Trudeau Invokes Emergencies Act (opens in new tab)

As I wrote elsewhere in this thread [1], I recommend taking a look at this channel or other extended livestreams to get a view from the ground if your impression of this event has been mostly shaped by articles. That recommendation goes for all major protests, especially if you think you disagree with the people protesting.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30340938

Why not do the obvious thing: send the police in to arrest people who won't leave. Tow their trucks. That worked at the border the other day -- why wouldn't it work in Ottawa too? It's not like the Canadian police haven't dealt with large protests in the capital before.

If that approach doesn't work, then it might make sense use emergency powers. But why go straight to emergency powers without trying to clear people out the normal way?

For me the main takeaway from the protests so far is that the Canadian police are either afraid to, or unwilling to, enforce the law, and the government at all levels is afraid to make the police do their jobs.

The bureaucratic state can freeze your bank account, revoke your license, and shut down your life, all remotely.

And now they've set precedent for future protests. I don't know how anyone who considers themselves a liberal or Leftist can support this.

...Now the fact a bunch of donors are American and not Canadian is... Fascinating...

I'm not sure what to do about that little chestnut... Sorry Canada. Welcome to politics by free trade I guess???

The rest of the truckers will have to obtain a proof of vaccination BEFORE they are aloowed to drive their trucks again.

“This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people? Over 80% of the population of Quebec have done their duty by getting the shot. They are obviously not the issue in this situation.”- this is according to this article: https://thepulse.one/2022/01/03/prime-minister-justin-trudea...

After all, extremists either left or right, terrorists and criminals have been doing that for years on Signal.

The issue is that Ottawa Police were afraid of media backlash if they did any crowd control for the initial "protest" weekend. This allowed the occupiers to move in heavy machinery as barricades. When the weekend ended and the trucks didn't move, they realized they were dealing with something closer to an insurrection than a protest, and they've been impotent to stop it since.

THe people of Ottawa overwhelmingly support ending the occupation. It has terrorized women, queer people and people of color on the streets. They've been violent and confrontational with front-line workers, which forced two grocery stores to close their doors, plus a large mall. There have been two documented attempts to burn down residential apartment buildings and trap the occupants inside.

This weekend hundreds of Ottawa residents marched in a counter-protest, and also blocked the road and held up a convoy of trucks for more than 8 hours. The occupiers are a small group of people who are acting badly - shitting in the streets, getting drunk, blaring their horns, and using their children as human shields. Everyone will celebrate when they're gone for good.

Using government power intended for things like war to suppress a protest is ridiculous, if this is what being "liberal" is about, I'm out.

I hope the response is a protest escalation. Not my country, not my protest, but I know who I'm rooting for.

Contrast this to what was happening in Minneapolis a couple of summers ago... people burning down buildings, shops, and police stations and the fire and police literally afraid to go places in the city until we had armed forces marching through the streets. Those are the kind of popular uprisings that need to be dealt with, not streets being blocked by unhappy people.

Whether the response is authoritarian depends on how it is enforced. The police have basically failed to enforce any law on the occupiers on parliament hill (I live here). If the local enforcement had happened preemptively and as per the law, the situation wouldn't have escalated as far as it has done.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/02/12/two-thirds-of-canadia...

The current approach seems to be a lot more mild than what the public would accept.

I suspect that if Trudeau enforces Ottawa laws (which the police haven't), then stands down, this won't hurt public perception.

Say what now? Which part of the act allows that? I skimmed through it and didn't see anything relevant.

He has a minority government. A weak one at that. If he really lost his mandate there would be a snap election already.

The province is governed by a right-winger who will not do anything to upset his base. They've been pointing fingers at the municipal police, and vice-versa, and refusing to act.

The truckers are a very small group with no cohesive messaging. It's a bunch of dudes having a party and yelling about how they want to overthrow the government and install JFK Jr or whatever. There is no dialogue that would de-escalate them, it would only legitimize them.

The people of Canada have overwhelmingly stated that they want the occupation to end. They're sick of seeing people desecrate monuments, steal from the homeless, harass vulnerable people, shit in the streets, and make noise 24/7. The truckers have started taking their flags down when they're driving in town because everyone hates them and they don't want to be seen outside the red zone.

What was the "first resort"? Trudeau isn't even willing to speak with the protesters.

>There is still no indication Trudeau is willing to sit down or speak to convoy participants. He said he doesn’t regret describing those taking part with “unacceptable views” as a “fringe” in Canada[0] [0] https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/pm-says-everything-on-the-ta...

Indeed, and there is ample case law from the Supreme Court of Canada that provides guidance to judges as to how to apply that section of the Charter.

R v. Oakes was one of the seminal cases in that regard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Oakes

Apart from the quarantine requirements and possibly your point about free expression (though I'm not sure which incident that refers to and you provided no references), none of the rest of that list is under the purview of the federal government and is instead decided upon by the provinces.

In case you aren't familiar, Canadian provinces have near total control over most areas, with the federal government typically stepping in only in areas that were explicitly granted to it. The provinces, for instance, are responsible for all healthcare related decisions within their borders. The federal government licenses drugs and treatments as a centralized body for all provinces, though I believe here too the provinces can take some steps on their own. Provinces can equally ignore the charter rights of citizens for a set period of time by invoking a specific clause when passing legislation (it's been done several times recently). Provinces wholly own their mineral rights, including into the waters on their borders.

The point I am making with this explanation is that the issues the convoy began protesting (that truckers had to be vaccinated to cross the US/Canada border) made sense to protest federally. Once it was apparent the US had implemented the same rule (coming into effect before Canada, if I remember rightly), the protest became about other mandates. These other mandates are purely provincial jurisdiction and the federal government could only hope to convince the Premiers to do what they ask. The protest is misplaced in its entirety at this point, which is why there is no cohesive direction.

Also: China handled the pandemic way better than the West.

Source that China is not bug-free

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jAM3nmNTS4

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Hot5n2Evg

- the vaccines are relatively new and long term effects are unknowable,

- efficacy against the current variant questionable and

- the current variant being mild enough even in unvaccinated populations

it is perfectly reasonable to have a significant percentage of the population to be unvaccinated, just to have a control for long term studies and for backup in case horrible side-effects come up in the long run.

The vaccine makers will try to argue otherwise and try to sell as much as possible, which is why the governments should have made strong commitments to make it strictly optional and prohibited any private attempts to make it mandatory.

Instead, we have seen most world politicians act as if they were completely bought out by the vaccine manufacturers.

We Canadians had a fairly single issue election in the fall around vaccine mandates and the Liberal party won. The question is not “are mandates allowed” but “can a group be allowed to take cities hostage while trying to overthrow democratic rule.” The issuing of mandates was not even passed through fiat like an American executive order, this government is a minority government and at least one other party must support them to pass legislation.

One man’s authoritarianism view can be another man’s view of the state protecting it’s people. There certainly should be limits, but our election was highly focused on determining those limits (whether you like the FPTP system or not).

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/02/12/two-thirds-of-canadia...

The current approach seems to be a lot more mild than what the public would accept.

This lets the feds use their own police to enforce existing law, for example.

Do you understand how much $ worth of mobilization has to happen to safely attempt to deal with people who say they’re going to start shooting at you in a city?

It’s a lot of time, money, & other resources. You can choose to cognitive dissonance this fact, but it doesn’t change it.

IMO, Canada didn’t use as much force as they should’ve to remove people who literally told them they were going to fight to the death instead of moving. Pretty big threat.

Trying to avoid the black pill today by reminding myself that this is all being done to maintain a mandate to cross international borders, and what was probably the real prize (domestic vaccine passports for access to public life) seems to be hanging by an increasingly thin thread.

Not even a planck length of surprise to anyone.

>Given some obvious inevatabilities that flow downstream of this, what's the smart thing to do as an individual?

What a great question. Staying neutral? Join the protests on some side? At least try to understand what's happening?

>If you are aligned to the official narrative, the incentives are to double down to make sure nobody suspects you of disloyalty if it prevails.

I think when folks like Bill Maher call Trudeau out as sounding like Hitler... that was before he declared this last night. Even those on the left are seeing this as way too far. Something the convoy seems to have done is show how detached from reality Trudeau has become. He used to be a guy who would stand up in town halls and talk to anyone.

>f you are on the side of revolt, the official narrative is so increasingly divorced from reality as a means to signal it doesn't have to care about it - because this is how it says it is powerful - that it is impossible to sustain the dissonance to find any common ground or agreement in principle.

The mandates are falling around the world. Trudeau introduced new restrictions in January sparking this protest. It's clearly the wrong direction. The 'covid conspiracy theory' that this isn't about health. There hasnt been an emergency in quite some time. Trudeau's hand got laid down last night. This is no longer a conspiracy theory.

>I just don't see reconciliation as a result of this emergencies act process.

The Ottawa police have been unable to end the protests because they are legal peaceful protests. This emergencies act explicitly says you cant remove their internationally recognized human rights. Trudeau will find out shortly that the protesters are still not going anywhere, but worse force his hand. I will be quite surprised if the military doesnt get involved.

>My bets would be on a ratcheting up of controls over internet services, hyper aggressive financial services and tax enforcement, over the top surveillance exampples as threats, a miasma of staged and real "random" violence, escalating hit jobs and cancellations of the reasonable and principled, an official pivot to "fighting hate/terror" as a permanent emergency, etc.

No crystal ball needed to make these predictions. That's going to happen for sure.

>The only question to me is whether a new class of plausible leaders emerges to replace the terrible ones responsible for this nonsense, or decades of low level conflict with a radicalized populace vs. a state that has more international support than national legitimacy. The only out is removing internal passport controls and mandates. The alterative is clear. Such interesting times.

I have such respect for Liberal MP Joel Lightbound. A week ago he came out and said exactly this. Talk to the protesters, give them a reasonable roadmap to no restrictions. Stop the inflammatory attacks.

Nobody is saying you must drop the mandates tomorrow. But the reason Trudeau has gone this far is because there is no roadmap to no restrictions. Restrictions are staying. The protesters forced hishand and revealed this reality.

> I could characterize it in a number of ways, but there is nobody left to persuade.

but then you characterise one side with:

> If you are aligned to the official narrative, the incentives are to double down to make sure nobody suspects you of disloyalty if it prevails.

which is downright biased.

It’s time for Canada to rewrite the Constitution and to enshrine some inalienable rights and freedoms.

…and then face elections with this track record, hence why this is the first time this bill has been invoked in 50 years.

"Don't like first amendment speech? Just suspend the constitution!"

We should start processing asylum claims from the north...

Trudeau had been advocating via the WTO for the removal of farming subsidies & MSP for Indian Farmers for years at that point.[1]

If he had any semblance of moral consistency, then he would have been an ardent supporter of the farm bill.

[1] https://theprint.in/diplomacy/trudeau-backs-farmers-protest-...

These are not peaceful protests. It's an occupation backed by our extreme right wing and significantly funded by people in other countries (cough). It's been terrorizing local residents night and day. Too loud to sleep, get harassed if you leave your house, and in one case the occupiers attempted to light an apartment building on fire and trap the residents inside.

Our local municipal police and council could not have done a worse job in the early days of this situation, and now the occupiers are well entrenched.

The occupation is also easy to mimic. A small group closed down a $300mil/day border crossing into the US. Another blockade in Alberta has now had 12 arrests and two caches of weapons siezed.

Before anyone brings up BLM, I will say I don't agree with violent protests on either side and that BLM protests were peaceful here in Ottawa.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-premiers-cabinet-1.... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/justin-trudeau-invokes-em...

etc.

I am not surprised, this is the usual hypocrisy of the far left wing do gooders of the western world. Anyone who opposes them is a "violent fascist" even if there is no real violence and their own supporters turning violent are social justice warriors fighting the inequality.

Trudeau is a pussy and a tyrant and I hope the honking continues and truckers wont back off. Indian community in USA and India would gladly contribute to the protestors. For FREEDOM.

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.

- These aren't peaceful protests, they're an occupation by a fringe group

- You're allowed to protest, but not have an impact on the economy

- You're allowed to protest, but not block critical infrastructure

- An as of yet unattributed violent act was committed during the midst of the protests, therefore they are not peaceful protests, they are violent extremists

I sympathize with people living in Ottawa, it must be loud, frightening, and angering to be occupied by an unruly protest. I don't want to make a comparison to other protest movements of recent memory and how they were handled. Demonstrations are always unpleasant and inconvenient for bystanders, that's almost the entire point.

Do we want demonstrations contained by free speech zones as were so controversial during the 2000s? If we can freeze bank accounts of demonstrators participating in protests that are deemed illegal, what else can we do? Should the government force Apple and Google to lock people out of their phones because they are using them to coordinate illegal protests? Lock them out of email and social media? Ban businesses in general from serving them? I don't believe the government would go that far, but how far do we want them to go? Freezing bank accounts is too far for me.

Try to remember that the government rarely yields back powers we give them, but they do change hands. What we see here today will be used against movements you support. Maybe next year.

In my province, we have to show our "vaccine pass" to go to the liquor store, the hardware store, I don't know what else, I dont go to stores anymore (I have all 3 vaccine shots). We have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, and that has just emboldened "leaders" to push even tighter restrictions. The protests are about the horrible place our country has become, they have nothing to do with belief or disbelief in vaccines as a concept.

And I have to add, if there was ever a vaccine to disbelieve in, it is this one, I mean honestly, it "prevents severe infection" - sure, is that justification for state compelled vaccination?

1) The "Common Denominator Fallacy" accepts both of an argument or position on the grounds that both sides share at least some common assumptions. In this case, you're attempting to draw common ground between the issues of bodily autonomy involved in abortion, and the protester's views of bodily autonomy w.r.t. vaccine mandates. This is incorrect; someone having an abortion or not fundamentally only affects that person; it does not cause someone else to get sick or die. Not being vaccinated, in some circumstances, does.

I don't support mandatory vaccination for all jobs (e.g. cutting down trees outside can be done just fine if you're not vaccinated), but part of living in a society is accepting certain restrictions on oneself to support the common good. The argument being made by the Canadian government is that vaccine mandates are such a restriction.

2) Nobody is "forcing" anyone to take a vaccine. People may choose to not be vaccinated, but if they make that choice, then they must live with the outcomes of that choice. In this case, truckers are perfectly capable of choosing not to be vaccinated, but the outcome of that choice is not being allowed to cross borders. Not "lose their job" - just live with certain restrictions on their behaviour as a result of their choice.

(Side note: owners of trucking companies may choose to terminate an employee for not being able to drive to the USA if that's a job requirement, but that's at the discretion of the company and is not mandated by the government. They could, for example, also choose to retask unvaccinated employees to drive routes that are not subject to mandates.)

The truckers are and have always been free to choose not to be vaccinated (or, as their leaders put it, be subject to medical experiments). By choosing not to take the vaccine they are shunned from participating in activities in which they would put the general public at greater risk of more severe forms of the disease. They have the freedom; what they want is to not suffer the consequences of exercising that freedom.

To emphasize their demands to not experience the consequences of their decisions they have driven thousands of miles to a larger city (population of Ottawa-Gatineau is about 1.5 million) and proceeded to reign anarchy and lawlessness on the innocent denizens of that location and call for inappropriate physical interactions with the prime minster who has no jurisdiction of provincial health matters but is hated and despised by this group not because of what he had said or done but just because of who he is.

Those brutes are just selfish and infantile. They have spent 3 weeks invading and partying in someone else's home. They have a right to protest without fear of government repercussions, but their actions overstepped the bounds of protest appropriate to their legitimate complaint long ago and has veered into lawlessness for the sake of lawlessness. They are no different than a grade-school bully trying to get everyone's lunch money in the playground.

What these mothertruckers should do is just say sorry and go home. It's time.

These give even more ammunition to the skeptics.

https://nitter.net/ChickenGate/status/1492673621344632835#m

Here, it's important to understand that vaccines do much more than protect a singe trucker from getting sick. It makes the population more resistant to the disease and lowers the infection rate. Low infection rates keep people who really can't be vaccinated safer. And, perhaps most importantly, it lowers the chance of dangerous mutations from developing and being selected.

Truckers that refuse to vaccinate are making a choice that affects all of us. It's not up to them to allow the pandemic to continue forever.

With all of that said, I hope that it's also clear why we can't compare the decision to not get vaccinated with the choice of getting an abortion.

I’d be curious to know the type of apolitical source of news you consume, considering the flat out incorrect claims in your post.

The worst effect of the covid pandemic has been whipping up opposing mass hysterias.

Both sides are wrong. Take the shot or don't if you want to. Suffer or enjoy the consequences of your decision. Nothing in life is justified now. Nothing in life was justified ever. Nothing in life needs to be justified.

The whole universe doesn't even need to exist. Instead there could just be nothing. But we worry about our stupid vaccine fears and mask fears while the feral human is increasingly domesticated into docile livestock.

They already haven't worked in a few weeks. If they keep not working, it won't change anything.

Something tells me finding replacements wouldn’t be hard to do.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/10/0...

https://theconversation.com/before-9-11-australia-had-no-cou...

    It seems like (maybe it's a polarization thing) its becoming 
    more common for all sides to want to go straight to the 
    (thankfully only metaphorical) nuclear option to try and 
    end situations.

This blockade has been ongoing for weeks. Maybe you only just heard about today, but they certainly didn't go "straight to the nuclear option."

Also, what do you mean by "nuclear option" anyway? To me, that would be the most extreme possible response. Nobody is saying the current situation is great, but there is clearly a lot of room left for escalation. (May it never come to that)

Calling the current state of affairs "the nuclear option" is disingenuous at best.

Everything is "unprecedented" and the "biggest threat to society" and other sensational labels.

I think it may come from the media who tend to sensationalize often?

people get war fatigue all the same.

Further an authoritarian regime is perfectly sound as long as they're perfectly behaved. You shouldn't protest against that, agreed?

I'm in the US. I follow 2 Canadians (that I know of), AvE, who seems to strongly support the Truckers, but he seems to lean right. The other is Julie Nolke, who is unlikely to ever mention it.

Getting a clear picture of it was something I would have counted on the media to do in my youth, 40 years ago, but they have proven themselves unreliable and quite deceitful when they have motive to be. (Iraq invasion anyone?)

The Canadian government seems to be over-playing its hand, and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This will not do anything but erode the trust in the government, which is bad for everyone.

----

Here in the US, I've had my shots, and wear a mask in public. I've been dealing with Long Covid, so I take this stuff more seriously than the average person.

Our government here in the US has failed to manage its message in a coherent manner. We're told to wear masks, but far to many people here, when they do wear masks, use them as chin straps, or have their nose hanging out. People have given up, and now are just going through the motions.

Covid is endemic now, and even this failure won't push through the single payer system the US so desperately needs for its own National Security.

As for "vaccine passports"... I've heard the term, but have never had cause to deal with them.

----

I miss Canada... we were there a few times before Bush got stupid and required passports. 8( Almost $600 just to get 3 passports is absurd.

Canadian here. Americans are concerned about Canadian democracy falling. 43 out of 50 states have no mandates; the remaining 7 are clear political lines. Many other countries in the world never had restrictions. Many who did have also dropped them. It's unreasonable for a high vaccinated country to remain so restricted. The smearing of these protests has been extreme to the point that the world is commenting how bad it is in Canada.

>While invocation of the Emergencies Act is always concerning, it's pretty clearly warranted here. There's always chance for abuse, but Trudeau's minority government is on thin ice and if they cross any lines they're as good as gone.

It's absolutely not warranted but also completely invalid. You cant use the act to shutdown peaceful protests. Several premiers who should have been consulted as per requirements of the act are publicly opposing this.

>I can only imagine the chaos that would unfold if this was happening in Washington, D.C., but it's not. I know some outraged Canadians who support the protests/blockades, but most of them are either extreme right wing (a comically small population compared to USA) or heavily biased through being directly impacted by restrictions (like the travel industry).

That's quite the characterization. Absolutely not accurate compared to my understanding.

>The vast majority of my friends, family, colleagues, strangers on the street, business owners I interact with, lawyers, CEOs, investors, healthcare workers, waiters, bartenders, bus drivers, teachers... are all in strong support of putting an end to the disruption, and in favour of vaccine passports, mask mandates, gathering restrictions, etc. to protect public health.

Of your friends.

https://twitter.com/AngusReid/status/1488044322192695297

In reality polls show somewhere between 50% and 75% of Canadians support the protests and think restrictions must end. you know... like the rest of the world is doing.

>Compared to the USA, Canadians care much more about what's best for the collective whole than about personal freedoms. This is simply a case of a small minority causing problems for the majority, amplified by the fact that the USA leans towards supporting the protestors.

You seem to be living in a political bubble. Out of curiosity, do you believe Trudeau when he says the protesters are 'fringe minority of racists, sexists, and white supremacists?'

In Canada we call that a plurality. As for wether it’s warranted and 8 of 10 premiers are against its invocation in their provinces.

Since when did economic disruption become violence? I just don't understand. It makes zero sense to redefine violence to mean "something that inconveniences me, that I disagree with", Where does that end?

When next the liberals want to protest something - an oil pipeline for instance (economic disruption) - would that also be called violence?

Our charter right is peaceful assembly. If the protests were not peaceful, the police would be right to shut them down. The reason the Ottawa police cannot do anything for weeks is because they are peaceful.

>On the other hand, I’ve heard the protests have caused millions in trade to be shut down which I would not consider a peaceful act.

That would be an incorrect characterization. The bridge blockade did not touch the tunnel. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2022/02/12/Detroit-...

Furthermore, a blockade that isn't violent... isn't violence.

>If some non-citizen entity shut down millions in trade, I don’t think it would be viewed as peaceful.

Yes Trudeau has alleged that these blockades/occupations/sieges are in fact the US government. Even using the name occupation is a international definition. Military occupations would certainly justify the measures being taken by the Canadian governments.

I even agree, if the USA has a military occupation over Canada. Trudeau is right to do what he has done.

That's not what is happening. Trudeau is looking to squash peaceful political protests and the propaganda of calling the protesters racists and white supremacists is insane.

>Should the right to peaceful protest include the right to halt trade at this scale? Are the reports of halted trade overblown?

If the protests 'are at this scale' absolutely. Though yes, clearly the detroit tunnel was open. They even had 1 lane open for the bridge. It's completely overblown.

The correct action for the governments to do when protesters are blockading isn't to send in the guns and tear them down. It's to open conversation with the peaceful protesters. Liberal MP Joel Lightbound is a smart man. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-mp-politicization-p...

the protesters just need a roadmap to no restrictions and human rights being returned.

Trudeau has taken this action because there is no roadmap. He wishes to keep the totalitarian state.

This is incorrect, adenoviral vector vaccines (certainly, ones which induce cells to express cytotoxic spike proteins) are also quite new and relatively untested. My wife's period was messed up by her J&J shot and my friend's mother had to have surgery to remove a life-threatening blood clot from her leg. And if the idea is "just get the shot so you can move on with your life," well, the J&J shot only buys you two months of reprieve under most of the mandate & passport schemes.

Other than that, I greatly appreciate your comment.

I'm not sure why people think getting vaccinated is evidence of support for mandatory vaccinations.

Taxes are mandatory too, I pay them not because I think they're at the right level and used for the right things, but because of the practical repercussions of what would happen if I didn't and I got found out.

(it shouldn't matter, but - I'm double vaccinated, mainly because the jurisdiction I live in requires it for air travel. I have no strong feelings about vaccines either way).

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis

> police officials sometimes abused their powers without just cause, and some prominent artists and intellectuals associated with the sovereignty movement were detained.

And to all the comments saying Canadians are supporting this move, they also supported it back in 1970. It's when they saw the consequences and that they actually understood how wrong it was that popular support dropped.

Your sources indicate that the majority of the funding is from Canada. The second largest source is from the US (which doesn't seem out of place, given that cross-border trucking restrictions affect both American and Canadian truckers):

> A review of the data shows that some $4.3 million came from Canada, while another $3.6 million originated in the United States, though the United States accounted for the most individual donations. Small donations from dozens of other countries made up a fraction of the total amount raised.

> and that most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners, not workers

This is true for most causes. Workers don't have much money to donate, and rely on wealthier people sympathetic to their cause.

That's irrelevant. The protest is not against vaccines.

I'm fully vaccinated and have voluntarily received my booster shot, and I would support the convoy if I was Canadian. I also support vaccination and want the highest amount of people to be vaccinated. There's no contradiction there. I want people to get vaccinated, I just don't want people to be forced to get vaccinated.

> Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign

The news has spread to the world and it's currently the most notable example of government vs. anti-mandate disputes.

> most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners,

Most donations, in general, are almost always from wealthy people, for the very obvious reason that they have more money to donate.

The channel owner is a Canadian lawyer named Viva Frei. Frei's personal attitude toward the protests is broadly supportive, but the valuable thing about his coverage is that he speaks to anybody who is willing to talk to him as he wanders around the streets of Ottawa, including counter-protestors.

A livestream can never be a true replacement for being there in person, but this is the best that I've found. Coverage from other livestream channels is also easily available on YouTube.

It's very easy for lack of understanding to lead to distrust, fear, and hate. You can (and very well might) disagree with people after having heard them out, but you will almost certainly view them as more human, and is that not the central feature the empathetic mindset is supposed to be about?

If you have the time, I recommend making an effort to watch extended and unedited interviews with the people behind any protest movement you intend to form a strong opinion about (not just this one).

Remember that the literal definition of "prejudice" is something close to a "decision formed without due examination of the facts or arguments necessary to a just and impartial decision." [1] If you don't wish to be prejudiced, don't let yourself form a strong opinion without first having learned what people you think you disagree with have to say for themselves.

[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/prejudice#etymonline_v_19410

- Plenty of vaccinated people against vaccine mandates and other restrictions. Doctors are allowed to be Covid positive and treat patients in BC and QC. But apparently truckers who are Covid negative are a problem?

- Foreign money influence is a problem, sure, but businesses? They can’t support a protest?

- Last poll I saw (Ipsos) said 1 out of 3 Canadians support the protest. 1 out of 3. That’s HUGE.

There are multiple _legal_, _judicial_ injunctions in place and the police are failing to enforce them. The rule of law is breaking down and that cannot be allowed to happen.

Others have addressed the fact that more than half the funds are from Canada.

Imagine if someone tried to discredit BLM by saying that most of the funding came from wealthy business and not individual black community members...

>The data presented herein are derived from survey data produced using Vox Pop Labs' online public affairs panel

So, it's useless... their primary method of polling is journalists interviewing people that they select? The people that do not support mandates generally do not support journalists, making this survey utterly useless and biased from the start.

If you look at a reputable pollster, and not a couple of ideologues sitting in a room, you'll find large swathes of populations that are very skeptical of mandates, even in very liberal Europe. [2] In Germany, a whopping 62% are against it. While in France, it's 75% against.

[1] https://covid19monitor.org/

[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/02/03/as-pandemic-co...

My understanding was this was about the mandates and restrictions themselves not about the vaccine.

I mean I am vaxxed and oppose vax mandates.

Homeless shelters were raided by protestors, businesses have been forced to close due to threats, and people are afraid to leave their homes.

This isn't about protesting "at all" it's about protesting in a way that stings the government. You can protest in a legal way but then you're dismissed. The Truckers are protesting in a way that can't be dismissed. They've chosen to risk serious consequences because to them the status quo is worse. Protests like this are a sign of a failure of leadership and representation.

[0] https://youtu.be/0DvVtDHEizk?t=51

By protesting only against things that Trudeau himself supports protests against, obviously /s.

Unfortunately, it is only a halfway sarcasm, because it legitimately sounds like this is how it might go down.

(I am not even thinking of whether it's justified, good or bad, just reasoning about motivations)

It was loud the first week due to honking but even that's stopped. And even if there were honking, that's not violence.

I am brown and my buddy is black and neither of us met with anything other than friendly hugs and fist bumps. Then we get home and see an entirely different reporting on media and by government.

Here's an article written by a government employee who lives right above the protests:

https://maybury.ca/the-reformed-physicist/2022/02/03/a-night...

EDIT: Reply to comment below, I was personally there because of the air-travel mandate by the Feds and restaurant/gym mandates by my province. Triple vaxxed Trudeau can fly even while he caught COVID. Triple vaxxed Mayor Jim Watson can go to restaurants and gyms despite being COVID+. But I am not allowed to fly or go to restaurants and gyms even if I can show a negative COVID test.

I also talked to nurses there who worked for 2 years taking care of COVID patients, caught COVID along with their entire family, got natural immunity which is superior, and then got fired for not taking the shots. Yet Ontario and Quebec is letting COVID+ nurses to work if they are vaxxed.

Also women are a lot more against the mandates than men based on my impression which seems to match the surveys.

The act you're referring to was the War Measures act, which has been repealed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergencies_Act

Hmm, seeing how things are evolving it was the politically astute thing to do. It's win win, cynical but insures a greated measure of electoral survival.

They'll maybe lose the city center voters who couldn't sleep, but that's more or less that. However this concludes, most of it'll land on Trudeau's lap, no so much theirs.

1- https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/hate-crimes-ottawa-protest

2- https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/coutts-protest-blocka...

3- https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/anarchism-convoy-column-don...

The truckers assert their livelihoods are already heavily impacted. This crowd appears to be much larger than simply anti-vaxxers.

The government can come and clear it out, then they’ll be another assembly somewhere else by a different group. Unless Trudeau is willing to mass arrests of thousands of Canadians, he won’t stop it.

It seems to be the problem the government has is looking weak - but invoking an Emergencies Act only makes them look more desperate.

My guess is this goes on for a few more weeks while the Canadian gov’t and provinces declare “no more need for Covid restrictions thanks to our amazing handling of the situation”. The govt gets to save face while giving the protestors what they want.