"Police can also start seriously and evenly enforcing the Criminal Code provisions against mischief, intimidation, rioting, and masking while rioting." Yes please. Enforce the laws that are already in place as a start.
Just for the sake of argument, how exactly would you enforce that last one?
This was actually a tactic strategically used to actively "cancel" certain speakers from appearing at Universities. All one needs to do to "game" this system is insist on 250 police officers to watch over the planned protest, regardless of how many people show up.
You want to protest? Please pay the City $80,000 up front please.
Oh, you only got two dozen people out to protest? Gee, too bad for you....
You’re right. Making organizers pay for extraordinary security for an invited event is not fair. And a protest on public property that doesn’t block streets doesn’t need to inform the authorities ahead of time anyway, so the city wouldn’t be able to identify an entity to bill for security costs.
The issue here is not making a policy of requiring advance permission (and posting a security bond) for protests on public property. That would be unconstitutional. What the legislation imagines is the police preventing a protest altogether if there is a reasonable likelihood of violence which goes beyond any sensible definition of free expression.
As with all police matters, the police make the call and if you don’t think their decision to make you do a Breathalyzer, search your person, arrest you, or break up your incipient riot was “reasonable”, you can hash it out in Court.
Nonsense. All free countries give police the power to arrest and charge people they think are committing (or who have committed) a crime. Are you contesting the authority of the police to arrest you if they think you broke the law but you don’t, according to your interpretation of “the rules”? “You can’t arrest me for refusing a Breathalyzer because I think the law infringes on my freedom.” You can try that argument in Court but please don’t try it at the roadside. Or if you want to say it, submit anyway.
I was thinking making it more along the lines of how construction activities or music concerts require paid duty officers and the payment is made by the organizers. Otherwise they don't get a permit to conduct their activities.
For venues that require a permit to hold a gathering in, or a parade that needs a permit to close public streets, that is reasonable. I was thinking more about handing out leaflets while standing on the sidewalk where no permit is required just to be there. Even then, the police can direct protestors to not congregate on certain sidewalks and block pedestrian access, like highway overpasses.
When you come right down to it, you really only have freedom to speak and to write, and even those are limited. There is no general freedom to express yourself by gathering into large groups that may disturb the peace. Freedom of assembly really only means you can form associations like clubs, political parties, and trade unions and they don’t have to be approved by the Liberal Party. It also means that the owner of a premises can allow groups to meet there to conduct meetings and the government can’t bust them up. The group has no general right to occupy his premises without his consent. “Freedom of assembly” doesn’t mean you can assemble on a railway track to have your meeting, as one idiot claimed in 2019.
> All police costs to provide security to be borne by organizers.
This creates a hecklers veto.
You want to have a protest. You're going to fulfill all those points. You're very respectful of the rule of law.
The police know very well that some other people hate your group and they're very sure that a lot of the people who hate you are going to show up. The police (quite reasonably) expect there will be trouble, maybe from that other group, but maybe your group won't take well to the invective that will be showered on them.
Now you only get to have your protest if you have bottomless pockets to pay for very expensive policing costs.... even if no one opposing you shows up and your protest is as gentle as a summer breeze. Those policing costs are still there and they were necessary... so now you can't have your protest unless you're very, very rich.
We've already seen this when some conservatives student group wants to bring in a speaker that some leftists don't like.
Anyone leaving their place of residence might commit violence or an act of public mischief. People should be prevented from leaving their homes, your Honour!
There are enough rules , regulations and laws in place to manage protests, peaceful or otherwise. What we had in Ottawa was a poorly prepared municipal leadership and a poorly prepared and maybe unwilling police force.
Definitely unwilling police force. It was a mutiny against a chief they didn’t like, a DEI hire and a castoff from Toronto. An independent police force that doesn’t take direction from politicians works only when the officers *will* take direction from their chief. The cops let their chief twist in the wind, powerless, until the city fired him.
As I recall, the convoy announced initially that they were not leaving until Trudeau resigned and was replaced by them. That is a coup and there are laws against that I think. The threat of violence in Alberta, given weapons and the bizarre statements by the pair recently in the courts promising to fight to the death surely represent a risk of violence and I suspect the Appeal will be successful.
It is a pity to have to circumscribe and tightly define ‘peaceful protest,’ but there seem to be some influential and unstable people out there. Possibly risk of violence needs to be carefully spelled out.
I’m with you Penny, and I think we may be part of a silent majority.
What I remember is that the Ford administration went into hiding and punted responsibility to … some un-named void. The police appeared to lack firm direction from higher-ups to enforce existing laws, and became enablers. The national eye was turned to Ottawa to solve what should never have been their problem, if the laws and bureaucracy in place had functioned as it should have.
Yes, I get it. Invocation of the emergency act was illegal. A Hail Mary, in fact. But honestly I was just thankful it worked. Jubilant. In my centre-right opinion, the Convoy made a mockery of our country and the citizens of Ottawa. No one seemed to care about Ottawatonians’ rights, and I’m not sure (?) if subsequent legal actions ever got serious consideration in the courts.
People can nitpick their way through protest legislation, but I’m firmly on the side of the rest of us who have to put up with it. If I have to choose between a liberal interpretation that protects the rights of protesters over citizens’ rights to a peaceful life, access to their university, work, restaurants, free roadways, bridges, etc., I’ll support non-protesters’ rights all the way.
NB: Canadian intel sources have to get their sh*t together between agencies, and communicate.
The fools actually wanted the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament, fire the Prime Minister, and create a provisional government from the Senate with the convoy organizers running it, none of which is allowed in our Constitution so yes it would have been an insurrection or a coup. If they’d shown any concerted effort in that direction, like storming Parliament or interfering with MPs getting to the House, they would have gone to prison for a long time.
If you allow them for medical reasons, any thug can say he’s afraid of “viruses” and is wearing a mask “to keep everyone safe.” The only allowable reason to wear a mask should be if public health authorities are currently requiring masks in public....in which case all large gatherings would be prohibited also. Even BLM protests and vigils for imaginary missing children.
Bit by bit the Liberals are eroding Canadians' rights to free expression, rights to assembly and even our rights to private property in their pursuit of power and control. And like the frog in the saucepan Canadians appear content in the warming water, unaware or unconcerned that our basic freedoms and way of life are disappearing.
You know that experiment has been done. In real life the frog doesn’t cook. When the water gets too warm it hops out. So it’s not a good argument that Canadians will not be aware when their freedoms have been taken away. What will actually happen is that they will support this bill or they won’t, according to if they think that large rowdy protests that might turn violent are really a valid form of free expression. Parking a snowplough on an important railway line is not valid expression. It’s a form of intimidation with an implicit threat of violence if the police or the railway try to tow the plough away and disperse the protestors. Protests that the bill would restrict could be seen the same way. It might be up to the Supreme Court to decide. It could be regarded as a reasonable restriction of a Charter Freedom.
In my submission, squabbling about the Emergencies Act is a red herring.
The real problem was - and remains - the reluctance of “police forces”, to “enforce” the law, if it requires the use of force to do so – no doubt because they are squeamish about being video-recorded. Because it looks so messy. Eeew! So icky. Not nice at all.
Indeed, even if the law is being egregiously broken by protesters, and the property and civil rights of ordinary citizens are being disregarded – not untypically, in circumstances where there are serious obstacles to those citizens getting compensation or any other form of redress.
Indeed, even if there have been injunctions issued by Judges, purportedly requiring that the protesters “cease and desist” from what they are doing – or, at least, to abide by the existing laws of nuisance, trespass, traffic rules, etc. Which was the situation in Ottawa and Windsor.
On the other hand, I invite readers to compare the experience of “policing Palestinian protests” on campuses in Alberta (where they were taken down in a day or two), with the experience elsewhere in Canada. Because “the law" is not that different, so why the big difference in outcomes?
Or look at how quickly the protesters were cleared from the bridge in a Toronto Jewish neighborhood, when the Prime Minister whispered in the ear of the Toronto Police Chief. Even though it was solemnly said at the Rouleau Enquiry that politicians should never, ever, tell police what to do.
Really? They’re really a “law unto themselves”?
Accordingly, it seems to me that the existing law – including the Charter of Rights - is perfectly capable of coping with these protests. And that is so, whether the disruption is instigated by individuals blocking women’s access to abortion counseling facilities; or groups protesting about events “back home” (e.g. Tamils, Sikhs, Palestinians etc.); or just the run-of-the-mill disruption associated with strikes and lockouts and picketing (all of which are Charter protected activities, yet they can sto;; be subject to reasonable limitations, per section 1 of the Charter).
In short: the failures in recent years are political choices.
For example, to permit a commercial rail-line to be blocked, for weeks, by aboriginal protesters, despite significant economic losses to rail users. Or permitting a similar group to terrorize the inhabitants of Caledonia. Or allowing protesters to shut down the Pride Parade in Toronto. Or forcing the cancellation of a dinner in Toronto for a visiting Italian PM.
These failures do not demonstrate a problem with the “law”, as such. They show a problem with law enforcement. And with pusillanimous police officers and their leaders and politicians. Who have concluded that it is more important that things be peaceful than that they be lawful; so that the persons affected by that unlawfulness, just have to suck it up.
Finally, I think that the last thing we want is for citizens to come to believe that police will do nothing, and that they - the citizens - will have to organize themselves for their own self-protection, or to defend their neighbourhoods and their businesses. Because that was beginning to happen in Ottawa and it was not a good thing.
For example, what if the union officials of Italian ancestry who were invited to that celebratory dinner (and, you will recall, were much miffed by its cancelation) had decided to bring along some “hard hats” with shovels, just to make sure that this cultural event went ahead despite the protesters’ intention to disrupt it?
Unheard of? Not at all. Nor for those old enough to remember the hard hats during the Vietnam war and the Nixon era. But it’s not a good thing. Except, of course, for the private security industry. Or the builders of gated communities.
Banning all protests seems like the way to go. I mean look at China. Works great over there. We are so fortunate to have a leader that admires that successful Chinese system. And before anyone ruptures an artery: yes. This was sarcasm.
This is my own pet peeve and no one else cares about this… but it should be subsection 34(1). More generally, section 34, more specifically paragraph 34(1)(f).
Protests in Canada are more cosplay than anything. I honest to God don't understand what they accomplish other than trolling the other side and letting off some steam. As long as protestors are masked, they are just troublemakers, not fighting for their cause.
As for the Constitution, the Charter ruined it. It basically gave the legal elite in Canada a veto over everything they deem important. It gave them the leeway they craved to justify any decision. I assume those responsible for the Charter knew that since they didn't have the gumption or garumba to put it up to a referendum. Time for new Constitution talks, perhaps a new republic.
If the "Charter doesn’t protect assemblies if they might turn violent or breach the peace", could the RCMP have been called to remove the rail blockades that ocurred in early 2020?
"Police can also start seriously and evenly enforcing the Criminal Code provisions against mischief, intimidation, rioting, and masking while rioting." Yes please. Enforce the laws that are already in place as a start.
Wouldn’t that be a welcome change from picking and choosing until some politician shames them into doing their job?!
Four simple proposals to manage protests:
1. No masks allowed.
2. All protests to take place within the confines of designated protest sites.
3. No blockage of any traffic lanes or sidewalks allowed.
4. All police costs to provide security to be borne by organizers.
check. Add the noise restriction too.
Cannot honestly tell if this comment is satire or not, so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gje3HiouzvQ
I was thinking more along the lines of designating a portion of Nathan Phillips Square for protests.
Just for the sake of argument, how exactly would you enforce that last one?
This was actually a tactic strategically used to actively "cancel" certain speakers from appearing at Universities. All one needs to do to "game" this system is insist on 250 police officers to watch over the planned protest, regardless of how many people show up.
You want to protest? Please pay the City $80,000 up front please.
Oh, you only got two dozen people out to protest? Gee, too bad for you....
You’re right. Making organizers pay for extraordinary security for an invited event is not fair. And a protest on public property that doesn’t block streets doesn’t need to inform the authorities ahead of time anyway, so the city wouldn’t be able to identify an entity to bill for security costs.
The issue here is not making a policy of requiring advance permission (and posting a security bond) for protests on public property. That would be unconstitutional. What the legislation imagines is the police preventing a protest altogether if there is a reasonable likelihood of violence which goes beyond any sensible definition of free expression.
“A reasonable likelihood” …as determined by who, exactly?
There’s the rub…
As with all police matters, the police make the call and if you don’t think their decision to make you do a Breathalyzer, search your person, arrest you, or break up your incipient riot was “reasonable”, you can hash it out in Court.
Great system you have there, would be a shame if we interpreted the rules differently... That isn't something free countries do.
Nonsense. All free countries give police the power to arrest and charge people they think are committing (or who have committed) a crime. Are you contesting the authority of the police to arrest you if they think you broke the law but you don’t, according to your interpretation of “the rules”? “You can’t arrest me for refusing a Breathalyzer because I think the law infringes on my freedom.” You can try that argument in Court but please don’t try it at the roadside. Or if you want to say it, submit anyway.
I was thinking making it more along the lines of how construction activities or music concerts require paid duty officers and the payment is made by the organizers. Otherwise they don't get a permit to conduct their activities.
For venues that require a permit to hold a gathering in, or a parade that needs a permit to close public streets, that is reasonable. I was thinking more about handing out leaflets while standing on the sidewalk where no permit is required just to be there. Even then, the police can direct protestors to not congregate on certain sidewalks and block pedestrian access, like highway overpasses.
When you come right down to it, you really only have freedom to speak and to write, and even those are limited. There is no general freedom to express yourself by gathering into large groups that may disturb the peace. Freedom of assembly really only means you can form associations like clubs, political parties, and trade unions and they don’t have to be approved by the Liberal Party. It also means that the owner of a premises can allow groups to meet there to conduct meetings and the government can’t bust them up. The group has no general right to occupy his premises without his consent. “Freedom of assembly” doesn’t mean you can assemble on a railway track to have your meeting, as one idiot claimed in 2019.
> All police costs to provide security to be borne by organizers.
This creates a hecklers veto.
You want to have a protest. You're going to fulfill all those points. You're very respectful of the rule of law.
The police know very well that some other people hate your group and they're very sure that a lot of the people who hate you are going to show up. The police (quite reasonably) expect there will be trouble, maybe from that other group, but maybe your group won't take well to the invective that will be showered on them.
Now you only get to have your protest if you have bottomless pockets to pay for very expensive policing costs.... even if no one opposing you shows up and your protest is as gentle as a summer breeze. Those policing costs are still there and they were necessary... so now you can't have your protest unless you're very, very rich.
We've already seen this when some conservatives student group wants to bring in a speaker that some leftists don't like.
Anyone leaving their place of residence might commit violence or an act of public mischief. People should be prevented from leaving their homes, your Honour!
What was the last well reasoned and well written law from this government? Anyone?
Thank you to everyone at the CCF...you're basically the only ones fighting the good fight here.
There are enough rules , regulations and laws in place to manage protests, peaceful or otherwise. What we had in Ottawa was a poorly prepared municipal leadership and a poorly prepared and maybe unwilling police force.
Definitely unwilling police force. It was a mutiny against a chief they didn’t like, a DEI hire and a castoff from Toronto. An independent police force that doesn’t take direction from politicians works only when the officers *will* take direction from their chief. The cops let their chief twist in the wind, powerless, until the city fired him.
As I recall, the convoy announced initially that they were not leaving until Trudeau resigned and was replaced by them. That is a coup and there are laws against that I think. The threat of violence in Alberta, given weapons and the bizarre statements by the pair recently in the courts promising to fight to the death surely represent a risk of violence and I suspect the Appeal will be successful.
It is a pity to have to circumscribe and tightly define ‘peaceful protest,’ but there seem to be some influential and unstable people out there. Possibly risk of violence needs to be carefully spelled out.
I’m with you Penny, and I think we may be part of a silent majority.
What I remember is that the Ford administration went into hiding and punted responsibility to … some un-named void. The police appeared to lack firm direction from higher-ups to enforce existing laws, and became enablers. The national eye was turned to Ottawa to solve what should never have been their problem, if the laws and bureaucracy in place had functioned as it should have.
Yes, I get it. Invocation of the emergency act was illegal. A Hail Mary, in fact. But honestly I was just thankful it worked. Jubilant. In my centre-right opinion, the Convoy made a mockery of our country and the citizens of Ottawa. No one seemed to care about Ottawatonians’ rights, and I’m not sure (?) if subsequent legal actions ever got serious consideration in the courts.
People can nitpick their way through protest legislation, but I’m firmly on the side of the rest of us who have to put up with it. If I have to choose between a liberal interpretation that protects the rights of protesters over citizens’ rights to a peaceful life, access to their university, work, restaurants, free roadways, bridges, etc., I’ll support non-protesters’ rights all the way.
NB: Canadian intel sources have to get their sh*t together between agencies, and communicate.
The fools actually wanted the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament, fire the Prime Minister, and create a provisional government from the Senate with the convoy organizers running it, none of which is allowed in our Constitution so yes it would have been an insurrection or a coup. If they’d shown any concerted effort in that direction, like storming Parliament or interfering with MPs getting to the House, they would have gone to prison for a long time.
Masks or covering the face to hide your identity should be banned in the public sphere except for medical reasons.
If you allow them for medical reasons, any thug can say he’s afraid of “viruses” and is wearing a mask “to keep everyone safe.” The only allowable reason to wear a mask should be if public health authorities are currently requiring masks in public....in which case all large gatherings would be prohibited also. Even BLM protests and vigils for imaginary missing children.
Bit by bit the Liberals are eroding Canadians' rights to free expression, rights to assembly and even our rights to private property in their pursuit of power and control. And like the frog in the saucepan Canadians appear content in the warming water, unaware or unconcerned that our basic freedoms and way of life are disappearing.
You know that experiment has been done. In real life the frog doesn’t cook. When the water gets too warm it hops out. So it’s not a good argument that Canadians will not be aware when their freedoms have been taken away. What will actually happen is that they will support this bill or they won’t, according to if they think that large rowdy protests that might turn violent are really a valid form of free expression. Parking a snowplough on an important railway line is not valid expression. It’s a form of intimidation with an implicit threat of violence if the police or the railway try to tow the plough away and disperse the protestors. Protests that the bill would restrict could be seen the same way. It might be up to the Supreme Court to decide. It could be regarded as a reasonable restriction of a Charter Freedom.
Trudeau and his cult are clearly authoritarian in their impulses. This is a clear and present danger to Canadian democracy.
Not just impulses; add intentions - let us look at the signs and tracks since 2015.
In my submission, squabbling about the Emergencies Act is a red herring.
The real problem was - and remains - the reluctance of “police forces”, to “enforce” the law, if it requires the use of force to do so – no doubt because they are squeamish about being video-recorded. Because it looks so messy. Eeew! So icky. Not nice at all.
Indeed, even if the law is being egregiously broken by protesters, and the property and civil rights of ordinary citizens are being disregarded – not untypically, in circumstances where there are serious obstacles to those citizens getting compensation or any other form of redress.
Indeed, even if there have been injunctions issued by Judges, purportedly requiring that the protesters “cease and desist” from what they are doing – or, at least, to abide by the existing laws of nuisance, trespass, traffic rules, etc. Which was the situation in Ottawa and Windsor.
On the other hand, I invite readers to compare the experience of “policing Palestinian protests” on campuses in Alberta (where they were taken down in a day or two), with the experience elsewhere in Canada. Because “the law" is not that different, so why the big difference in outcomes?
Or look at how quickly the protesters were cleared from the bridge in a Toronto Jewish neighborhood, when the Prime Minister whispered in the ear of the Toronto Police Chief. Even though it was solemnly said at the Rouleau Enquiry that politicians should never, ever, tell police what to do.
Really? They’re really a “law unto themselves”?
Accordingly, it seems to me that the existing law – including the Charter of Rights - is perfectly capable of coping with these protests. And that is so, whether the disruption is instigated by individuals blocking women’s access to abortion counseling facilities; or groups protesting about events “back home” (e.g. Tamils, Sikhs, Palestinians etc.); or just the run-of-the-mill disruption associated with strikes and lockouts and picketing (all of which are Charter protected activities, yet they can sto;; be subject to reasonable limitations, per section 1 of the Charter).
In short: the failures in recent years are political choices.
For example, to permit a commercial rail-line to be blocked, for weeks, by aboriginal protesters, despite significant economic losses to rail users. Or permitting a similar group to terrorize the inhabitants of Caledonia. Or allowing protesters to shut down the Pride Parade in Toronto. Or forcing the cancellation of a dinner in Toronto for a visiting Italian PM.
These failures do not demonstrate a problem with the “law”, as such. They show a problem with law enforcement. And with pusillanimous police officers and their leaders and politicians. Who have concluded that it is more important that things be peaceful than that they be lawful; so that the persons affected by that unlawfulness, just have to suck it up.
Finally, I think that the last thing we want is for citizens to come to believe that police will do nothing, and that they - the citizens - will have to organize themselves for their own self-protection, or to defend their neighbourhoods and their businesses. Because that was beginning to happen in Ottawa and it was not a good thing.
For example, what if the union officials of Italian ancestry who were invited to that celebratory dinner (and, you will recall, were much miffed by its cancelation) had decided to bring along some “hard hats” with shovels, just to make sure that this cultural event went ahead despite the protesters’ intention to disrupt it?
Unheard of? Not at all. Nor for those old enough to remember the hard hats during the Vietnam war and the Nixon era. But it’s not a good thing. Except, of course, for the private security industry. Or the builders of gated communities.
Banning all protests seems like the way to go. I mean look at China. Works great over there. We are so fortunate to have a leader that admires that successful Chinese system. And before anyone ruptures an artery: yes. This was sarcasm.
This is my own pet peeve and no one else cares about this… but it should be subsection 34(1). More generally, section 34, more specifically paragraph 34(1)(f).
Haha! ‘Garumba’ - Matt and Jen will be pleased to see it being used.
Protests in Canada are more cosplay than anything. I honest to God don't understand what they accomplish other than trolling the other side and letting off some steam. As long as protestors are masked, they are just troublemakers, not fighting for their cause.
As for the Constitution, the Charter ruined it. It basically gave the legal elite in Canada a veto over everything they deem important. It gave them the leeway they craved to justify any decision. I assume those responsible for the Charter knew that since they didn't have the gumption or garumba to put it up to a referendum. Time for new Constitution talks, perhaps a new republic.
If the "Charter doesn’t protect assemblies if they might turn violent or breach the peace", could the RCMP have been called to remove the rail blockades that ocurred in early 2020?