And the emergencies act is being challenged in court, which will determine if this is lawful.
Banks are private entities. They freeze accounts engaged in illegal activities regularly. The US does too - here's one random citation. [1]
[1] https://www.kqed.org/news/11899955/when-banks-turned-their-b...
The difference is that in liberal democracies, the executive branches has to convince a court before they can act. eg. getting a warrant before doing a search, or getting a conviction before imprisoning someone. The approach of "shoot first, you can sue us in court later" makes a mockery of this.
>Banks are private entities. They freeze accounts engaged in illegal activities regularly. The US does too - here's one random citation. [1]
They're both bad. This is just slightly worse because the government is directing businesses into targeting their political enemies.
Uh no, not really. I'm going to presume you're comparing with the US. Do you forget that the US kidnapped, imprisoned and murdered random people, including American citizens without any judicial oversight? Not to mention sweeping surveillance with laughable pretense of judicial oversight ( FISA courts)?
Executive branches have lots of power, and that power is controlled via checks and balances, the judicial and legislative branches ( in many countries the executive branch' power comes from the legislative and is directly beholden to it ( where PMs are sitting MPs)).
And? That's just as bad. I'm saying canada's actions are bad because they go against how liberal democracies should work, not against how the US works in practice
>Executive branches have lots of power
That's exactly why I'm concerned.
>and that power is controlled via checks and balances, the judicial and legislative branches ( in many countries the executive branch' power comes from the legislative and is directly beholden to it ( where PMs are sitting MPs)).
And 9/11 in the US shows how easily the populace can be convinced to abandon those liberal democracy ideals given a threat.
What stood out the most about these protests, vs most other large protests in recent Canadian history, is how many warnings the participants received. They were told time and time and time again by every party involved that their conduct was illegal - from the police as well as from municipal, provincial, and federal level. They were even given a court injunction against certain specific actions (horn honking), which was largely ignored after the first 24 hrs. They were engaged in illegal activities for weeks before this action was taken.
They are fully welcome to protest peacefully, on foot, in front of parliament like everyone else.
Much like how taking someone's car, even if you plan to give it back one day, maybe, if you think they deserve it, is still theft.
Because banks do it under duress, it's really the government that is doing this, not the bank itself.
