Emergencies Act Rescinded in Canada
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
The correct solution to illegal behavior in a healthy democracy is to arrest someone and try them in court. We shouldn't be denying that to to anybody no matter how wrong they are.
There should be proportionate responses to illegal behavior. Not even attempting to address to illegal behavior with the appropriate government response should not be a justification for more severe government response.
Simply not wanting to go through the process of arresting people shouldn't be sufficient cause for emergency powers.
Did the city or provincial government instruct them to? Did they refuse?
Ottawa police let them get entrenched, going so far as to offer use of a city owned baseball stadium parking lot which rapidly became a logistics base. They assumed protestors would park their rigs and travel in to the city to protest in a traditional way.
Instead protestors set up camp on downtown streets in a weekend and the local police had no idea what to do. By then it was too late. There were over 8000 people present the first weekend.
Police stated that attempts at enforcement would not be safe, probably because police felt just as threatened as residents did and they simply didn’t have the numbers to break it up.
They then shifted their plan to “maybe they’ll get tired” for two weeks which took us right up to the emergency act being enacted and police being able to muster the numbers required to disperse the protest.
At the provincial level, well, it’s an election year and the premier has an awful lot of voters who agree with the protestors, so he did his tried and true crisis management technique of hiding in a dark room.
The timing of who got the kids gloves and who got the truncheon is probably increasing how angry everyone is
It sounds like the there was a major disagreement between the federal and provincial governments about how to handle the illegal protest, and perhaps more importantly, who will take the heat for breaking it up.
I'm not sure if that makes the outcome more or less of a travesty. It seems the capability do disband the protest was there all along, but prevented by political disfunction and lack of leadership.
Specifically I am thinking about this interesting interview with Dr. Leah West onthe Michael Geist LawBytes podcast. From about 8 minutes onwards they discuss whether the terrorist justification or the foreign influence justification existed: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/02/law-bytes-podcast-episod...
It is interesting to see some commentators in this HN thread trying to suggest Russian influence. (And also IMO not very convincing).
In any case, whatever opinion you have on this, it's a good podcast.
Nice try though.
A shaming moment for Canada.
Using the phrase "dictatorial powers" to describe a bill explicitly designed to balance rights and forward action is incindiary language.
I have yet to hear a plausible explanation for why this was.
I am very uncomfortable with the idea that the police declining to do their job is sufficient to emergency powers.
There should be proportionate responses to illegal behavior. Not even attempting to regulate illegal behavior with the appropriate government response should not be a justification for more severe government response.
It's a terrifying reminder of how vulnerable we've become to arbitrary and lawless government actions in our near-cashless society.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30446703
Crypto doesn't exist in a vacuum.
It's true that you still need to convert them to local currency to spend them, same as US dollar bills, which are the popular savings vehicle here in Argentina. Around here, mostly the same networks of illegal money-changers handle dollars, Bitcoin, and gold jewelry, though there are some that only handle one or two of these.
It would not be the first time store decide to accept an unofficial currency
I mean, yes, the government can still probably take your money, or for that matter kill you with impunity. But it's a good idea to put some obstacles in their way that aren't merely procedural.
I guess the senate reforms to make it more independent actually yielded some results (one of the good things trudeau did, back when he was a lot less politically hawkish). The lawsuits were also piling up but those will continue I think. In any case this has been a disaster for the liberals and for Canada's reputation and I'm pleasantly surprised by the senate. I can see why it's not necessarily an uncessary, antiquated institution now. Checks and balances!