I suppose I should note that I consider the use of the act unjustified.
The truth is that Canada already had all the necessary powers to deal with the protesters. All that was required were simple police actions: The protesters have been breaking a variety of laws, so the police just needed to do their jobs.
If the police have gone so rogue they won’t do their jobs, then that’s the real problem — and it needs to be stated as such. In that case, what we need to hear is: “We’re using the Act and we’re also going to fix the police.”
Yet, in the end, the Ottawa police did clear the streets of Ottawa. Despite their claims, in no way did they need to invoke the Emergency Act for this.
So why did they use it?
I have a variety of guesses, but I don’t actually know, and it worries me.
Feral Finster
You don’t have to like the protesters or their cause to recognize that the Emergency Act can be just as easily used on people and causes that you do like.
There is a reason that they made Alex Jones the test case for Twitter banning. Because Jones is a loon and nobody wants to be seen defending him. But it didn’t stop with Alex Jones, nor was it intended to.
Phil Perspective
Feral Finster:
They actually banned other people long before they banned Jones. Heck, they banned the red-head Nazi Charles Johnson before they got around to Jones. And Andy Nogo is still on the platform despite being an accomplice to various murders and attempted murders. They certainly aren’t on a spree banning right-wing figures. If anything their decisions on banning are haphazard at best.
bruce wilder
Haphazard?
Or, adding packing peanuts to better protect the payload.
Tim
You raise some good points Ian, and I have to agree that laws existed to remove the trespassing trucks and peace disturbance through the constant horn blaring. The Ottawa Police would’ve dealt with this promptly if it was a protest by some group it didn’t like. Having said all that, there is a much larger and funded agenda of these “truckers”; although they stopped short of storming parliament, their real target was the PM, vaccines were but one of the lengthy list of grievances. Mark Carney and a few others called this sedition and others with much more experience than I, argued it went far beyond a protest. The concerning part is that it didn’t get the Prime Minister’s full attention until the severe economic impact and no doubt calls from the US- “Fix This and Fix it Now!” something along those lines. As far as the Emergency Act, it may be needed to keep these “truckers” out of the Capital and clogging the borders. We need to understand fully, the dollars rolling in the from the US and why Canada is of sudden interest to Fox News.
Veronica
Yup. I wonder if they’re working out the kinks for their domestic implementation of their network-centered “hybrid” warfare tactics. If conventional network tactics consists of obliterating the entire network by bombing a wedding, then wouldn’t the hybrid version 1) first identify everyone who supports a cause and then 2) literally kill them by confiscating their assets and ability to earn a living?
But I may have dated a Navy officer for one year too long….
Ken
“Yet, in the end, Ottawa police did clear the streets of Ottawa.”
Was it not multiple police services that finally cleared the streets? Is that not significant?
Jason
literally kill them by confiscating their assets and ability to earn a living?
And it’ll be that much easier now that much of society, particularly the younger generations, have been conditioned to think cash is an inconvenience. Hell, many young folks think it’s downright silly. They’ve been conditioned to card and phone transactions. Worse, they’ve been conditioned away from the idea of a physical store of value.
This is by design. And there’s hardly any pushback at all.
Some people are saying this is even more reason to support cryptocurrencies, but this is ridiculous as cryptocurrencies obviously suffer the exact same problem (lack of physicality and ability to be instantly cut off by technocrats.
Veronica
Also, I wonder to what extent Bobbitt’s Shield of Achilles and Anderson’s Private Government are relevant here. In addition to a test of domestic irregular/hybrid tactics, acts like these have the added benefit of reserving even more rights to the newly legitimated citizens (i.e., corporations) in the new constitutional orders at the subjects (i.e., our) expense.
Feral Finster
@Phil: the point is that Twitter starts by banning people that nobody wants to defend. But it doesn’t stop there.
*That* is not unintentional.
Mark Level
I think Veronica calls it pretty well. Trudeau is just a puppet dancing to the DC Elites’ string-pulling, as we all know. Past links (weekend) at this site show full-spectrum surveillance of everyone’s data, including financial, by NSA et al. We already have Stephen Donziger and Julian Assange as test cases for the future. Seriously bother the central elites and the “rule of law” pretense is gone, doesn’t matter. You can be kidnapped and jailed indefinitely, have your assets grabbed if you contribute to anything that they materially call “terrorism”– which could include, e.g. past actions of elderly pacifist Catholics pouring blood on nuclear weapons. Or opposing basically any aspects of US foreign policy, esp. the “special relationship” with Settler Colonialist Apartheid state of Israel. Big Dem congress leadership group there now lauding the slow immiseration and removal of the Palestinian people, the full handover of everything to a tiny corporate elite, with a few non-white faces admitted for “woke” politics is ongoing . . . .Other countries may (?) have some actual Left resistance, but not the US, where the populace are dumb, obese and largely compliant . . . Well, as Gandhi supposedly said, “Western Civilization sounded like a good idea”, in the English-speaking world I think it’s on its last legs and we will have the kind of “black iron prison” that NSDAP party-members were dreaming of 90 years ago, with the likes of the Proud Boys as enforcers when/if needed. 10% who support the current 2-party duopoly, the PMC and the Republican “Daddies” who serve corporate FIRE/Big Pharma/ sectors will rule jointly and thrive. The rest of us will be out in the cold, if not doing slave-level labor. . . Oh, and bye-bye Unions, any pretense of a “minimum wage” or women’s rights to do anything but obey now that SCOTUS has been given to the 19th century Dred Scott crew. I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see Ayn Rand on the Blockchain “bills” or whatever is used, but that’s where the American “project” is headed.
Synopticon
Look to the articulation of CSEC and FinTRAC. Intergovernmentally, a backbone infusion.
warvigilent
without going full conspiracy as some have, Id say that especially given it has already been rescinded, that this was just Trudeau kicking the conservatives a win in the next election. They are in shambles compared to the harper cons with little direction other than Canadian trumpism. They would have nothing to run on without this , and with this they can position themselves as the “FREEDOM” party , as well as using it against the ndp.
Veronica
@Mark Level
I wasn’t trying to say that, and I’m sorry if it came out that way. I’m going off of Bobbitt’s idea: namely, that international relations, domestic constitutional law, military strategy and domestic policing are all related in a way similar to how a hand’s fingers, skin, and bones are related to a winter glove. If a person loses 200 kilos, they usually need additional surgery to remove excess skin and need to buy new clothes, right? Something similar happens if a state gets new technology that changes how it can conquer foreign — or control domestic — people….
Bill Owen
The Police in Ottawa are out of control.
https://williamowen.substack.com/p/the-police-are-out-of-control?utm_source=url
Trudeau, or more precisely Bill Blair brought in the EMA to rein in a police force gone rogue.
The social damage wrought by this pandemic is incalculable.