Excellent article and one that I wish my friends would read. Recently on a hike I mentioned how upsetting Trudeau’s actions are, and none of my friends had any idea what was happening up in Canada, except someone talked about a few things that I don’t believe are true: truckers were violent, few Canadians supported them, etc. - I think those things are not true.
As other people here have pointed out, cashless society is just asking for brutal government overreach.
> except someone talked about a few things that I don’t believe are true: truckers were violent, few Canadians supported them, etc. - I think those things are not true.
Have you sought out the information on whether it is or not, or just decided it wasn't?
Re: violence:
The scariest to me personally was someone attempting to start a fire in a building nearby to the convoy while duct taping the doors shut.[1]
Depending on your threshold for violence, the numbers could vary greatly, from a handful to several hundred.[2][3]
Regarding polling, there were a number of polls showing they didn't have broad support, especially as time went on.[4]
With a large enough gathering of people, for a long enough time, there will always be some violence. That doesn't necessarily make the gathering violent and it doesn't mean the organizers had violent intentions. I've watched a few live streams from people just walking around, talking to protesters at the event and none depicted any violent acts of any kind. There also weren't any swastikas or rebel flags that I could see in the huge crowds. This leads me to believe the incidents that did occur were isolated and not representative of the group as a whole.
Anyone claiming this was a "peaceful protest" is I think at this point choosing to ignore the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Separately, at what point does a protest cease to be peaceful?
What percentage of bad apples would satisfy you that this wasn't a peaceful protest? 1%? 10%? 50%? I'm curious because you can make that argument about pretty much any protest/disruption.
The protest was organized by white supremacists calling for the dissolution of a democratically elected government! Convoy protestors in Alberta were arrested with conspiracy to attempt murder! The discussion on hacker news has been insane.
I don't believe there's a specific percentage, but for reference, I also believe the BLM protests were mostly peaceful, and I have plenty of video downloaded showing buildings burning and police cruisers being destroyed. Most of the BLM violence that occurred was initiated by police attempting to clear public spaces, including roads.
A crowd of people intent on harming others would be violent. I haven't seen any evidence that either protest included such crowds, police excepted.
The organizers of the protest were all different varieties of white supremacists, and their explicit goal was the dissolution of our democratically elected government.
Are you just blaming any and all crime that happened during the protest on the protestors and thus inferring the entire movement is violent?
I mean the only thing connecting your first link to the protest was it happened in the same part of the city. That's it. No other evidence. If a guy beats his wife at home do you blame that on the convoy too?
> Are you just blaming any and all crime that happened during the protest on the protestors and thus inferring the entire movement is violent?
This is a pretty useless and disrespectful response for a few reasons. Firstly, it's pretty obvious from the links and the locations things happened that these were directly related to the convoy or at least convoy adjacent.
Secondly, I don't doubt that there were nonviolent people involved, I saw many of them via livestreams. I've posted elsewhere that I think if the Convoy wanted to still be protesting today their goal should have been to avoid picking a fight with residents and instead focus on the government itself. The saying goes, one bad apple spoils the bunch. I think it's highly applicable to what happened here.
The word on the street regarding the building arson attempt was that people in the building were blaring music and shouting stuff at the convoy protesters who were parked in the streets below their apartment building.
That was just the first such incidence during the convoy. During a separate day some people were attempting to handcuff a door shut[1] but fled the scene once they were confronted. There have been no other recorded incidents of this behaviour in Ottawa that I can find anywhere, ever. It would be a leap to assume this is just coincidental.
But let's assume it's just some anarchist being opportunistic, what about the literal mountain of other information provided?
Please quote the exact "mountain of evidence" in your link about the arson case.
All I see relevant to the convoy is the quote "when a group of men they believed to be convoy demonstrators". Ok, so they believed they were a part of the convoy. That's it?
If there is no other evidence in the arson case, then like I said it's nothing more than a smear campaign.
Then why did you say "The scariest to me personally was someone attempting to start a fire in a building nearby to the convoy while duct taping the doors shut.[1]" and link to the article as proof of violence committed by the convoy?
It was scariest to me because it was personal - I have friends who live currently adjacent to the building in question. Had they succeeded in their goal it's possible many people would have died and at that point it would have largely been irrelevant if they were members of the convoy or just opportunistic arsonists.
You'll also note I was careful in my wording ("nearby to the convoy") because that part is unclear. It's coincidental timing if it wasn't people participating convoy people. I already addressed this part though. I also provided a plethora of other examples.
I also didn't suggest that alone was "proof of violence committed by the convoy" -- Why have you avoided comment on the other links I provided?
No, poll after poll has shown that Canadians were overwhelmingly against the truckers [1], and a strong majority supported the use of the emergency act (there was even a point where bringing in the military polled quite strongly with Canadians). There have also been a multitude of reports of violence, including at least one case where protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex with its residents locked inside [2]. I don’t think it’s possible to understate how poorly informed you are about this, and as a Canadian I really beg you to stop spreading misinformation like this.
Protections for rights like this don't exist to protect speech that is popular. They exist to protect speech that is UNPOPULAR, because that's the very speech that needs to be protected. Early civil rights movements were not popular, blocked roads, and sometimes ended in riots. The idea of "MLK led a march on the capital and everyone agreed because he was so peaceful :)" is propaganda. Creating inconvenience for people is the POINT of a protest - the freedom to "protest" as long as the police are OK and you stay in your protesting zone far away from where it would be too much trouble isn't a right to protest at all.
The fact that Canadians are largely against this has absolutely zero bearing on anything.
> at least one case where protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex
On the footage, he described seeing two individuals lighting a fire in the lobby shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday. After the suspects leave, another individual is seen coming into view and quickly extinguishing the fire near the elevators, Munoz said.
...
Police have not confirmed any link between their investigation into this incident and the ongoing convoy protest.
>Police have not confirmed any link between their investigation into this incident and the ongoing convoy protest.
I invariably see some version of this post every single time somebody posts about the attempted arson.
Are you of the opinion that in order for something to be true that it has to be publicly confirmed by police? Do you consider the statement that you posted to be positive proof that the arsonists are _definitely not_ involved with the silly trucker tantrum?
No, I assume the arsonists might be from any population, not excluding the truckers. I think the facts of the matter don't support the claim that "protestors attempted to burn down an apartment complex."
Looking at the photos of the arsonists, I see one is ear-wearing a mask. Having a mask at all seems out of character for the trucker-protestors given other photojournalism. Maybe it was a disguise?
Why would anyone think it is rational to tie the arson attempt to protestors? Have other incidents of arson been coincidental to the protests as in Minneapolis and elsewhere?
In fact, arson attempts are so common in Ottawa that you could probably make the argument that the convoy was preventing arson from occurring. /s
The news reported that someone in the building had a confrontation with some of the protesters that day, and then there is video of someone trying to burn the building down. I wonder if it could be related. The facts of the matter are that there is no linkage to the truckers because the cops don't know who it is. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Why don't we say instead that the occupation instead created an environment of lawlessness where the police had no control.
My anger isn't really placed at you, but I'm really sick of people from all over the internet telling the people who actually live in Ottawa that the protests have been peaceful. I wrote about this on my blog earlier this week: https://nsavage.substack.com/p/makeottawaboringagain. Everyone is keen to talk about what the truckers want, or what the government wants, but no one wants to talk about how the only people directly affected by the occupation are the people of Ottawa, who are faced with things like:
These things are obviously not okay and not signs of a peaceful protest. They should be beyond the pale for everyone. I'm working on a new article about the Emergency's Act and freezing bank accounts, and I think the government went too far, but that doesn't mean that any of the things that came before are acceptable.
> I'm really sick of people from all over the internet telling the people who actually live in Ottawa that the protests have been peaceful.
Your sickness is regrettable. It’s such a shame not everyone is on board with your pity-train of first world problems. Are you so out of touch that you even know what not-peace is?
An epistemologically closed assertion without evidence deserves pushback. I think you might agree with that given your lengthy response that barely addresses the claim at hand.
I doubt there was significant violence. If there had been, there'd be lots of criminal charges or video and photo evidence. The story you linked is vague and there's no evidence that people starting a fire in a building are linked to the protestors.
I agree with your other point, that Canadians largely oppose the protests.
What I don't understand is why the Emergency Act was invoked. I've heard no reasonsble explanation for why police couldn't disperse protestors blocking roads or arrest them and impound their vehicles if they refused to leave without the act.
You link to CNN and globalnews though. Not really unbiased sources. And I think we have learned about "polls" over the past few years, at least I have, in the US elections.
I have no doubt many Canadians are not happy about the protests. Maybe even most. But I don't believe these polls for one second. It looks like propaganda saying "see, everyone believes XX thing thing the government in power would like you to believe".
Jesus Christ, just go look at the Ipsos/Nanos polls. Do you think CNN made that up out of thin air? Those are reputable polling agencies. Barely 50% of CPC voters supported the convoy protestors methods.
I think those things are true, and I live in Canada.
I strongly support Trudeau's actions on this, and I'm sad that the government took so long to crack down on the "truckers". It's deeply damaging to civil society when a few extremists can shut down a city without consequences.
Suspending basic rights, the constitution, and due process without consequences over a protest is what's damaging to civil society. I'm genuinely baffled by how you can see protests as damaging to civil society but reacting to them by suspending the charter and using an act that has only been used in wars and armed insurrection before is perfectly healthy for our system. When has that ever happened in the western world before over a protest?
The gilets jaunes were miles ahead in terms of disturbance and there wasnt even a debate about "suspending" everyones rights until they stopped dissenting and being annoying. What a complete shame for canada and the nonchalant reactions like these make me even more impatient to leave this country as soon as I can get a new job. The recent events have been really eye opening.
> I'm genuinely baffled by how you can see protests as damaging to civil society
Protests that shut down cities and piss off residents for days/weeks at a time can be, particularly when the protestors break a ton of laws, urinate on the memorial to the unknown soldier, and the police aren't interested in fixing any of that.
> suspending the charter and using an act that has only been used in wars
The act has never been used before, AFAICT it's a new one, and it's specifically not about wars.
The current act is literally the replacement to the War Measures act... and of course it has never been used before since it was only created during the Mulroney era partly because Pierre Eliott Trudeau abused the original one during the October crisis. Kind of a pattern here.
So yes technically it's not the war measures act anymore but if let's say there was a war, they'd enact the same emergency measures law. There is no seperate law for war iirc but at least we get to say that we technically aren't under martial law (because we renamed it)
As a resident of the city in question, lets talk facts(whatever that means) if you care to read on..
Almost nothing was shut down as a result of this protest. You could travel over 99.5% of the city and forget a protest was taking place. Almost anything that was shut down, was shut down voluntarily.
Only the 3-4 blocks immediately adjacent to the Parliament buildings (where else do you go to protest your federal government's policies?) were partially blocked with parked vehicles (Mainly trucks, again very relevant to protesting a policy involving trucking.) This area is 90% + unoccupied government office space ( they work from home ). Almost all roads had at least one lane open for local traffic, and a route was cleared for members of parliament to be able to drive into work without obstruction.
A few residential side streets and a few high priced condo buildings were on the edge of this area. Those people did hear a lot of honking :( and perhaps had to see what people look like outside of their shiny city. I personally think that the important people in the high priced condos were a big reason why our local politicians were foaming at the mouth to wipe this group off the face of the planet.
The honking was mostly resolved by a court order to stop honking and after 2 weeks, the mayor actually talking to them to ask them to move; which they then did (pretty much).
While I had not been paying much attention, on Friday, my wife (muslim) who reads the news, was completely beside herself at the invasion of horrible violent people into the city and how minorities would have to go into hiding etc.. really total fear..
On Saturday, I took my wife and our kids to the protest to see this for ourselves (hard sell.) I was able to find parking without any issue or traffic about 10 minutes walk from parliament (there was space closer but blocked by police.) Once we got into the area near the parliament it was very loud and chaotic with the truck horns blasting (my kids enjoyed) and the smell of diesel fuel in the air (my wife did not enjoy.) But what we found were not angry people, but happy people. People made way for our stroller, help carry it up snowy stairs and thanked us for coming.
While I don't think my wife became a supporter, she certainly didn't have any further (irrational) fear of this group over the next 3 weeks, which we lived completely normally.
I'm not sure why it is so easy to hate people you have never met or care to meet, but it certainly not making this world a better place.
You must have skipped the parts of the "protest" that stretched way down streets like Kent St. and Metcalfe St. No fancy condos down there. Just cheaper apartments. That's where the problems were happening. If it had just been limited to the stretch of Wellington in front of Parliament, it wouldn't have been a big deal.
But streets like Kent, Metcalfe, and O'Connor (and the cross streets between them) where the noise and diesel exhaust were messing up people's lives. I'm sorry, but honking your air horn for 10 minutes in a residential neighbourhood is a criminal offense. And it's not like you're sticking it to the elite, here. Somerset Ward is one of the lowest-income wards in the city. Only Vanier is lower, and not by much.
Your dismissal of this as only affecting a few high-priced condos and side streets is shocking. The affected area was nowhere near 90% government buildings. For example, this section of Kent was full of protest vehicles making noise at all hours:
I know it's easy to dismiss the people living downtown when you live out in Barrhaven or Kanata, but I'm saddened by your callous disregard for your fellow citizens living in a low-income part of the city. Just because you don't notice them, it doesn't mean they aren't there.
I don't mean for any of this to be pejorative; it just sounds like you're someone living in a suburban part of the city who went to the protest, walked around the party zone, and assumed that stretch of Metcalfe/Rideau represented the entire thing.
There are many many low income housing buildings in Centerrown. It's interesting to me that you characterize the condo inhabitants as rich people while it's actually cheaper to buy a condo downtown than to buy a house in Barrhaven in the suburbs! All the rich people are actually living in mansions away from Centertown.
The injunction worked for 2 days, but the lack of enforcement meant that it was blaring horns again in no time. I'm glad your children enjoyed the brief trip. I think a lot of people there were actually just curious spectators there for a few hours to party. I live about a kilometre from the parliament and I could still hear the honking. A friend of a friend had to arrange for their kid to relocate because it was impossible to sleep.
I'm not sure how you read hate into this. It's pretty simple. You break the law, you pay the price. I can't stop my car on a local bridge or by the border and block the road. The police will come and if I don't move my car they'll eventually smash the window and drag me out and then tow the car away.
Nobody hates anyone. Well, that's not true, some people do hate and we've seen some of that. But hate or not hate is orthogonal.
Protest is fine when you don't break the law.
And happy not angry people, seriously? You gotta be at least a little bit angry to park your truck on the street for 3 weeks? You'd think anyways. The things people do when they're happy.
Protests mostly happen when the law sucks. My country also only allows permitted protest, but it also is a shitty country regarding civil rights. Trump would call it a shithole country and some would be offended by that. He is technically correct though.
If I don't like traffic laws, let's say it really annoys me to drive slowly on residential streets, is it ok for me to go downtown and start smashing the windows of all stores on main street? I'm protesting so it's fine to break the law?
People implying that Canada doesn't have civil rights seem to mostly not be from here and they've no idea what they're talking about. Rights are balanced with responsibilities. I too would prefer not to have police, not to have laws, and just have everyone behave themselves. Unfortunately people have a tendency not to do that. That's why we can't have good things.
So I assume you were equally outraged not long ago at the blocking of rail lines by indigenous / environmental activists?
The truckers were not violent. For real violence, look at the ax-wielding attackers in the recent incident at the gas pipeline site in BC.
It is frightening how you and many other people so easily absorb state propaganda. Try thinking a bit about the circumstances here. Why did Trudeau go out of his way to falsely characterize the truckers as homophobic racist Nazis, while refusing to discuss any of their legitimate concerns? Why did Trudeau invoke the Emergency Act after the the peaceful resolution to the blocking of Ambassador Bridge (which was the most economically damaging part of the protest)?
It seems quite likely that Trudeau was hoping for violence. Hoping that insulting the truckers would provoke them. Hoping that clearing the Ambassador Bridge blockage would involve violence. But when that failed to happen, he invoked the Emergency Act anyway, even though clearing the remaining protesters from Ottawa was then accomplished more-or-less peacefully with ordinary police tactics. Trudeau (or his handlers, he's not particularly smart himself) are clearly delighted to have the opportunity to establish a precedent for increasing state power, and for making everyone think twice before offering any support for any dissent group, lest their life be destroyed. Of course, "dissident" groups that are actually in line with the government's agenda are safe...
Please make your substantive points without crossing into personal attack. It's hard enough to keep these threads from incinerating themselves even without that.
Yeah I think people forget that the protestors were making life miserable for tens of thousands of people with their incessant honking at all hours of the night. The rail protests just gummed up supply chains, this was actually harassing people.
not to mention the cancer patients in their death beds at the bruyere hospital... fighting to stay alive with 90+ db horns going for multiple hours along the streets
Mark, I respect you and I enjoy reading your thoughtful messages on HN. I think you're missing a bit of context.
I doubt many truckers were violent, but the truckers weren't the only one there. Their presence created a center of gravity that attracted many hangers-on, and from what I have seen, they've been the source of most of the problems.
Also, it's not really about violence. It's about needlessly harming innocent citizens. Although this is happening right near Parliament, it's one of the poorest wards in the city. This isn't a neighbourhood full of the liberal elite sipping lattes while they work from home. It's students, and shift works, and retail workers just trying to live their lives.
Turn your sound on/up to get a sense of what that was like. Do you want to live in a society where that is ever okay in the name or protest? I sure don't.
And that was filmed from a building a couple of hundred meters away from the trucks that were parked up Kent St. How do you think it felt for people living in these apartments right on Kent:
For what it's worth (and I realize it's a small sample of a small portion of the population, so maybe it's not worth much), my friends in neighbours in my small Ontario town were initially generally supportive of what they saw as the truckers' core message, because "it's time to end vaccine mandates for truckers re-entering Canada" is a completely reasonable topic of protests. It's a good time to have that conversation.
But the protest quickly evolved into something larger and messier than that core message, and sentiment in my small town quickly soured against the protest. What I've heard is recent conversations is that people feel the protest had lost the plot, the actions of some of the attendees in harming local citizens were beyond the pale, and it was time for the protest to end.
There have been some objections to the way police ended the protest, but it looked relatively tame in comparison to other protest breakups here in recent memory like the Toronto homeless camps last summer, or the Montreal student protests, or the G20 protests. That's not to say it was done perfectly.
I used to live a few blocks from Parliament Hill, and everybody living there is used to protests. We think protests are good and healthy and even necessary, even if we disagree with the protestors. This one quickly evolved into something beyond mere protest and turned residents against the protest who might otherwise have been sympathetic to its message.
Lists like that are, of course, one-sided. It's up to you how much of that information you choose to see as credible. Just realize that as someone from outside Canada, you're probably seeing a filtered version of events. That list above is also a filtered version of events, but it's a very different filter. Look at it through enough filters and you'll probably end up with a more complete understanding.
Personally, I watched some of the live streams to learn more about the protests and hear from some of the actual truckers. Danny and Czaba and the couple from Saskatchewan with the puppies seemed like good people with legitimate grievances to protest about. At the same time, no amount of goodness makes the harm caused to local residents okay. I know it's easy to come down strongly on one side or the other of this, but I see the whole thing as a crappy tragedy for everyone involved.
As for the government's response to all of this - we'll have plenty of opportunities to voice our opinion at the ballot box. Municipal and Provincial governments should have been able to manage this protest from the start without needing the feds to step in, and we have municipal and provincial elections this year. And with a minority government federally, we could have an election there at any time as well. Realistically it's unlikely we'll see one before next year - but we'll still get to express ourselves soon enough.
There's something I've learned about the HN crowd through this, that's for sure. Many here were supportive of the attempt at a christo-fascist uprising in Canada. Very thiely of y'all.
In Canada, popular support for the convoy was around 30%, but it's a little more nuanced than that. Most are sick and tired of the health measures (duh) but very few actually approve of the way in which the protesting was carried out.
EDIT: The downvotes kind of drive my point home. Thanks!
As other people here have pointed out, cashless society is just asking for brutal government overreach.