JamisonM

And again, I am being as generous as I can be, here is a supercut of Pat King again and again saying there needs to be violence to reach his political ends.

https://twitter.com/Peterlad21/status/1489600404681756672?t=...

It is what it is.

Obviously shutting down streets for hours or a day is not "violence" but preventing people from enjoying public roadways for 17+ days in their own neighbourhood is a violation of their liberities. Just the same a single day horn-honking protest would not be the same as weeks unending.

But language-lawyering about the word "violence" isn't really the point anyway, this is more about the right to protest being in tension with the rights of nearby residents and workers to live peacefully.

Likewise if you think that the healthcare system capacity was the only limiting factor with respect to COVID-19 public health measures that reduced transmission your model of the epidemiology of SARS-Cov-2 is incorrect.

"I said $40k per person was enough to build an ICU bed for everyone in Canada."

You didn't say that in the comment I replied to, maybe you said it elsewhere?

$40k per person in Canada is 37 million X 40,000 - that's 1.5 trillion CAD, right? Is my math correct on that? That's 2 years of the entire federal budget where did you get that number from?

This is not some pre-covid majority exploiting an old mandate like the Ford or Kenney provincial governments, yours is a very weak argument.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/photos-climate-strike-...

The Act has never been invoked before, the predessessor was scrapped because it was considered excessive. Even under these powers the Feds cannot directly order police to do anything.. it is pretty weak in terms of action on the ground unless the military shows up.

The federal government has been begging the OPS and the province to act, IMO they have run out of options precisely because the folks that should be dealing with this want the federal government to "own" it and now they got their wish. There didn't seem to be many resorts left!

I think it is lost on most people not following closely that the day-to-day protest headcount is quite low, easily under 1,000 people, probably well under 500. Any normal crowd control policing unit could disperse such a small group, the police do not do so despite many instances of having done so and clear legal authority to do so.

It would be much more reasonable for them to be simply demanding the normal resignation of the government and new elections, but we just had an election, so I presume they are well aware of the fact that the result would not be favourable to their goals.

I am familiar with the protests in India but I did not see any that occupied the downtown of a major city for weeks on end or choked off the most important transport link in the country for over a week. I welcome more information on that front. My view is that if the parade on 26 January 2021 had remained in the city for weeks then it might be somewhat similar, but as it stands that is not my impression.

I did not call this a coup and I respectfully do not regard the requests outlined as "drawing on reserve powers" in the regular Canadian constitutional order. The appointment of citizens committees to govern would clearly be an illegal act.

I am trying to engage in good faith to the best of my ability on this topic, that's all I can do.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t start by recognising the news coming from India about the protest by farmers. The situation is concerning. We are all very worried about family and friends. We know that’s a reality for many of you. Let me remind you, Canada will always be there to defend the rights of peaceful protesters. We believe in the process of dialogue. We’ve reached out through multiple means to the Indian authorities to highlight our concerns. This is a moment for all of us to pull together.”

He offers absolutely no opinion on the policy in questions. You will find the other quotes of Canadian government officials do likewise. Do you understand what I mean?

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/what-the-truckers-want-and-...

Every protest movement encounters the problem of leadership and managing consensus but the core group is quite small that stays during the week, if they were not aligned with the self-appointed leadership it would be very clear to any outside observer.

There are public declarations of moderation but the Zello and Telegram channels operated by the leadership consistently offer assertions of positions consistent with the original MOU., culminating in efforts like this: https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/governor-generals-off...

From the article:

A Memorandum of Understanding posted to the group’s website sets out a framework to effectively dissolve the federal government in favour of a “Citizens of Canada Committee” composed of the Senate, the Governor General and whoever else Canada Unity selects.

This committee of entirely unelected figures would then “instruct all levels of the Federal, Provincial, Territorial, and Municipal governments to immediately cease and desist all unconstitutional human rights, discriminatory and segregated actions.”

If enacted, the MOU would represent an unprecedented dissolution of the federal system and put an abrupt end to 155 years of continuous parliamentary rule (a record that happens to rank us as one of the world’s oldest democracies).

I was being overly generous in my language by implying that they were just calling for the government to voluntarily resign when in fact they are asking for a non-constitutional coup. I was trying to err on the side of being too fair to their position.

That said you can't healthcare-capacity your way out of a pandemic, the USA has managed to overwhelm its capacity in numerous jurisdictions despite having much higher baseline capacity than any Canadian jurisdiction. It is not an honest argument worth engaging with.

Due process should be quicker, I wish more people would vote based on making the courts more responsive, but unfortunately no one does.

I think that anyone following closely would have to concede that police conduct and the lack of enforcement is a product of the threat of violence, but I certainly concede that it might be the case that immediate enforcement /might/ result in nonviolent resolution - it just seems very unlikely.

Anyone can believe anything they like but none are required to be so credulous as to believe that the protests are simply about vaccine mandates given the large quantity of published evidence that the organizers and participants have a bevy of other agendas they would like to promote.

This take I find particularly hilarious because if you look back at the science from a few hundred years ago.. it is pretty recognizable as science! Newtonian physics.. pretty good! A future where we think of today's science as akin to religion is a world where Newtonian physics is obviously seen as the same.. that seems wildly implausible!

I don't know that this level of fatalism is appropriate, and if it sets the new level for the rest of the industry at a lower rate that would be good!

A co-op can do what you are describing, seems like someone should send Mr. Cuban a cold email asking him to re-incorporate his venture as a co-op!

But the problem there is you are not asking for nuance, you are asking for.. lies? The answer is that more vaccination means more hospital beds and elective procedures but no one could credibly argue any specific numbers - it was just not possible to make that calculation without enormous error bars, you can only make the nuanced argument that vaccination produces reduced case counts and hospitalization, and that the public has to understand that this will allow for better services against an unvaccinated baseline. The good news is that a huge majority of people do understand that!

You're not going to tear up every city in North and South America and make them better planned on a timeline that is helpful to automotive emissions so the answer is EVs plus better zoning laws, move both in the right direction at the same time.

Rebuilding car culture from the ground up in a way that is more ecologically sound is a longer term project!