Canada General Discussion (2019-)

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The problem here is that the residents in downtown Ottawa have suffered way beyond what's reasonable protest, and the protesters openly don't care about the consequences to other people. Freedom ends when other peoples' freedoms are damaged - in this case, the freedom to enjoy a quiet night's sleep, the freedom to earn a living at the mall, the freedom to attend school, and so on. The Ottawa police themselves admit they are too afraid to even issue tickets to those violating bylaws. When the police are even afraid to enforce small laws in an impartial way, then it's no longer a peaceful protest. If the protesters really want the freedom to honk their horns at night, they can find a currently closed campground in Algonquin Park, and honk all they want.

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Erin O'Toole is officially out. 73 to 45.

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Great News !! Poillievre For Leader

If that's the case, he'll lose his seat.

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In your country and mine we removed the freedom to earn a living at the mall and the freedom to attend school in the last 2 years for extended periods of time.

"I'm tired of my freedom being taken away, so I will take away the freedom of thousands of other people until I get what I want!!"



If they want to act like adults in a democratic society, and demonstrate peacefully and sue the government in courts, it's their entitlement. But if they want to act like manchildren, then they should be treated accordingly.

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The CPC blamed their poor performance among the Chinese Canadian community on propaganda from the other, more sinister CPC (Communist Party of China), despite the fact that the community is extremely fractious and has competing identities. The one thing that unites it is the very high level of concern about the pandemic and the much higher than average vaccination rate, and they were repulsed by Erin O'Toole's flip flopping about vaccines and other public health measures. Denial won't solve their problems.

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I doubt it's a coincidence that Bergen, the MP from the riding with the highest number of votes going PPC, was made the interim leader and has been unabashedly pro-trucker. The Tories probably figure that the Liberal and Trudeau brands are going to be so tarnished by the time the next election comes around that they'd lose to literally anyone (see: Premier Doug Ford), whereas if the PPC is able to seriously contest rural seats then the Conservatives have basically no path to a majority. However controversial they may be, nobody (except maybe traumatized downtown Ottawans who never vote Tory anyway) is going to be casting their ballot based on trucker protesters in a year, much like how the rail blockades had minimal impact on the last election.

First off, the rail blockades were pre-empted by the start of the pandemic, so of course, no one remembers them.

Secondly, there's another trucker convoy scheduled for this Saturday in downtown Toronto, outside the provincial legislature. For context, the provincial legislature is immediately adjacent to four of the city's largest hospitals. Already, some hospital appointments have been delayed, and hospital workers scheduled for this weekend have been asked to not wear their uniforms when coming to and from work. Any disruption to these hospitals will immediately turn the Conservative brand into radioactive waste in the GTA, which will destroy any hope of them forming government for a long time to come. The Toronto police are much less hesitant to break out the batons than their Ottawa colleagues, so there's a little hope on that aspect.

Thirdly, the Conservatives have demonstrated they can't play 3D chess, as much as they want to think they can. Harper was both smart (able to keep the party unified) and lucky (Liberals were leaderless). Complacency that "next time we will win for sure because the other guy will be so hated" is dangerous, as Scheer and O'Toole discovered, and as Democrats discovered in 2020.

The Conservatives should pray that the riot police break up the protest ASAP, so they can face-savingly denounce "a few radicals" while blaming Trudeau for various grievances anyway. The longer this goes on, the less this can happen.

The only real potential for a backfire would be if Trudeau suddenly decided to hold an election in the middle of the CPC leadership race, while they're still busy pandering to their base. In that case they'd actually have to deal with the disconnect now when people actually care, but I'm pretty sure it would also be completely unprecedented and early elections typically backfire on Prime Ministers. Still, with the inflation and supply chain issues I have a hard time imagining Trudeau having any better luck a year from now and at least right now there is a(n increasingly narrow) majority supporting mandates and lockdowns.

Any mandates are certain to be revoked in the coming weeks. Each relaxation of mandates will peel off the size of the crowd; and the smaller the crowd, the more radicalized, and the more embarrassing it will be for anyone who supported them. One group arrived today, led by a star of the QAnon movement who claims to be the secret Queen of Canada and who has ordered the execution of anyone involved in vaccinating children. The Queen of Canada then burned the national flag in front of the Parliament building, in which case, I can't think of any faster way to enrage and offend voters.

At that point, the Conservatives will be stuck having to explain their stance on a few dozen QAnon followers led by a self-professed Queen of Canada who burned the national flag, while the rest of the country will have moved on. They can again try to pivot to the middle to make themselves electable, but that will be even harder during the next election than it was in the last two ones. And, as I mentioned earlier, they can't simply assume they can coast to victory using the incumbent's unpopularity.

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https://innovativeresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CTM2201-Trucker-Protest-RELEASE-2-.pdf

In-depth poll that indicates that public opinion has swung sharply against the protest. It segments Canadians among their opinions about public health rules, and measures a change in their opinion last week.

Astoundingly, the "soft anti restrictions" demographic has swung 17 points against the protest since last week. This group also swung 31 points against the *way* of the protest.

If this continues and spreads, then Trudeau will have an overwhelming mandate for his own "just watch me" moment. If he does that, I won't put it past him to call a federal election immediately afterward, with a slogan of "law and order". I don't think the Conservative Party could survive that as we know it.

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Of course not, but if something happens that forces a "just watch me" moment, then it's foolish to think he won't take advantage of it.

The Ottawa police have now toughened their rhetoric and declared the gathering on Parliament Hill to be illegal and dangerous, and will be taking measures to disperse it. They're also promising to erect road blocks and shut down highways and bridges to prevent additional hangers on. Also, they're promising much more police presence.

We'll see how far this is put into actual practice. If this can be done without too much fuss, then it will be best for everyone. If not, then...

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Pierre Poilievre has announced he's running for "Prime Minister", without even mentioning Conservative leader. He's obviously doing the Trump strategy of gutting the party as an institution and turning it into his personality cult. Also, he may need to remember that his own constituents are also Ottawans who also incensed by what occurring in the downtown core, and that he came within a heartbeat of having to find an actual job in 2015.

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Pierre Poilievre has announced he's running for "Prime Minister", without even mentioning Conservative leader. He's obviously doing the Trump strategy of gutting the party as an institution and turning it into his personality cult. Also, he may need to remember that his own constituents are also Ottawans who also incensed by what occurring in the downtown core, and that he came within a heartbeat of having to find an actual job in 2015.

He lives far away enough not to be impacted, and particularly enjoys the fact that the truckers are mostly harassing the "lefties" who live in central Ottawa.

But his constituency is rapidly suburbanizing. The famous Loudoun County is a good analogy of where it's going. He previously represented Nepean, which is much more inner suburban, so I can see him finding a safer seat if the next election is after April 1, 2024, when the new boundaries come into effect.

In other news, the Toronto rally went as well as possible. The police allowed for a pedestrian rally at Queen's Park, and didn't allow any trucks to gather in one spot, while forcing convoys to keep moving along until they were scattered in the maze that's Toronto traffic. The Vancouver rally also ended without any occupation. There's a small occupation in Quebec City, but police have been aggressively fining those who honked, so there's little impact to residents.

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Justin Trudeau emerged in Parliament today, where he repeated his tough line that the protest has to end now.

Also, more protesters are blocking the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. I can't believe how stupid they are. First, they will directly annoy real truckers who are doing their jobs, and who won't hesitate to rough them up. Second, all the business interests in Ontario will be giving Doug Ford an earful to come out of hiding, and to tell the Conservatives to stop their thug-hugging.

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It's just a poll of Ottawa, but the mood among all Canadians won't be much different. 67% of people oppose the occupation, and 87% of people want the convoy to go home. Even 46% who supported the convoy want it to end. 64% of Conservative supporters oppose the convoy. No person in power gets good reviews from Ottawans.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/majority-of-ottawa-residents-oppose-freedom-convoy-protest-poll-finds-1.5771778

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1490837096076300288

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Poilievre and much of the CPC hitched their wagons to the truckers - recently, a couple of CPC MPs came out against the protestors, but the majority are still backing them, or at least expressing sympathy. This is a risk - if this blows over soon, Poilievre will be rewarded in energizing this bloc of support for the leadership election, and most ordinary voters will have forgotten by the next election. But if there's a prolonged blockade and these events make a lasting impact in the public memory, then they might be shooting themselves in the foot.

At this very moment, the OPP are on the way to the Ambassador Bridge, and they will definitely crack some skulls in the process. As I stated before, the longer the occupation in Ottawa lasts, the more radicalized its participants; and the higher the chance that it ends with truncheons, tear gas, and mass arrests.

Then what? Poilievre and co. could declare these arrests as "hurr hurr Turdeau CCP-style political persecution", and champion these supposed "political prisoners", which would help them win back PPC support. But, the criminal prosecutions will take years, and will remain a cause celebre among their base. Poilievre and co. will be forced to continue championing them in order to retain their loyalty. The CPC can forget about even retaining official opposition status, let alone form government. The base simply won't let the CPC forget.

Or, the other choice is to say nothing and move on after the public have lost interest. The right-wing base will be angered that Poilievre will have done little more than pay lip service to their cause, and thus he would be seen as "slimy opportunistic politician #8432". A quick browse at Poilievre and Bergen's Twitter feeds indicates the base are demanding he do more to "help the freedom fighters". Poilievre has been completely silent, while Bergen has been spouting the usual BS in Parliament without doing more.

It's the same old problem of not being able to both motivate their base and attract the median voter, except this time it's playing out when Erin O'Toole's body is still warm.

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And as for the "Americanization" of our politics, yeah again that's not news by any stretch, and Poilievre isn't introducing a new element here. I think if you follow Canadian election campaigns without understanding the system, you could easily be mistaken into thinking it's a presidential campaign.

As others pointed out, each PM since the other Trudeau played their part in presidentializing the Prime Minister. Poilievre is pushing the boundaries, by not even pretending to be running for party leader.

Update on the Ambassador Bridge protest: there's somewhere between 100 and 150 vehicles on Huron Church in Windsor, plus about a hundred or so more non-participating sympathizers parked nearby. Vast majority are regular cars, a few mobile homes and maybe just over a half dozen actual rigs. Several hundred people on foot at the intersection barbequing, dancing and lighting fires.

Considering the value of the Ambassador Bridge's trade I'm kind of shocked there weren't thousands of OPP and RCMP with tanks but Windsor PD clearly isn't equipped for this. If this continues even a day longer the auto industry is going to start choking from supply shortages.

The strategy of the police in Windsor had been to wait it out, but they faced so much pressure to clear the blockade regardless of feelings. But, of course, the police should have been on standby since yesterday. The Toronto and Quebec police were much more proactive in this regard.

The Chrysler plant in Windsor sent people home due to the lack of work caused by the disruption of the bridge.

The occupiers became rattled that the real truckers hate their guts, and that the nearby McDonald's refused to serve them for not wearing their masks. They're, at this moment, spooked that one of their own was an informant, and they just attempted to re-block both directions of Huron Church Road, only to be blocked by the police. The group is now descending into a brawl outside the McDonald's.

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Must say I'm very pleased with this sudden outbreak of backbenchers on both sides of the aisle growing a spine and criticizing their leader.

Come to think of it, it's become disturbing how the expectation that party members cannot criticize their leader has become normalized in Canadian politics. You only otherwise see this in the most totalitarian of dictatorships.

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Normally I would be sympathetic to protesting against vaccine mandates, but not one’s led by fascists and wannabe US proxies.

I support the government of Canada critically against these petty people

What makes this much harder is the involvement of ex-military and ex-intelligence types in the organizational structure.

Candice Bergen is calling on the protestors to go home. It seems like the convoy's political capital has run out, and frankly, they've done it to themselves, as things have gone on long enough and gotten noticeably more unhinged. The CPC is right in trying to disown this, in case things get violent, but it would have been a lot smarter to take a neutral stance in the first place.

The OPP and RCMP have now kettled the blockade in Windsor by the Ambassador Bridge, the City of Windsor is in court to obtain an injunction ordering the blockade to disperse, and even the Governor of Michigan is offering to send equipment to assist in the cleanup operation. It's now inevitable that violence will break out, and that there will be mass arrests and serious criminal prosecutions. The prisoners will become a cause celebre among the far-right in Canada and around the world ("political persecutions"), and the people who started following Pierre Poilievre on Twitter will feel the most betrayed when he ignores them. They will then rage against the CPC as "worse than Turdeau lol", while the far-right types like Randy Hillier, Maxime Bernier, and Derek Sloan will make huge gains.

Meanwhile, the remains of the CPC will still emerge damaged, since their distancing from the convoy is too little, too late.

What's crazy is, nobody's come out of this looking good. The convoy is losing support by the day. Both Trudeau and Ford are being criticized for their response - Trudeau in particular is also getting caucus dissent (I think there's more than Lightbound and Rouillard, a governing party's MP doesn't call the government's policy divisive and unfair without getting kicked out - unless there are others backing them). The Tories have hitched their wagons to an unpopular movement, and are trying to distance themselves this late in the game.

The PPC will benefit the most. The chatter among the convoy supporters on social media is that the Conservative MPs who supported them over the past weeks were just slimy opportunists who are there to use them, while Randy Hillier and Maxime Bernier were consistent about their cause.

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Ontario government got an court order freezing the GiveSendGo funds.

https://twitter.com/GiveSendGo/status/1491940399505682434

GiveSendGo has responded defiantly, claiming that Canadian courts have no jurisdiction. Which is BS, because 1) the Ontario court order applies to Canadian bank accounts that receive funds from the platform, and 2) the US or Delaware court will issue an injunction freezing the funds in question.

Between this, and the impending police operation at the Ambassador Bridge, a sense of panic and despair will set in among the convoy organizers. Their funds will have been cut off, and their strongest leverage will have been eliminated. Most of the hangers-on protesters will take the hint and go home, but the radicalized core will find they have nothing to lose. And that's when things will get very dangerous.

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Trudeau is now meeting with the leaders of the opposition parties. If I had to guess, it could very well be to invoke the Emergencies Act.

"Just watch me."

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I feel like sending in the military would be an excessive move. People blocking ports of entry and annoying the residents of Ottawa isn't comparable to terrorists bombing institutions and kidnapping diplomats/government officials (the FLQ hadn't yet killed Laporte when the War Measures Act was enacted). If you're going to take any action against the truckers have the police to arrest them or set up a perimeter allowing the border crossings to reopen and then send in the military to protect downtown Ottawa and border crossings as a show of force (like the US sending in the National Guard to the Capitol after the January 5th "legitimate political discourse" happened).

If this was described about another country:

• Losing control of the core of the capital city to an armed anti-government group led by retired military and police officials, with police either unable or unwilling to enforce the law
• The group setting up shop literally across the street from the HQ of the national police
• The same group sending a mob to harass the capital city's residents, its airport, and schools
• Important border crossings blockaded by supporters of the armed group, immediately crippling the manufacturing industry

We would say the state is on the brink of collapse. Invoking the Emergencies Act doesn't necessarily mean soldiers in the streets. In this case, it could include making it a crime to block highways or border crossings, and allowing police to disperse blockades without court order. Police could also be allowed to stop and search vehicles without a warrant. The army could be drafted in to remove the vehicles in downtown Ottawa, and used as a propaganda show of force after the fact as you described. No one wants a Tiananmen Square, except the far-right grift machine.

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To the bolded, so much hate. If he's not willing to take the heat on this to do what he thinks is right, he's welcome to resign and the Liberal Party can pick a better leader.

Unless Trudeau thinks Manitoba should become its own sovereign state, getting the Canadian international border in Manitoba back open is his government's responsibility. The protests in Ottawa are different because there's no international border aspect of it and Ottawa is Ontarian provincial authority unless we're talking federal buildings and avenues where Ontario has no jurisdiction. Blocking the bridge at Windsor crossing to Detroit, that's federal responsibility again, not Ontario.

The argument here is that while the federal government controls the border itself, the blockade is on the highway leading up to the border, which is under provincial jurisdiction. This is, of course, a cop out, since RCMP were used to break up blockades of railways and pipelines by indigenous rights activists. One wonders what caused this difference in action by the same player.

In terms of dominating the conversation and making the end of mandates and restrictions a key issue they might be one of the most successful protest movements in recent memory. I'd imagine protesters and governments all around the world are taking notes of the power multiplying effect of trucks and industrial equipment, as well as the pressure exerted by strategic blockades at key ports of entry.

Of course every level of government is going to throw the book at the protesters themselves as soon as they have the ability but in terms of achieving stated political goals they're already ahead of BLM

These mandates were on their way out well before any convoy set off, and the organizers planned the timing of the convoy so that they could claim victory for what was already decided. There's evidence they planned a convoy to blockade Ottawa back in 2019, and would have found another grievance without any pandemic. When the convoy first arrived in Ottawa, the polls indicated that a slim majority of Canadians were willing to listen to the supposed demand of removing mandates. Since then, most Canadians have mentally separated the mandates and the blockades. "I want restrictions to end ASAP, but those running riot in Ottawa and elsewhere are anti-democratic hooligans" is the most common sentiment, the one that the Conservative Party leadership is now belatedly latching onto. You're right that in the future, governments will severely tighten up security at major infrastructure chokepoints, or add redundancy. I expect Wellington Street in Ottawa, and similar other locations worldwide to be pedestrianized - if people want to protest, they're free to, but only on foot.

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Not a capital city, but kind of happened in Seattle 18 months ago. Minus the ex-military part. I know how the left would've reacted if military got deployed.

"...but what about..."

Yes, the government lost control over parts of downtown Seattle. But, it wasn't an armed group led by ex-military personnel who had the stated aim of replacing Trump (the democratically elected leader) and Congress with an unelected junta that would override all government authority across the nation, nor did its supporters blockade or harass major infrastructure points like border checkpoints, airports, and the like.

The analogy for this is late 19th/early 20th century labor actions that intended to grind society to a halt to achieve what they wanted that workers' rights activists mythologize over. And just like those instances, the state's about to come in.

The difference here, like on January 6 in Washington, is that the organizers of the convoy seek (or sought, before they realized they weren't getting their way) to overturn a constitutional democratic order so they could monopolize power for themselves. The state is not "coming in" any more than rioters on January 6 are being prosecuted.

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The police in Windsor are giving out paper flyers stating that the emergency measures come into effect at midnight. They're not making any move as of yet.

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The most draconian proposal was from Lego, who wanted to tax all unvaccinated people. It would have opened a really bad can of worms. The tax agency would have the power to access medical files: which idiot thought of that?

In any case, the trend all around the world is to move towards relaxing restrictions. Even China, which is still stuck in 2020, is quietly acknowledging that its border restrictions will have to be relaxed starting from 2023.

Whichever public health restrictions that remain will either be quietly revoked or become dead due to low compliance. I myself no longer care about wearing a mask when I'm on the treadmill at the gym. I'll be really shocked if there are any restrictions other than entry requirements for foreigners after Easter.

Half an hour left before the moment of truth.

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On the one hand, it's understandable why the police didn't immediately fire tear gas at 12:01 AM last night. On the other hand, the fact that the police don't hesitate to fire tear gas at much larger crowds protesting legitimate social issues is deeply unfair.

In other news, the Pacific border crossing for trucks near Vancouver was blocked, though the RCMP prevented any further vehicles from entering. The Cornwall border crossing was also blocked by tractors. The time for Trudeau to say the three magic words is coming closer.

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I keep laughing at all of these people screaming about Trudeau at the protests. Yes, he's a proponent of restrictions, but all actual restrictions are implimented by each province. I haven't seen any posts about people screaming about Doug Ford, the guy who actually decides about restrictions.

Oh, believe me, these convoy protesters hate Doug Ford as much as the average social worker or teacher, just for an entirely different reason.

Meanwhile, far-right grifter Ezra Levant is tweeting like he's in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1492496515302146051