Canadian who gave $500 (to use your example) need not worry. You reading displays not only your mistrust of the government, but you inability to be reflexive enough about your own prejudices to stop you for adding false fuel to the fires you claim to be concerned about. And, yes, we are all human. But you folks on the LINE hold your selves up as a higher quality of journalism that most. I support you because we need that. Now reflect on this, clean up you act and carry on.
Thank you for the multiple columns. I agree with almost all of what you write.
But this:
"...we do think there is evidence of a hard, and potentially militant edge to this movement..."
I have heard of this evidence, but I have never seen any of it. Does it really exist?
It's like allegations that the protests are coordinated by a small but well-organized group. Is there evidence? Well, Minister Mendocini pointed out out that one of the people arrested in Coutts had been seen in Ottawa. When pressed five times by reporters for more evidence, he refused to add anything more.
If there is a group of "hard men" infiltrated among the protestors, why are they there? When are they going to act? Why did they not better prepare the people around them for the inevitable police suppression?
Consider me skeptical of police intelligence reports.
I think you might have missed Matt's column on this subject. It was a week or so ago and it seemed quite well thought out, reasonable and well supported by his actual reporting. Maybe go back in The Line and read it and that might help answer your questions. Cheers!
Thank you. I've gone back and read all of Matt's columns. As far as I can see, he based his statements about the presence of hard men on the vibes he got. Now Matt's vibes are no doubt superior to mine. But I still haven't seen what I would consider hard evidence. For example, were they armed? Did they have communications devices? Did they block him from going to certain places? Did they threaten him? Did they belittle or demean him?
The most important thing about the events at Coutts is that there was no violence and so no injuries.. For all of the arsenal that the right-wing protestors had, not a shot was fired. Thank goodness.
But this does suggest the extent to which the government and the MSM have exaggerated the threat. We have had a classic moral panic, where emotion has far outrun facts. This is not conducive to good decision-making.
You may well be right. But so far, none of the ringleaders who have been arrested, have offered the least resistance. At most, Pat King called for his lawyer, a reasonable request in my view.
Maybe the "hard men" have faded away. Or maybe they were invented by the police to justify their lack of action during two and a half weeks. It wouldn't be the first time police have exaggerated the threats that they face.
Or maybe the hard men were police. Or just men. I'm sure had things gone sideways there would have been men who would have jumped into the fray but so far, it has remained Canadianish.
It is unclear what approach you would have had the police take once the protesters were in place. Knowing that Jeremy MacKenzie and, for that matter, Pat King, were there, would you have advocated for action before the resources needed in case there was forceful resistance were in place?
I would have had the police issue warnings the first day, traffic and parking tickets the second day, and obtain an injunction the third day. Then I would have had them move in, before the truckers had a chance to entrench themselves. The whole thing would have been over in five days.
While we do have a few extremists in Canada, they are not organized and their capacities are very limited. The only danger would have been from foreign infiltrators. But there were no signs of that.
If they could arrest the ringleaders without any trouble after three weeks of opportunity to entrench themselves, they could have arrested them on day four with even less trouble. But police and City Council dithered instead.
There needs to be an investigation into the Ottawa police force. It seems they had no respect for their chief. Is it simple racism or something else? They definitely did not shine throughout this.
I will assume that you did not notice that my question was deliberately unrelated to the original incompetence of the Ottawa police in letting the protesters establish themselves.
Fair enough. After day four, I would have set up a perimeter, say along Bay, Laurier, Nicholas and Sussex, and not let any new truckers in. That would have been non-threatening to those already in place, and should have been within the capacities of the OPS. Next, I would very gradually have tightened the perimeter, a block at a time, letting affected people out, or arresting those who didn't leave.
As far as Jeremy MacKenzie and Pat King are concerned,, I don't think they had much of a following among the truckers -- less, than they were imagined to have by the media. They were mostly used by the police as an excuse for inaction. The truckers I talked to, were on the anarchist side, and seemed unlikely to take orders from anyone.
Your dispatch seems a pretty reasonable assessment of what's been a crazy week capping off a crazy 3 weeks in Canada. I would add a few points.
You may have actually understated the shocking lack of self-awareness, unbelievable naivete, and lack of political / marketing sophistication of the vast majority of protesters in Ottawa, Windsor, Coutts, and other scattered protests across the country (with the exception of the few lunatics and 'hard men' that Matt described, who I am leaving out of this paragraph). The decision to camp out on streets rather than, say, staying in hotels or even camping in public areas so businesses could still run and local folks could still get around and function. The F**k Trudeau signs (so classy). The honking without regard to the impact on (more or less) innocent locals. The lack of coherent and consistent spokespeople, and the almost nonsensical list of demands. My overall take on the lot is that they are well meaning, may be correct in at least a few of the expressed concerns and frustrations, but absolutely, utterly clueless as to how they came accross on TV, radio, and social media to a majority of Canadians.
From my vantage point here in 'berta, I have been watching the positions of some of my aquaintances, friends, and family in both in-person conversations and online ones harden to the point of (at least) concrete. There may be a few who have 'flipped sides', either towards sympathy for the protesters or (gasp) sympathy for Trudeau and the government, but the vast majority of the folks I have even the slightest interaction wtih have only hardened their positions one way or the other. Polarization to the degree I have NEVER seen in my 50-odd years. The most radical of of either side are increasingly brazen in what they'd perscribe to 'fix' the problems. Not quite advocating violence toward the others (whichever side they hate), but they're much closer to those extreme solution than I could have ever imagined. People on both sides are PISSED OFF.
The police (particularly in Ottawa) generally did not come off well optics-wise from either extreme position, though the combined police forces may have pitched a hail mary pass with those who wanted the protests to end with their generally calm, orderly breakup of the protests. Those firmly on the side of the protesters, well, their view of the police is leaning heavily toward jackbooted thugs. Not good. Not sure where this will go in the next several weeks and months. Not an easy time to be in law enforcment at the street level.
Politicians on all sides have generally come out as clowns. Rather than designate them by their parties, I'll boil it down to two political camps. Canadian Progressives & Conservatives in all of our parties today either ignore and/or are ignorant of history's lessons, consider it virtuous to shamelessly use situational ethics, and conduct themselves with no honour whatsoever.
This is worrisome, as many of we ordinary voters are rendered politically homeless, both federally and provincially (municipally, it's a bit better). I don't know if it means more potential voters will simply not vote in subsequent elections, but speaking for myself, I have no clue who to vote for going forward either federally or provincially. The choices as presented now are all horrible.
Finally, the media. With rare exceptions (such as The Line, I continue to feel my subscription is money well invested), the media have predictably shown themselves to be the attention whores and paid shills the protesters have been mocking them for. My respect for most of the media was low before this series of events, and is nearing the point of disbelief as to how incredibly shameless they are in their pronouncements. Matt and Jen, I know may of these folks are your colleagues and friends, but I have to tell you, the view of the media in most of the country (on both sides of the divisions on this crisis) has them lower than the Police, Protesters, and Politicians. They are literally swimming below the PPP at the bottom of the ocean.
It is becoming very difficult to have a civil conversation with anyone about the state of all of the above, at least in my own life. Most, however, will gladly share with you their polarized view, and fully expect you to be on their side. I'm not sure how we swing back from the current abyss. The rest of the world must think Canada has well and truly gone (as Jen coined) bug fuck crazy.
Thank you for your fair and balanced view of current events. I find myself looking forward to your columns and dispatches as islands of sanity in an ocean of insanity.
Cheers.
I agree about the polarization completely, but there is a fundamental asymmetry: one group wants to force vaccines on and generally punish the other; and the other group just wants to be left alone. One group feels justified in their aggression, and the other feels justified in self-defence.
Well, how about all the anti-vax crowd completely agree to be 'left alone'. Agree to not be hospitalized if you get covid under any circumstances. You can be left alone to deal with what you have decided to do (rather not to do).
And all other forms of mandates and persecution are eliminated? Deal!
Although, I suppose, to be truly fair, that would mean that people who do get the shots (or boosters) wouldn't be eligible for treatment for adverse events. But, since they don't exist, I'm sure you would take that deal, right?
I get what you're saying, if you mean the pro-vaccine zealots who demonize those who have not been jabbed. There are also pro-vaccine libertarians (I'd be one), vaccine agnostics, vaccine hesitant, don't vax me ever-ever crowd, and then of course the x-file crew. It's a really mixed bag of nuts we are.
I fully support and embrace pro-vaccine libertarians, and appreciate their principled support very much! Thank you!
There’s a certain childishness that’s spread through society where people actively seek out information confirming what they already believe, and ignoring or rejecting anything that contradicts them. The right wing has fallen into this trap with the conservative media ecosystem. The Liberals are convinced of their own brilliance and righteousness because that’s all they let into their bubble. The anti-vax activists desperately seek affirmation for their views anywhere they can, on Twitter or in comments sections. The problem is that reality is what it is, and ignoring the inconvenient parts doesn’t change it. Instead, it just leads to an increasing divergence between what is and what people think it should be. That’s when people start to get unhinged, because they won’t revise their beliefs and instead look for explanations (often conspiratorial) that salve the cognitive dissonance.
...and if 70 percent of the population can't trample over the rights of a mere 30 percent minority--hey!--what's democracy for!
In keeping with this political philosophy we need to broaden the definition of 'marginalized' to include any individual or group that isn't part of the main mob. Unfortunately, as this entails including conservatives, the new, more honest and accurate definition will create lip-pursing problems for ideologues accustomed to using 'marginalized' as a virtue criterion; but that's diversity and inclusion for you.
Not at all. They've simply been inconvenienced in the same way that strikes often inconvenience the public, a form of civic 'disruption' politicians on the left have historically been quite prepared to tolerate. It isn't the supposed illegality of the protesters' actions that irks Trudeau, but their "unacceptable" political views. He has no objection to sitting cross-legged in front of a tepee and negotiating with disruptive, aboriginal protesters. It makes for a more politically correct photo op.
No, they did have their right to carry on their daily lives without disruption and, really, fear, obliterated. The noise alone was torturous; in fact, incessant loud noise is used as a torture technique. Do you live in that area? Do you have any reason to suppose that all was just fine for those three weeks? You weaken your argument by lack of any empathy for the residents who suffered real harm.
"You weaken your argument by lack of any empathy for the residents who suffered real harm."
You weaken your own when you jump to conclusions based on no evidence. We aren't acquainted; how can you possibly pretend to know the extent of my empathy for the residents, the protesters, or anyone else? This is simply an unwarranted personal attack, which doesn't even address my argument.
If you want to take issue with the argument, by all means try explaining why accepting disruption you claim people have a "right" to be free of when it results from strikes, while not accepting it when it's a consequence of political protest, isn't both logically inconsistent and hypocritical. I look forward to reading your creative defense of such conveniently selective rights abridgement and empathy for the harmed.
The left should realize the tactics used against the convoy will be used against their causes in turn? But they won't will they? These tactics are being used because it is NOT a left-wing cause, in my humble opinion. Left-wing activists seem to be able to illegally blockade and damage pipelines as much as they like!
The 1000+ people arrested at Fairy Creek would like a word.
Yeah, those blockades are still up. No, wait, they were dismantled peacefully after a few weeks. You think there was a chance of that here?
If the left had its act together they'd be planning protests similar to the truckers. Why isn't that happening?
Maybe it seems counterproductive
You could be right. Leftist causes have been on a winning streak for the past several years.
The current situation doesn't contrast directly to the nation-wide BLM or recent indigenous-based protests. The PM took a knee at an Ottawa BLM protest and there was an extremely light police touch across the country. When rail lines are blocked the federal government sends ministers out to negotiate. I can see the media and activists trying to force identity politics into this but it doesn't really square up.
This trucker thing is an entirely different beast. People who would never think of engaging in civil disobedience are now doing so on a large scale. Although largely conservative/right leaning, it is not exclusively so, and the left/liberal bloc is now playing the law and order/reactionary role that used to be the preserve of conservatives.
Whether this is a persistent movement or merely a temporary phenomenon given life by the pandemic, I guess we'll see. One thing for sure, the reaction of the federal gov't with the EA, and for sure the PM, has just added fuel to this fire.
And tired of the pandemic, although you can't wish the virus away. What we can do (we being the gov't and health officials) is be much more prudent in the application of health restrictions, especially those that deeply affect our personal lives directly (funerals, home gatherings and the like). And for heavens sake, share all the data - all of it - and thoroughly explain the rationale, every time.
This will help this fall (or sooner) when the next wave comes.
I watch Dr. Scott Gottlieb on CNBC. He is the former Commissioner of the FDA & a member of the BOD of Pfizer. His view is that public health officials should be as quick to remove public health restrictions as they were to implement them, so that the public will still have faith that the guidelines are in place for medical reasons as opposed to political ones.
There's no shortage of data - after all, Ontario has shown data which proves the uselessness of mandates for months now, and the data has shown the uselessness of masks and lockdowns for 18 months. The problem is that the data which drives policy is actually polls.
What data is that? I'm really curious. For 2 years, we've had no significant flu season, yet flu spreads exactly the same way as COVID, but at a far lower level, and you think masks don't make a difference? Supporting data please.
Any multi jurisdictional study between, say, school mask mandates and none. Check out Tracy Beth Hoeg or Vinay Prasad on Twitter, or look at these.
https://brownstone.org/articles/more-than-150-comparative-studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/
In part I guess. But Ontario has had some of the most restrictive measures on the planet. Why would that happen under a conservative premier?
Great. Now that the protests have been mostly crushed, get rid of the mandates completely and immediately, and we can all be satisfied.
It seems obvious that you are not a medical doctor, nurse, respiratory therapist, or have any role in health care or hospitals where they have been and continue to be overworked to the point of damaging their health and their families by the number of covid patients (unvaccinated persons composing 10-15% of the population accounting for 5-10X the number of hospitalizations compared to vaccinated), the cancelled cancer, heart and orthopedic and all kinds of other needed surgeries, patients sick and dying in corridors because of lack of beds taking up by covid patients. Getting rid of all the convid-minimization mandates (as opposed to the ones that no longer make complete sense), will not satisfy those problems.
Not a chance. I've actually done my homework. 😀😀
Like I always say, you can lead a horse to data, but you can't make him think.
I feel obliged to repeat my refrain which is beginning to feel too much like the strategy of doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result, nevertheless...
How much coverage has daily relevant covid data received over the past 3 weeks relative to the protests? My estimation, almost zero. How much ongoing coverage has the effectiveness of the vaccines relative to hospitalizations, ICU patients, and deaths, received over the past 3 weeks relative to the protests? Appears to be zero. Even though, apparently vaccines are what the protests are all about, i.e., mandating them like laws disallowing smoking in closed public spaces or stopping at stop signs.
Instead all we get is the complete politicized play-by-play of the protests, who's winning or losing. So the pols and the media have been offered a pint of pure partisan political intoxication, the Emergencies Act, and now they are as drunk on themselves as the crack heads dancing naked in front of Parliament Hill.
As for the preoccupation with Trudeau, an oversimplification for those who find it too difficult to deal with the complexities of reality. Which pretty much describes the carnival of chaos unfolding around Parliament for the past weeks. An oversimplification amplified by those who hope to profit by it. None of which helps us understand or deal with those complexities or our shared reality.
If the EA provides review and renewal for our failed institutions, fine. However, it's hard to have faith that the folks installed in those failed institutions will do any better with the task of review or renewal. What is most clear is that the carnival of chaos is not a government in waiting. It's nothing more than more chaos in waiting. So while folks understandably want relief from pandemic restrictions, embracing the chaos threatening our institutions looks more like the mental illness animating the chaos than anything that might host a future worth embracing.
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It gives sweeping new powers of detention and surveillance to the law enforcement agencies, and depriving the Courts of meaningful judicial oversight to ensure that the law enforcement powers are not being abused.
It gives the administration the authority to designate any group, foreign or domestic, as a terrorist organization, an authority that is not subject to review.
It creates a broad new crime of “domestic terrorism” which is defined as “activities that (A) involves acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws ; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion
It permits investigations based on lawful speech activity, if that activity can be tied somehow to intelligence purposes.
================
....no, not our Emergency Act; that's the ACLU summary of the USAPATRIOT act's main concerns. It just had it's 20th birthday last October. We should perhaps count our blessings.
Unless this is the beginning...
The Bank of Canada or the Library of Parliament can hook you up with a disinterested crypto expert.
You're starting to realize that the emergency declaration is a big problem. Good. Maybe you are even realizing that lifting the mandates would have been better than going down this road. But what you still haven't realized is that one of the things driving the populist reaction against elite rule is that the obvious lies (eg mandates are justified despite the fact that the vaccines don't reduce transmission) are manifestations of contempt for regular people and make them very angry. Nor have you realized that opposition among journalists to lifting the mandates has made this crisis much worse.
We all know what we have done our homework and understand the issues in a way that you journalists just can't be bothered to do. You focus on elite relationships and in-group politics, and you do that very well. But when you view actual real issues through that lens, you are blinding yourselves. The truth is out there, and government-anointed "experts" aren't spoon feeding it to you. You have to dig for it. Do better.
How can you lift the mandates after you've called truckers a fringe minority of racists and misogynists? Kinda painted himself into a corner --- again.
Based on an admittedly belated reading of the Constitution and the Criminal Code, I'm pretty sure the PM showed a lot of forbearance waiting for the provincial Attorneys General to show up. When they failed to, he and Canada's Attorney General had to step in, but it's more their dereliction than the PM's overreach.
Good article. Thank you. I too worry about Trudeau but am so thankful for Chrystia Freeland. My fear is that now the far right has been let out of the bag and openly encouraged by all the anti-mask, anti-vax, anti public health measures, fact immune, conspiracy believers (see comments below), that the movement will continue to grow. Whether the PPC will pick up more votes or the CPC will swing farther to the right remains to be seen but we have not seen the last of them by any stretch. Trumpism is moving north.
I agree that the pandemic was not always wisely handled and some measures made no sense. But I am glad Canada does not have the same problem with sickness and death that USA has. Masks work if used properly. Vaccines are safe and effective. fully vaccinated people can still get Covid but much less likely and much milder usually. Saying both vaccinated and unvaccinated can still spread Covid is like saying that I and Mario Andretti both drive cars.
And the alternative is...?
There's a lot of competition in our history for PM errors so what is this "worst ever" stuff? I get that he has an annoying manner and a lot of men's wives fantasize about him which causes resentment. When one try and label him weak or effeminate one has to remember that he punched out the toughest Conservative = more resentment. The attitude is irrational and maybe entirely emotional.
As to your second point, O'Toole tried to move the CPC TOWARDS the centre and his people hated him for it. The CPC has a real identity problem. Right now it looks like they will tack farther to the right to stop the bleeding to Max's PPC. That will not help them win a general election.
I'm relieved that the clearing of the Ottawa protesters has been relatively non-violent so far. My understanding is that police attempt to minimize the risk of violence by mobilizing overwhelming numbers, which is why the Ottawa Police weren't able to deal with the protest without massive reinforcements.
There's a video of far-right influencer Austin Hill which captures this perfectly: "It's over, we can't stop them, there's too many of them." https://twitter.com/_llebrun/status/1495083489485598727
As a Hobbesian, I think the rule of law is a crucial institution whether you're on the left or the right. We have a legal system so that we can settle our conflicts without violence, by battling it out in the courts rather than on the streets. (With TMX, for example, opponents presented their case in court, and in August 2018 the Federal Court of Appeal overturned cabinet approval and halted the project. After the government held more consultations with First Nations, the FCA upheld the subsequent re-approval.)
Regarding vaccine mandates ... in BC, Covid hospitalizations peaked around January 31, and have slowly declined since then. So are we now at the point where we can say, look, if you don't want to get vaccinated, you're mostly putting yourself at risk, since we're no longer concerned that the hospitals will be overloaded? (Risk of hospitalization is 5X for people who are unvaccinated.) Maybe. I think that's going to be up to each province to decide, based on their projections; the federal government should follow what the provinces are doing. Also, I would expect employers who want to prevent workplace outbreaks may keep vaccine requirements in place, as a workplace safety measure. (This is especially true for hospitals and long-term care facilities.)
On crypto: Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous. That is, each transaction is published with an identifiable Bitcoin wallet. What's missing is the identity of the wallet's owner.
When you buy or sell Bitcoin, through a Bitcoin exchange, you need to provide your real identity.
In this case, I think there may be a lot of technologically unsophisticated donors who overestimate how much privacy Bitcoin gives you.
(It is possible to exchange cash for Bitcoin without giving up your real identity, using a Bitcoin ATM.)
A couple references:
https://www.howtogeek.com/741484/how-anonymous-is-bitcoin/
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-criminals-cant-hide-behind-bitcoin-rev2
This was all very interesting, but isn't it time to stop hyperventilating about the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act? The tone in some of what you and others have written might lead a few readers to believe that we are witnessing the epitaph of rights and freedoms in Canada.
Look, there are limits built into the Act itself. It must end 30 days after invocation. Period. It will also be subject to an automatic review after all is said and done.
We have independent courts (which will have to rule on at least three suits prompted by the decision to invoke). I have no doubt that they will call bull-s__t on the federal government--or on those who do not put forward convincing arguments to justify their opposition (which is not to say that they will do that).
Either way, these decisions will be made by Canadian judges (or the Supreme Court of Canada) in light of Canadian law and the Charter.
We also have lively political debate in the country, mediated by political parties and activists, journalists, and experts working through social media platforms, the print and broadcast news media and so on.
Finally, we have this thing called elections.
Give most voting Canadians credit for brains. If they believe that governments (in this case the federal government) have over stepped, they can let them know by voting against them when it comes time to do so.
Finally, WRT your take on Mr Trudeau's strengths and weaknesses, this was credible enough. But have both Jim Watson and Doug Ford morphed into Voldemort (they who must not be named)?
Surely both men deserve a flurry of brickbats for the respective roles they played in the gestation of this almighty cluster-F?
And let's not forget Jason Kenney, Scott Moe and others (like the now retired Bryan Pallister), who have also frequently sought to politicize (and Americanize) the discussions about pandemic suppression measures (sometimes with misleading declarations).
`The tone of......'
I agree. These types of comments seem to be wishes.
The truckers and various hangers on should have disbanded their protest before there was a need for the police.
It appears that the police have done their jobs well and are achieving their goal of clearing the streets of Ottawa.
This protest did not achieve its intended goal of convincing Canadians that preventative vaccination did not need to be universal and that can be construed as a failure.
What the protest did achieve, unintentionally, however, was far more important: it exposed the overweening political bias of the MSM and federal government in the manner both reacted.
From the start of the dissentients campaign, the was a concentrated effort to associate it with events, specifically the rioting that occurred on Capitol Hill.
The MSM was filled with dire warnings that the American right was a threat to Canada’s democracy and that the trucker convoy was a potential Trojan Horse for these radicals.
Both the MSM and federal government ginned up fear by the us of egregious propaganda.
When the convoy approached Ottawa, the warnings of calamitous conflict reached a fevered pitch.
In the event, nothing near a calamitous event took place - none of the predicted violence occurred.
Not to be deterred, both of the actual antagonists, the MSM and feds, took to seeking offence and inflating minor incidents of mischief into major offences.
What the protest actually caused was a prolonged nuisance and inconvenience to the citizens of Ottawa but there was no rioting, loss of life, injury, arson and looting.
What the protestors did was fail to see there was absolutely no purpose in staying in the city.
They had won a victory - albeit not the one they were seeking.
In overstaying their squat in Ottawa, they simply gave the government further opportunity to frame the issue.
Again the fear factor was invoked, massive force would be required to forcibly dislodge the protestors.
(The police were there but not at all afraid of confronting the protestors - what they were leery of was the propensity for the MSM and the feds to feed them to the wolves if, in the event , there was violence.)
The government used this fear factor to invoke the Emergency Measures Act - a hammer to kill a mosquito.
On the eve of invoking the Act, a legitimately fearful and calamitous act of Ecco-terrorism unfolded in northern British Columbia.
A violent armed attack took place against a camp involved in the support of a gas pipeline.
The response from the MSM and the federal government could not be more telling in its inconsistency: except for BC’s outlets, the media tip-toed about as did the federal government given the was a high likelihood that FN people were involved.
Thus far, there has been no indication from the government that the Emergency Measures Act will be used to deal with the attack- indeed, the Emergency Measures Act apparently excludes FNs.
It is clear that Canada’s liberal progressives have two distinctly different approaches when it comes to dealing with dissent - one for their darling causes and one for others.
If its their darlings, tolerance and empathy are the order of the day.
If it is the deplorables, tolerance is deemed a hazard.
Liberal progressives view themselves as morally and intellectually superior to anyone who disagrees with their agenda.
They have cast themselves as the new Aryans of our society and broke no contradiction from those they consider their inferiors - the new untnrmenchen.
Essentially, in their view of the world, those who do not share their morality fibre and/or intellectual perfection cannot be allowed participate in democracy nor can they be afforded the freedom to contest the society their betters have allocated to them.
The new tolerables, in contrast, are allowed to assault the intolerables.
FN’s, ecco-terrorists, social equality warriors, race agitators and most leftists are not held to a standard of accountability anywhere near that of those identified as the deplorable element.
The treatment of the Ottawa protest compared with that afforded the terrorist attack in BC has laid bare the colours of the MSM and the federal government - it does not bode well for the unity we so desperately need to hold Canada together.
"The truckers and various hangers on should have disbanded their protest before there was a need for the police."
Obviously. Failing to do so provided Trudeau with the "law and order" pretext he was cynically waiting for, to escalate from simply refusing to negotiate with the protesters to employing strong arm tactics and financial coercion to crush them. You more or less acknowledge this later on in your post, but it's worth noting that the Freedom Convoy is hardly the first movement inspired by principles to run afoul of its own strategic overreach and the enthusiasm of foot soldiers on the ground.
"This protest did not achieve its intended goal of convincing Canadians that preventative vaccination did not need to be universal and that can be construed as a failure."
I'd be curious to know the source of this opinion. Have you done a survey? You can't possibly believe that institutional media is giving you a representative cross-section of public opinion on the matter. My own sense is that vaccine skepticism was fairly widespread well before the Freedom Convoy took to the road, and that the increasing gulf between what Canadians now know about COVID viruses (and the ineffectiveness, even counter-productiveness, of government policies against them), and the official narratives they're expected to swallow, helped create a climate that made organizing and launching the convoy possible in the first place. I don't mean to imply the protesters are anti-vaxers, as accused--we know this isn't true, and many of them are vaccinated--just that they have a realistic idea of the limitations of vaccines and the possible long-term risks of mRNA vaccines in particular, especially for young people. They did not form this view on the basis of information available from CBC, The Globe and Mail or the Toronto Star, of course, ideologically captured sources which they've sensibly learned to distrust and are cognizant of the need to outflank (nothing has happened during the past few weeks to show them wrong about this).
"What the protest did achieve, unintentionally, however, was far more important: it exposed the overweening political bias of the MSM and federal government in the manner both reacted."
Anyone for whom this exposé came as a revelation hasn't been paying attention for at least half a decade. Everyone from Jill LePore to Kevin Williamson to Mark Dice has lamented institutional media's downward spiral and its abandonment of objectivity and basic journalistic ethics. Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc provides a good historical overview of the decline, but subjecting yourself to a few minutes of CNN or MSNBC coverage suffices to make the point. Institutional media no longer 'covers' the culture wars, as it hypocritically pretends, but does its best to win them for one side, and every story at bottom hammers home the same, unvarying message.
"From the start of the dissentients campaign, the[re] was a concentrated effort to associate it with events, specifically the rioting that occurred on Capitol Hill."
Predictably, yes?
"The MSM was filled with dire warnings that the American right was a threat to Canada’s democracy and that the trucker convoy was a potential Trojan Horse for these radicals."
*Yawn.* Let's skip over the rest of the routine, to...
"It is clear that Canada’s liberal progressives have two distinctly different approaches when it comes to dealing with dissent... [etc.] ...If it is the deplorables, tolerance is deemed a hazard."
If you're looking for logical consistency from ideologues you're misconstruing their motives and aims. Both the logical and ethical status of double standards and selective empathy are secondary considerations when the end being pursued justifies any means. Today's so-called 'liberal progressives' (who are anything but) believe their ends are indeed that important. Consequently, the case you're making, sound as it is, is also superfluous: those in the dock are undeniably 'guilty,' but of an irrelevant charge as far as they're concerned, while the rest of us are beyond needing persuading.
"Liberal progressives view themselves as morally and intellectually superior to anyone who disagrees with their agenda."
The implicit major premise underlying this particular conceit goes further: intelligence and morality (virtue) are two sides of the same coin. The intelligent and well-educated are particularly prone to assuming this claim's truth, and not just for the obvious reason that it's self-flattering. That it's rational to be virtuous is an attractive idea (Bertrand Russell was convinced of it); and to the extent that rationality is associated with the ability to reason logically, it must be linked with intelligence. How wonderful to be intelligent if the rational life is also the virtuous life... and how deeply suspect the morality of the intellectually less well-endowed! You can see where this is leading: welcome to Social Stratification 2.0's respectable justification for class division.
If you're like me, experience has engendered a certain skepticism toward this line of thinking. Intelligence and morality are equally hierarchical concepts--relatively speaking one is smart or stupid, good or evil--but these gradations are on different continua, and the evaluative criteria for where you rank (i.e., are situated) on each continuum differ accordingly. Your score on an I.Q. test tells us nothing about how trustworthy or generous you are; and it's very much an open question whether, if the human race suddenly gained an additional 500 cc. in cranial capacity, everyone would then become fairer and kinder or simply develop more ingenious methods of exploiting each other.
"Essentially, in their view of the world, those who do not share their morality fibre and/or intellectual perfection cannot be allowed participate in democracy nor can they be afforded the freedom to contest the society their betters have allocated to them."
That's part of the argument all right, but the ultimate justification for two-tiered 'participation' is that justice issues are too important for those lacking the elite's superior cognitive decision-making tools to be permitted significant input (ditto for existential crises like global warming--and pandemics, of course). The world is in a constant state of emergency, and this explains why Trudeau can't afford to talk with mere truckers--certainly not about the wisdom of vaccine mandates (stay in your lane, trucker, and don't obstruct my vision, the fruits of which, expressed in policy, benefit everybody!). Far from revealing him to be an arrogant autocrat, or corrupt and selfish, Trudeau's stand marks him, on this account, as a praiseworthy social engineer, labouring (what a guy!) under the burden of responsibilities lesser mortals don't understand and would be unable to bear if they did.
If you're gagging at this point, let's pause to reflect on the difference between possessing "higher education" credentials and actually being intelligent, a difference this shoddy reasoning highlights. It may in fact be the nub of the problem. Reasoning so transparently faulty and oblivious to the lessons of history (the sample, alas, is neither hyperbolic, satirical nor a travesty--would that it were) is less a sign of intelligence than of ideological indoctrination and conviction. Trudeau, who hit his peak as a high school teacher, isn't a thinker; he's simply internalized every bromide of his generation's cultural environment and re-externalizes it all like a parrot, without, evidently, having subjected any it to critical scrutiny even once. This is not how superior intelligence works.
What if Trudeau and his fellow elitists actually were more intelligent than the evidence suggests they are? Shouldn't it be obvious to anyone of even moderate intelligence that ethical government policy in democracies must take into account not just the needs and aspirations of citizens with political science degrees but those of truckers and Whalemart cashiers as well? All citizens are equally entitled to follow their own paths and live their lives, in a society that reflects their understandings and interests and is responsive to their input; this is basic. Policies of division that, explicitly or implicitly, confer special, higher-tier citizenship privileges on physics professors and philosopher kings than on 'deplorables' are undemocratic, and first steps on the road to autocracy, oppression, and re-education camps.
You don't have to be a genius to see this; the average trucker seems to get the picture well enough, a reality that suggests the contempt in which Trudeau holds protesting truckers is rooted in class distaste after all, not in a vast intelligence disparity. People of truly formidable intelligence and effortless class (the two go together in my experience; but, then, perhaps my experience has been overly lucky) are courteous and unpretentious. It's those less confident of their intelligence and class status who become the most vigilant border police, being themselves so much closer to it. There's a defensiveness to the gratuitous discourtesy and arrogance they direct at those they're determined to keep on the far side of the wall that, if I were a better man, might elicit my sympathy; but when I see it so nakedly displayed by our Prime Minister it just makes me want give him a return slap in the face. I imagine many truckers feel the same. Nobody enjoys being spit on, and being called a pseudo-Canadian--even a Nazi--is the verbal equivalent.
The source of my opinion was the reaction of Canadians to the protest. From what I heard and read, the preponderance of opinion did not support the notion that vaccination was an issue so far as its utility as a preventative measure was concerned. The political machinations around the entire covid containment strategy was a different matter but, for whatever reason, the former message seemed to be the one that people were hearing.
Admittedly, being in the pro-vaccination constituency, I disagreed with the former while agreed to the latter.
I would venture to say that, had there been a survey, my conclusion would be vindicated.
That said, I agree with the balance of your reply.
My skepticism with both the MSM and the federal government far predates this issue but for others as yet unconvinced of the bias, the evidence of partiality is overwhelming as is the chauvinism of the liberal progressive element.
We may disagree on the efficacy of the the protest message in terms of covid policy but I can say without reservation that the treatment of the protest itself has brought the inconsistency of the media and government to the point where it can be construed as an indisputable fact.
Trust in these two institutions has been diminished as never before - how our society will react to this situation is yet to be seen.
One can only hope that our democracy can be used as a vehicle of rehabilitation
As reprehensible as the BC incident is can you not see there's a significant difference in magnitude between that and some people demanding the overthrow of the government? I agree that the media has tunnel vision and that it is significant problem. As you say they tend to have their "darlings" but also by failing to ask protesters deeper questions such as "Have you no regard for the medical community or system?" Or "Where do you get your information?" they gave the protesters far more credibility than they deserved. I believe most of them would have looked very foolish trying to answer those questions because they never gave it any thought whatsoever. I was shocked by the naivete of a lot of the protesters. They've been radicalized by Facebook etc. and that is another huge issue.
The fact that the point was to overthrow the duly-elected government seems to continue to be under-emphasised is a worry. I don't think the withdrawal of the MOU (!) means a thing except that, in the eyes of its proponents, the time has proven to be not now. Stay tuned.
As for the naivete - I was not overly surprised to see that 6 of the rigs are owned by people from a hamlet with an interesting history and culture. Naive, maybe. Nasty, for sure.
If the point was to overthrow the government, it was obvious it was not widely shared with the majority of the protestors.
There was no public disclosure of a widely supported manifesto and no evidence that whatever was unearthed would have motivated the protestors to support it.
As for the latter part of your comment, it is innuendo you might want to elaborate on.
I saw no evidence that the majority of protestors were demanding the overthrow of our government. No one physically attempted to occupy the House of Parliament as occurred in the US. There was no incitement to violence whatsoever.
As I have stated here, I did not agree with or support the message regarding covid measures that was the object of the protest.
What I did agree with was their right to protest.
What I disagreed with was the concentrated effort of both the media and the federal government to cast the protest and protestors as a danger to Canadian democracy by fear-mongering and malignant propaganda.
The fact remains that while the protest was a nuisance, aggravating to the people of Ottawa and needlessly over-extended, none of the forecasts made by the media and federal government came to pass.
It has ended with none of the violent mayhem predicted by the MSM or the federal government.
This has not been the case in the GasLink attack in BC.
Neither the media or the federal government has been focused on the possibility of such an attack in spite of incitement by the radical environmental element and the intransigent position of the FN involved.
The kid glove treatment afforded to ecco - protestors, FNs and leftist causes has been highlighted by the response to the truckers protest.
The terrorist attack on GasLink and the response of the media and federal government has only affirmed it.
To me the magnitude of the GasLink attack far surpasses the non-violent trucker protest.
The truckers were conveying their message, no matter how questionable, in a peaceful manner in spite of the dire warnings from the media and federal government.
In my eyes the GasLink attack is of eminently greater concern and downplaying its significance compared with the truckers protest is simply further proof that what is good for the liberal progressive gander not being extended to the rest of our society.
Trying to invoke moral and intellectual superiority to condemn the message of the truckers while using these same self-attributed elements to claim that the terrorist attack was of lesser import reflects a contradiction in thinking that I just can’t accept.
It appears to me that you have misread this comment:
"If you are a member of a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried," said Lametti.
The minister is not referencing the vast majority of folks on the hill, he is saying that they have evidence that "members (likley Amiericans) of pro-Trump movements are funneling funds to these folks on the hill." This much is public knowledge. If I am right in this reading, then any Canadian who gave $500 (to use your example) need not worry. You reading displays not only your mistrust of the government, but you inability to be reflexive enough about your own prejudices to stop you for adding false fuel to the fires you claim to be concerned about. And, yes, we are all human. But you folks on the LINE hold your selves up as a higher quality of journalism that most. I support you because we need that. Now reflect on this, clean up you act and carry on.
Poetry:
sincerely shocked to see what this looks up close
so far into the far-right's looking glass of bullshit
these people have flown right through their frickin' fail-safe points
You guys deserve a raise.
Thank you for the multiple columns. I agree with almost all of what you write.
But this:
"...we do think there is evidence of a hard, and potentially militant edge to this movement..."
I have heard of this evidence, but I have never seen any of it. Does it really exist?
It's like allegations that the protests are coordinated by a small but well-organized group. Is there evidence? Well, Minister Mendocini pointed out out that one of the people arrested in Coutts had been seen in Ottawa. When pressed five times by reporters for more evidence, he refused to add anything more.
If there is a group of "hard men" infiltrated among the protestors, why are they there? When are they going to act? Why did they not better prepare the people around them for the inevitable police suppression?
Consider me skeptical of police intelligence reports.
I think you might have missed Matt's column on this subject. It was a week or so ago and it seemed quite well thought out, reasonable and well supported by his actual reporting. Maybe go back in The Line and read it and that might help answer your questions. Cheers!
Thank you. I've gone back and read all of Matt's columns. As far as I can see, he based his statements about the presence of hard men on the vibes he got. Now Matt's vibes are no doubt superior to mine. But I still haven't seen what I would consider hard evidence. For example, were they armed? Did they have communications devices? Did they block him from going to certain places? Did they threaten him? Did they belittle or demean him?
Take some time and find the stories about Coutts and those arrested.
The most important thing about the events at Coutts is that there was no violence and so no injuries.. For all of the arsenal that the right-wing protestors had, not a shot was fired. Thank goodness.
But this does suggest the extent to which the government and the MSM have exaggerated the threat. We have had a classic moral panic, where emotion has far outrun facts. This is not conducive to good decision-making.
You may well be right. But so far, none of the ringleaders who have been arrested, have offered the least resistance. At most, Pat King called for his lawyer, a reasonable request in my view.
Maybe the "hard men" have faded away. Or maybe they were invented by the police to justify their lack of action during two and a half weeks. It wouldn't be the first time police have exaggerated the threats that they face.
Or maybe the hard men were police. Or just men. I'm sure had things gone sideways there would have been men who would have jumped into the fray but so far, it has remained Canadianish.
Jeremy MacKenzie of the far-right extremist group Diagolon and the Rebel's Keean Bexte are publishing names of police officers involved in the Ottawa operation. https://twitter.com/Justin_Ling/status/1495207941363929092
More on Diagolon: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/what-is-the-diagolon-extremist-group-and-what-does-it-want-1.5785646
I would suggest giving the following a read.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/16/ottawa-blockade-strong-ties-extremists
It is unclear what approach you would have had the police take once the protesters were in place. Knowing that Jeremy MacKenzie and, for that matter, Pat King, were there, would you have advocated for action before the resources needed in case there was forceful resistance were in place?
I would have had the police issue warnings the first day, traffic and parking tickets the second day, and obtain an injunction the third day. Then I would have had them move in, before the truckers had a chance to entrench themselves. The whole thing would have been over in five days.
While we do have a few extremists in Canada, they are not organized and their capacities are very limited. The only danger would have been from foreign infiltrators. But there were no signs of that.
If they could arrest the ringleaders without any trouble after three weeks of opportunity to entrench themselves, they could have arrested them on day four with even less trouble. But police and City Council dithered instead.
There needs to be an investigation into the Ottawa police force. It seems they had no respect for their chief. Is it simple racism or something else? They definitely did not shine throughout this.
I will assume that you did not notice that my question was deliberately unrelated to the original incompetence of the Ottawa police in letting the protesters establish themselves.
Fair enough. After day four, I would have set up a perimeter, say along Bay, Laurier, Nicholas and Sussex, and not let any new truckers in. That would have been non-threatening to those already in place, and should have been within the capacities of the OPS. Next, I would very gradually have tightened the perimeter, a block at a time, letting affected people out, or arresting those who didn't leave.
As far as Jeremy MacKenzie and Pat King are concerned,, I don't think they had much of a following among the truckers -- less, than they were imagined to have by the media. They were mostly used by the police as an excuse for inaction. The truckers I talked to, were on the anarchist side, and seemed unlikely to take orders from anyone.