Canada Ends Emergency Powers
reuters.com
reuters.com
There are events that happen regularly in India that would absolutely mind blowing if they happened in Canada.
Communal violence, riots, women being gang raped to death publicly, large scale protests, corpses being floated down rivers, various public health conditions that would be absolutely unacceptable in Canada.
So maybe Trudeau’s actions would seem unnecessary or hypocritical to people in India, but we should keep things in perspective
It used to be an appreciated political skill to “skirt the middle”. Play the balancing act and make everyone a little mad but leave all parties feeling like they got at least something they wanted.
When the convoy was half way to Ottawa and Trudeau pulled the “unacceptable beliefs” I knew his goose was cooked - that’s not a statement you can back away from and not look like a fool. An amateur political move.
I feel like a consummate politician would handled it much differently. Engage the protestors, negotiate, delay, drag it out. The restrictions are almost all gone in March anyways, Trudeau could made everyone feel like a winner, but no, he had to paint himself into a corner he couldn’t get out of - not without suspending Charter rights.
Canada will survive no doubt, but Trudeau, the emperor, has been show to be wearing no clothes - the political dilettante, if you will.
“I want you all to meet the son of Pierre Trudeau. The Liberal Party took him under their wing and see how they’re repaid. He enacted the Emergency Act, instead of fighting like a politician. A base defiler, unworthy of a noble name.”
The schisms are so wide that even a small gesture of acknowledging opposing beliefs is causing loss of popularity. For example, when Trump said he. Got vaccinated, he was booed by his own followers.
That said Mr T does appear to be naive. Like that ill advised trip to India where the Indian government wasn't even bothered that he was there and it finally became a private visit sort of.
And recall that Trudeau has a minority government and the emergency is an act of parliament that was duly passed decades ago and it survived a vote recently. It is no “executive action” to use what I think is the us term. Following the laws of the legislature, by definition, isn’t illegal.
But I think about Joseph Lieberman. A Democrat but not unwilling to split with the Democrats. Nobody loved him (maybe his own constituency?) but nobody really hated him either.
I’m on a movie quote spree:
”Ordained by blood, there are those who would have been better suited to harvest cow dung than to rule the greatest empire on earth. There are those who were as silver, a lesser metal, but worthy of coinage. And then there are those, like cold stone, who force their strength and fury and win the title by fear and intimidation. Blood is nothing. Heart and spirit make the sage”
A large majority of Canadians support direct action to remove the protestors. Who are you speaking on behalf of?
To say they need these powers after the protest was broken up and then do an about face a few days later is ridiculous political strategy.
> The aim of freezing the accounts was "to convince people who took part in the occupation and the illegal blockades to listen to reason," Freeland said, adding that the government had already asked banks to begin "to unfreeze these bank accounts."
Whatever you may think of the vaccine mandates and other Covid restrictions, I hope we can’t all agree that freezing assets without a court order to break the will of the protesters is an overreach. Imagine if they said you can’t spend cash in stores. I bet they would if they could.
Long term this is going to make for a lot of crypto enthusiasm.
That power is part of emergency authorizations, which have been given by the parliament to the executive precisely for the event that a situation is a severe threat to the stability of the nation.
> Long term this is going to make for a lot of crypto enthusiasm.
Highly doubt that, for a number of reasons:
- Crypto is showing right now with the price collapse as a reaction to the Ukraine invasion that it is not suitable as any kind of long-term storage
- people are growing skeptical about the ecological and economical impact of crypto coins. Just look at all the supply shortages for everything (CPUs, GPUs, RAM chips, even bulk storage) - people are sick of not being able to buy parts just because of cryptominers outmatching the market price. And the final nail in the coffin of public interest in crypto (other than NFTs, which were mostly celebrity-driven) were the news of people buying up coal plants to mine coins.
- the inevitable NFT crash will lead to a lot of people being burned off of crypto for a very long time - and without people to trade crypto with, the coins become effectively worthless.
- fundamentally, cryptocurrencies will always have to be converted back to fiat money at some point. And that's where the flow of money can be stopped at will of the government again.
Funding illegal activities always had repercussions for those involved.
Civil forfeiture is wrong, but targeting dissidents and threatening to make them economic non-persons is a different kind of chilling.
> Q: What things can be forfeited?
> A: There are different legal theories of forfeiture. Property that the wrongdoer would not have had but for the crime can be forfeited as proceeds. For example, cash acquired through an unlawful activity such as drug dealing, or a car bought with cash from drug dealing can be forfeited under the proceeds theory. Property that makes the crime easier to commit or harder to detect is called facilitating property. For example, a house where drug sales occur can be forfeited under the facilitating theory.
Property that the wrongdoer would not have had but for the crime can be forfeited as proceeds. Does this get abused? Sure. But I don't think this includes a shop owner donating $50 to some cause having their entire bank account frozen.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdpa/divisions/asset-forfeiture
> New public opinion data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute shows after more than two weeks of unrest, Canadians are now more likely to oppose measures sought by protesters.
> Overall, more than two-in-five now say Canadians say the protests have made them more inclined to support ongoing restrictions related to masking indoors (44%) and vaccination requirements to cross the Canada-U.S. border (44%).
> As the country rolls into another week of uncertainty, nearly three-quarters of Canadians (72%) say the time has come for protesters to “go home, they have made their point.”
> As to how the situation should be resolved – most feel the time for talking is done. Nearly seventy per cent either think local police need to step in and send people home (45%) or that the military should be summoned (23%). One quarter (26%) say it’s up to politicians to negotiate a dénouement.
> However, those same politicians, including the prime minister and the leader of Canada’s official opposition, are roundly criticized for harming, not helping events. Two-thirds (65%) say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comments and actions have worsened the situation, while two-in-five (42%) say this of Candice Bergen, leader of the official opposition.
The consensus here is pretty strong: Canadians supported the masking and mandates and supported it more strongly in response to the protest. Canadians supported ending the protest, including by force (military or police). Canadians think politicians on both sides handled the situation poorly.
[0] https://angusreid.org/trudeau-convoy-trucker-protest-vaccine...
Weren't the protestors against measures. Were they proposing measures? Is there a measure to oppose existing measures? It's weird framing.
> Overall, more than two-in-five now say Canadians say the protests have made them more inclined to support ongoing restrictions related to masking indoors (44%) and vaccination requirements to cross the Canada-U.S. border (44%).
That's a weird way of saying the majority of Canadians say the protests have made them more skeptical of ongoing restrictions
> Canadians supported the masking and mandates and supported it more strongly in response to the protest
I don't see how people were against mandates that prevent you from leaving the country, saw a bunch of people upset about it and somehow swayed their mind to further restrict people. It's just odd.
They may not know firsthand whether mandates are a good idea. The overwhelming opinions of epidemiologists will put a thumb on the scale, because they are experts, but at least some will remain on the fence. If they see other people who oppose mandates behaving in ways they consider unworthy -- such as blocking legitimate traffic and disturbing the peace -- it actually counts against their argument and pushes a few people off the fence in the opposite direction.
It's not valid reasoning, but if we were all reasoning validly we wouldn't be in this situation.