Did you hear that someone was killed by a mounted policeman as the “freedom convoy” was cleared out from downtown Ottawa this weekend? If so, that probably says a lot about your media diet, because it’s BS. A woman at the heart of a widely spread and false report of a trampling death amid the police operation to clear "Freedom Convoy" protesters from Ottawa streets Friday is very much alive, and Ottawa police say it's an example of the misinformation that has been spread throughout the three-week demonstration.
Have to say that now that more info has come to light about the Emergencies Act and its provisions and how they are being used, I believe this was not only a wrong but also an irresponsible choice on the part of Trudeau and his government. I think the powers granted pertaining to people's personal finances are far too over-reaching for the situation at hand. But hey, I'm a Yank, so why should it matter to me, right? Well...stranger things have happened other than folks on one side of a border looking at what folks on the other side are doing to deal with a few "undesirables" and thinking "Hey, that ain't a half bad idea!" And in this case, I think it's a bit more than half.
Just hard for me to rationalize how lesser legal means could not have been employed to solve a "civil disobedience" problem that had become a much larger and real problem other than a noisy and briefly inconvenient protest. I dare say protesters have their rights to do so, but they don't have the right to inflict harms on others beyond perhaps the most minor and briefest of inconveniences. And it shouldn't take a nuclear legal option to deal with it. The Break In Case Of Emergency glass had to be shattered to send in the Mounties and clear the offenders out? Which is apparently what has begun to happen this weekend? Really?
I know that's an oversimplification, but sometimes things are more simple than they seem. Until political sensibilities and ambitions become involved, of course. But one thing that's really simple is the fact that using a last resort legal mechanism to go beyond dealing with immediate and proximate civil disruptors and relatively low-level actual law breakers and threaten current and future financial contributors to political or political adjacent causes is not only not a good look, it is a despicable and very dangerous practice. Trudeau and his people got it wrong. But, like I said, I'm just a Yank. And one man's law and order is just another's dangerous illiberalism...uh, authoritarianism...well, some kind of ism anyway.
BTW...that small population country / powerful neighbor on its doorstep analogy is sort of thought provoking. Hmm...
Have to say that now that more info has come to light about the Emergencies Act and its provisions and how they are being used, I believe this was not only a wrong but also an irresponsible choice on the part of Trudeau and his government. I think the powers granted pertaining to people's personal finances are far too over-reaching for the situation at hand. But hey, I'm a Yank, so why should it matter to me, right? Well...stranger things have happened other than folks on one side of a border looking at what folks on the other side are doing to deal with a few "undesirables" and thinking "Hey, that ain't a half bad idea!" And in this case, I think it's a bit more than half.
Just hard for me to rationalize how lesser legal means could not have been employed to solve a "civil disobedience" problem that had become a much larger and real problem other than a noisy and briefly inconvenient protest. I dare say protesters have their rights to do so, but they don't have the right to inflict harms on others beyond perhaps the most minor and briefest of inconveniences. And it shouldn't take a nuclear legal option to deal with it. The Break In Case Of Emergency glass had to be shattered to send in the Mounties and clear the offenders out? Which is apparently what has begun to happen this weekend? Really?
I know that's an oversimplification, but sometimes things are more simple than they seem. Until political sensibilities and ambitions become involved, of course. But one thing that's really simple is the fact that using a last resort legal mechanism to go beyond dealing with immediate and proximate civil disruptors and relatively low-level actual law breakers and threaten current and future financial contributors to political or political adjacent causes is not only not a good look, it is a despicable and very dangerous practice. Trudeau and his people got it wrong. But, like I said, I'm just a Yank. And one man's law and order is just another's dangerous illiberalism...uh, authoritarianism...well, some kind of ism anyway.
BTW...that small population country / powerful neighbor on its doorstep analogy is sort of thought provoking. Hmm...