Some downtown streets are now clear of protest vehicles, but they remain inaccessible, because they have now been blocked with police vehicles and City of Ottawa, heavy equipment. Police have told people who work downtown to stay home if they can.
Preparations are being made.
This is a video news conference from the organizers. They are not allowing any mainstream news.
They are very smug.
The interviewer then went on to ask about a problem that has been growing for years. They can't get replacement parts and even before the pandemic they got much more expensive and truckers can't replace a headlamp with a screwdiver and 20$ anymore. Now it's a 1000$ and has to be done at the dealer.
Guess whose fault that is. China!!!! Its a plot against Canadian truckers.
I made it 20 minutes in. I not sure how much more I can deal with.
This is a video news conference from the organizers. They are not allowing any mainstream news.
They are very smug.
- They have enough money to continue delivering food and fuel to the truckers for years.
- Their relationship with police is excellent.
- More truckers are trying to get to Ottawa. They can't give precise information as the groups are from all over and it looks like they are being prevented from coming into Ottawa. Blocking of downtown streets was mentioned.
- They are 100% non-partisan which sounds more like "a pox on all their houses" concerning politicians. They want to unify Canadians.
- International attention and donations are boosting their confidence. They think they are leading a global movement.
- They claim that Trudeau asked the US to put in the vaccine mandates for the border and they are accomodating us but they don't know the terms of the deal.
- They believe that "if Trudeau wants to eat" he will have to lift the mandate because this is the supply chain. Then Biden will be forced to do the same because his administration is divided.
The interviewer then went on to ask about a problem that has been growing for years. They can't get replacement parts and even before the pandemic they got much more expensive and truckers can't replace a headlamp with a screwdiver and 20$ anymore. Now it's a 1000$ and has to be done at the dealer.
Guess whose fault that is. China!!!! Its a plot against Canadian truckers.
I made it 20 minutes in. I not sure how much more I can deal with.
I was out of country when the huge G20 protests happened in Toronto in 2010 but from what I heard from friends, the governments involved were not nearly as tolerant as they have been with this "freedom convoy" of protesters. And in more recent years, we know how quick the government reacts to any First Nations creating a blockade or other protests. These freaking racist, misogynist and anti-LGBTQ+ protesters are being treated with kid gloves.
If it were just the truckers and supporters they would have moved in. The problem is the trucks. No police car or horse will intimidate them. You can't kettle trucks or carry them. You can't tear them down like tents and yet the truckers can live in them. They are equipped for sleeping and eating. Police will move in Friday morning or sooner. Expect an awe-inspiring show of police and equipment. The police will likely release lots of impressive footage. They may have warrants to seize and search trucks. There are laws against blocking critical infrastructure. The parliament buildings and border crossings would seem to apply.
By the way, police did not move in on the Mercier Bridge and Oka blockades among others so they don't always use force. At least not right away. Visibility matters as does the resources of the protesters. That is, if Indigenous protesters had mega trucks blocking parliament in the same numbers there would be the same hesitation to move in.
It's no coincidence they try to keep the media away. That isn't possible on Parliament Hill.
This will be handled this week. Canada is on the world stage.
Nice to see you back WWWTT.
I do not have a formed opinion yet on this protest, but I am interested in left leaning analysis that offers more than the standard liberal distain we see on social media and mainstream media. Here are some comments from a former rabble contributor's blog about the coverage of the protest and the reaction of the centre left media I found interesting:
https://stuartparker.ca/why-the-coverage-of-the-trucker-protest-should-w...
"And we see this here with centre-left reaction to the national truckers’ protest in Ottawa. No permanent organization is running this protest, which appears to be built around social media, a GoFundMe page and a loose affiliation of local leadership groups developed in provincial protests by truckers over the past few years.
And of course, it does not represent all or even most truckers in the industry. The crew who are in Ottawa are whiter, more rural and more right-leaning than the industry as a whole, which is, in turn, whiter, more rural and more right-leaning than Canadian society as a whole. The folks in Ottawa are also more likely to be “owner-operators,” who have financed their heavy equipment through financial institutions. Those driving trucks owned by extended families or by trucking companies directly are much less likely to be part of the protest.
There is no doubt that a small fraction of these individuals are members of Canada’s tiny fascist militias, the Sons of Odin, the Proud Boys and other far-right political groups and that a disproportionate number voted for the People’s Party. In addition, the spirit of the protest and the issue it is taking up, vaccine passports, have attracted members of right-wing groups that are not themselves truckers but wish to express solidarity or see the protest as an organizing and recruitment opportunity.
Those of us who cut our teeth in the 1980s peace movement know this story well. The Vancouver Peace March used to attract 10% of the city’s population (50,000 protesters at its peak) for its annual walk across Burrard Bridge to support global nuclear disarmament. And, consequently, the vanguard of the march comprised the Trotskyites, Maoists and other communist sectarians and foreign dictator fan clubs who saw this as their big annual opportunity to radicalize and recruit ordinary anti-nuclear activists.
Right-wing commentators sought to discredit these protests by heavily featuring and platforming the most off-topic or the most radical protesters and then seeking to paint all protesters with that broad brush. This approach generally failed and was mocked by the mainstream press, who depicted the diversity of protesters and homemade signs as a sign of the depth of its support.
But today, that approach is working because our society’s mainstream values have changed and because the target audience is a different one.
Because Canadians, as a whole, but especially centre-left voters have now come to believe that the legitimacy of a movement inheres not in its size or the diversity of people and views it represents but rather in its ability to discipline and control its supporters, this protest looks both illegitimate and frightening. Not only is this protest not controlling the speech and signage of its members; it is celebrating its refusal to control these things and instead sticking to the basics of making sure protesters are nonviolent and law-abiding.
And, in progressive, urban Canada, this broad-brush guilt-by-association strategy exhumed from the 1980s appears to be working, no matter how intellectually lazy its journalistic practitioners are being. Let me rehearse the kinds of sloppy reporting we are seeing here:
I am not writing this piece to advocate for the protest and its participants. I am writing this piece to ask Canadians like me whether we want our future protests to be judged and covered by standards applied to the truckers today. I am asking us to think about what happens to the horizon of possibility for mass organizing when we throw in with the idea that actual, authentic grassroots protests are a thing of the past and the only legitimate public demonstration is one choreographed from above, its participants carefully disciplined into reading from an identical script or into silence."
..the response by the powers that be is pretty tame. if we are to believe this is an actual threat. they don't seem taking it to seriously so i'm thinking it's not.
..on the other hand this convoy is an excellent opportunity and useful for a few political agendas. the longer it goes the more useful it is. and when it is no longer politically useful it will end.
quote:
Those of us who cut our teeth in the 1980s peace movement know this story well. The Vancouver Peace March used to attract 10% of the city’s population (50,000 protesters at its peak) for its annual walk across Burrard Bridge to support global nuclear disarmament. And, consequently, the vanguard of the march comprised the Trotskyites, Maoists and other communist sectarians and foreign dictator fan clubs who saw this as their big annual opportunity to radicalize and recruit ordinary anti-nuclear activists.
..i was one of those people who marched. and the number that year was around 100,000.
..the marches ended because of the rivalry between the vanguard left. even the march i was on, at one point an attempt was made to take the march in another direction.
Nice to see you back WWWTT.
I do not have a formed opinion yet on this protest, but I am interested in left leaning analysis that offers more than the standard liberal distain we see on social media and mainstream media. Here are some comments from a former rabble contributor's blog about the coverage of the protest and the reaction of the centre left media I found interesting:
https://stuartparker.ca/why-the-coverage-of-the-trucker-protest-should-w...
- The most bigoted and ignorant Tweets and Facebook comments by individuals supporting the truckers are being cherrypicked and reported as news about the protesters’ shared beliefs, usually without even checking to see if the person is even in Ottawa as part of the protest. The views are not those of the organizers, just its most offensive and deranged supporters.
Soft police approach to Ottawa anti-vax protest reveals ‘pure racism’ say critics
The mild-mannered police response to the weekend blockade of downtown Ottawa by thousands of protesters opposed to pandemic restrictions reveals a racist double standard in how law enforcement agencies treat civil disobedience, some observers say.
Had Indigenous activists made the same threats, broke the same laws, and engaged in the same level of disruption they’d probably be met with a heavy-handed crackdown, Mi’kmaw lawyer and professor Pam Palmater told APTN News.
“I have no doubt that this is pure racism involved,” said Palmater. “Are people allowed to threaten the life of the prime minister? I’m wondering about that because I guarantee you if that was an Indigenous person or a Black person, they’d be sitting in jail.”
The convoy of rigs, campers, flat-bed trucks and cars converged on Parliament Hill causing traffic chaos and prompting Ottawa police to issue a no-go directive for the city centre.
But before that, police tweeted out a creative graphic with a truck on it saying, “We respect the rights of our communities to speak out. Our role as a police service is to provide a safe space for people to grieve and be heard.”
Unmasked demonstrators proceeded to cause a ruckus in local businesses, desecrate monuments and reportedly harass a local homeless shelter in search of food while filling the normally quiet capital city air with incessant horn blaring and gas fumes.
quote:
Video also circulated showing demonstrators appropriating First Nations drumming as they danced, drank beer and chanted “yaba daba doo” and “f—ck Trudeau.”
The drum is a sacred ceremonial item whose handling is governed by specific cultural protocols. Some are decrying the episode, which happened only steps away from the Centennial Flame where throughout the summer stood a memorial to residential school victims, as an insult.
“I am disgusted, appalled and saddened,” tweeted Sen. Brian Francis, who is Mi’kmaw from P.E.I., in reaction to the video. “This blatant act of racism must be vehemently condemned by all. Drumming is sacred to all First Nations. Our ways of life should never be mimicked, mocked and appropriated for political or other gain.”
Canada’s functional apartheid on full display: police deploy lethal overwatch on Indigenous people defending their own land, cos it’s practical. The nation’s capital is besieged by truckers and police won’t even ticket them, to avoid confrontation. There are actually two Canadas.
..defund the police
..the police have always represented the face of authoritarianism
Police "engaging with stakeholders" at the Toronto G20 (photo by brother @rlautens). #cdnpoli #trucknuts
A tale of two protests.
..lots of police overtime. this was also highlighted in the halifax defund report..yearly salaries over $100,000.
https://stuartparker.ca/why-the-coverage-ofInter-the-trucker-protest-should-w...
Interesting but I think off base and definitely not a leftist analysis.
No permanent organization is running this protest, which appears to be built around social media, a GoFundMe page and a loose affiliation of local leadership groups developed in provincial protests by truckers over the past few years.
It's far from just truckers. It's the far right including all sorts of libertarians and social conservatives.
Right-wing commentators sought to discredit these protests by heavily featuring and platforming the most off-topic or the most radical protesters and then seeking to paint all protesters with that broad brush. This approach generally failed and was mocked by the mainstream press, who depicted the diversity of protesters and homemade signs as a sign of the depth of its support.
There is no need to reach into the past. Think BLM and every other progressive movement getting damned by antifa and the black bloc and communism. What you don't, and never will see at a progressive demonstration is a nazi symbol because it would immediately be shredded. Same goes for homophobic messaging.
Again, this rhetoric is only effective because we have made the belief that the organizers of a protest can or should control the private correspondence of every single participant and supporter a reasonable one.
I haven't noticed that. No one is saying all the protesters are like the bad ones, only that they are attracting them. I haven't heard of any loud denouncements. The left also gets criticized for threats to politicians.
Despite a recent passing interest in toppling pro-Confederate and pro-war statues in the United States, Canadian progressives have suddenly become very concerned about nationalist statuary.
What progressives? The MSM doesn't represent progressives.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces, also spoke out.
“I support the right to peacefully protest but that should not be confused with blatant disrespect for the men and women who have served, inspired, and protected our country,” he tweeted.
O'Toole, definitely not a progressive. Terry Fox and the Unknown Soldier monuments are not political in the sense of statues of former slave owners and promoters of forced indigenous assimilation.
Many protesters are making false and unreasonable comparisons between present-day Canada and the early days of Nazi Germany. Like most Canadians, I find these comparisons deeply offensive. But that is what they are: deeply offensive comparisons, born largely of ignorance and a persecution complex. The prevalence of such comparisons among the truckers would, in my view, be a reasonable issue for news media to cover.
I recall the left comparing Bush 2 to a Nazi for the lies and war-mongering and the left got shot down hard. No one on the left dares compare any contemporary politician to the Nazis. Trump anyone?
Fortunately, because Canadians’ willful embrace of ignorance and stupidity, urban progressives who can, themselves, barely hold onto the idea that one can compare one thing to another thing, are unable to imagine that the truckers may be using symbols to make a comparison—no, they must all be Nazis, traitors.
Again, exactly what the left gets condemned for. Whether they are comparing Trudeau to a Nazi or are white supremist themselves matters not. They are using Nazi symbolism.
- While it is true that I agree with the truckers on the main issue they are raising, that of vaccine passports, they are not my political community. I agree with them on few if any other issues. Many do hold views I find not just disagreeable but repugnant. I am sure many are climate denialists, for instance.
I don't think this is a left leaning analysis at all. It is a Libertarian one. It's a sneaky attack on the left.
I am not writing this piece to advocate for the protest and its participants. I am writing this piece to ask Canadians like me whether we want our future protests to be judged and covered by standards applied to the truckers today.
This is not a new standard. It has always been applied to the left.
I am asking us to think about what happens to the horizon of possibility for mass organizing when we throw in with the idea that actual, authentic grassroots protests are a thing of the past and the only legitimate public demonstration is one choreographed from above, its participants carefully disciplined into reading from an identical script or into silence."
Protests in general are in no danger of being limited to choreographed from above nor being forced to read from the same script. That's libertarian scare-mongering.
G20 is not a fair or accurate comparision. This is an invasion of trucks not unarmed people. There is no need to set cars on fire they can just run right over any police car in the way.
The only vehicle that can go head to head with them is a tank. It isn't over. If the truckers hold their ground it will end with heavily armed police and prison sentences for breaking federal laws. Can you imagine how much it costs to tow one of those? They don't get the truck back until they pay the towing.
I have seen several Indigenous waving Mohawk warrior flags and black people among the protesters even among the minimal CBC crowdshot footage I've watched, so although msm agit-prop may portray the demonstration as purely white, racist, Nazi and 'deplorable', reality may not accord with media spin.
Although fully vaccinated myself, in my view the injection of Big Pharma's experimental vaccines chosen by others not me, must be freely chosen by me, not compelled by state authority or mandate.
Especially given how grotesquely inept and medically misinformed governmental and public health authorities have shown themselves to be. From 'Don't wear masks' to cyclical failed lockdowns with devastating effects, non-existent test, track and trace, the eldercide of LTC homes, etc etc the Canadian state has not earned the credibility or the right to overturn such a fundamental human right as my freedom of choice and physical health. Fuck Justin Trudeau.
"The only way to communicate with them was to stand in the middle of the road and make a thumbs down sign every time they honked," said Morris.
"That was the only way to communicate that we don't want them to terrorize us and we don't want them to occupy our streets."
--------
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-mayor-convoy-protest-1.6335645
Ottawa's mayor says the city is contemplating legal action against the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe, arguing that Ottawa taxpayers shouldn't be left to pay costs associated with the convoy protest now snarling traffic in Canada's capital.
Mayor Jim Watson said he also would like to see GoFundMe disassociate itself from the convoy's fundraising campaign and the "rogue activity" of protesters pushing for an end to pandemic measures.
"I think it's disgraceful that that any company would want to be associated with what kind of action we've seen here in Ottawa," Watson told CBC News.
"And you know, my hope is that GoFundMe understands that this is a completely inappropriate use of dollars, to be coming into a city to create this kind of havoc in neighbourhoods, to shut down businesses, to harass our residents on the streets of Ottawa."
Watson said that while he knows the idea is a long shot, he has asked the city's solicitor to look at the municipality's options.
"I've asked our city solicitor if we have any recourse to GoFundMe, because obviously this money is coming into the country and into our city to maintain this activity that is frustrating everyone who lives here and who works here," he said.
They may have a case. It's not a demonstration it's an illegal blockade being funded through "Go Fund Me". They released a million dollars, knowing it's purpose, to pay for fuel and food so the truckers can continue their illegal blockade. Go Fund Me can't plead ignorance as they demand an accounting for the money being spend.
Maybe conspiracy charges could even apply. If I were Go Fund Me I would immediately suspend payments and check with my own lawyers.
The RCMP has been asking truckers to leave the Coutts Alberta-US border blockade before they start enforcing the law. Some trucks have left, but more have replaced them. Interesting that Kenney supported the Ottawa trucker convoy but was against this one and action against it occurred faster against a convoy in his own province than Ottawa did against the convoy there.
Some vehicles forming an illegal blockade at the Coutts port of entry have left the protest after RCMP moved Tuesday afternoon to begin enforcement action against participants.
“We (began) to remove some vehicles from the protest area. A few left. I didn’t get an exact count of how many went out. And then we received notification that additional protesters were arriving on the scene and came around our secured area,” RCMP Cpl. Curtis Peters told The Canadian Press. Peters said he didn’t know how many additional vehicles entered the blockade, or what would come next. The blockade continues to stymie traffic through the busy U.S. border crossing in a protest of COVID-19 health measures that has entered its fourth day. ...
“We have been engaged with protesters at the Coutts border crossing in an effort to find a peaceful and safe resolution for all involved. We thought we had a path to resolution, the protesters eventually chose not to comply,” RCMP said in a news release Tuesday afternoon. “What may have begun as a peaceful assembly quickly turned into an unlawful blockade… This event is not a peaceful assembly.” ...
Many officers and provincial sheriffs are at the blockade, talking with demonstrators, and an RCMP helicopter is also flying overhead. Mounties said the blockade is impeding emergency vehicle access to the Village of Coutts, which has a population of approximately 250. They said those participating in the blockade could also be subject to charges under the Criminal Code of Canada and the Traffic Safety Act. The Mounties added while Albertans have the freedom of peaceful assembly, “the general public, local residents and businesses also have the right to a safe environment and freedom of movement.”
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/rcmp-enforcement-possible-as-c...
A convoy of anti-health measure protesters is organizing to head to Quebec City against the Legault government. Legault has now dropped the proposed tax/fine for the non-vaccinated.
But the organizer's union wants nothing to do with it, saying they want to show solidarity with healthcare workers instead.
A union member is organizing a convoy of protesters heading to Quebec City to hold a demonstration against the province's public health measures related to COVID-19, but not with funding from his union.
The convoy appears to be inspired by the hundreds of truckers and their supporters who have occupied the downtown core of the nation’s capital since Saturday, demanding an end to all public health restrictions and the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Bernard "Rambo" Gauthier, who is taking a cue from the Ottawa protest, represents a group of heavy machinery operators who are represented by the FTQ union in Quebec’s Côte-Nord region. In a video posted to Facebook Monday, he said he is concerned about fellow union members who report alleged suicide attempts, increases in seperation and divorce, bankruptcies and inability to work because of health rules or because they don't have a vaccine passport. Gauthier is calling for people to gather near the Quebec legislature Thursday and for FTQ workers to be taken by bus into the provincial capital later this week. In his video he says that the heads of his union have so far not shown support for his rally and he accuses them of forgetting their workers. ...
Éric Boisjoly, general manager of the FTQ-Construction union, confirmed in an interview with The Canadian Press on Tuesday that the union will not financially support the rally. The FTQ represents about 43 per cent of construction workers in Quebec. Boisjoly also denied a report that he had been asked by Gauthier for financial support.
Instead, he said, the union should focus on showing solidarity with front-line workers in Quebec's health-care system. “Everyone in Quebec is fed up with it. Everyone is a little sick of it," said Boisjoly. “This situation is precarious for people in the health sector, but also for the sick who are affected by hospital closures. This is where the FTQ-Construction wants to show solidarity: with the patients who are offloaded and also with the people who work in the health-care sector.”
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/major-construction-union-says-it-won-t-fund-...
Despite presenting the so-called “Freedom Convoy” as a protest centered on the concerns of blue-collar workers, the "president" of the convoy apparently doesn’t believe in unity if you’re in a union.
James Bauder created “Canada Unity,” the group behind the “Freedom Convoy” that has shut down Canada's national capital. Bauder also authored the group’s rambling "memorandum of understanding," which calls for deposing Canada's elected government.
Two years ago, Bauder was part of a similar far-right convoy that mobbed a picket line and threatened to run over striking oil refinery workers.
https://pressprogress.ca/anti-vax-convoy-organizers-previously-targeted-...
"Although fully vaccinated myself, in my view the injection of Big Pharma's experimental vaccines chosen by others not me, must be freely chosen by me, not compelled by state authority or mandate.
Especially given how grotesquely inept and medically misinformed governmental and public health authorities have shown themselves to be. From 'Don't wear masks' to cyclical failed lockdowns with devastating effects, non-existent test, track and trace, the eldercide of LTC homes, etc etc the Canadian state has not earned the credibility or the right to overturn such a fundamental human right as my freedom of choice and physical health. Fuck Justin Trudeau."
Well said, I agree.
The unvaccinated have the right to refuse the vaccine however other people have a right to minimize their risk of exposure. The unvaccinated pose a greater risk. They are more likely to catch Covid 19 and carry a heavier load of the virus. That matters. The heavier the load someone catches the more likely they are to be seriously ill or die.
People want their surgeries. The vaccinated want to get on with their lives. It makes no sense for the vaccinated to stop working in order to avoid the unvaccinated.
Everyone wants to reopen. It will be easier to allow that if access is limited to the vaccinated.
I agree that authorities have been unreliable and inconsistent to the point of giving out false information. That isn't true of the science community that is tracking the numbers worldwide. Viruses aren't new. We know the potential modes of transmission. W e can track varients and measure their transmissibility. We have lots and lots of historical information on a wide variety of viruses. It isn't at all mysterious.
The vaccine is not experimental. They went through all the normal trials. The red tape was lifted and money poured in to expedite development and approval. Even if they did cut corners the vaccines have been used on billions of people. No other drug has ever been so broadly distributed and used by so many people. No drug trials have ever provided that much information.
Because we know so much about viruses we can individually develop informed decisions if we choose to. Early on when Covid 19 first started to spread there was a man from France who flew to a bunch of places one of which was a ski chalet shared with strangers. He still passed it to all of them. My sister mused that there must be an airborne component based on common sense. The speed with which is spread on ships even with everyone confined to their cabins was another big clue that it was airborne.
The claim that PPEs were useful for health professionals but bad for the general public was always ridiculous. It was obvious they wanted to protect the supply for health care workers.
The most important quality for a mask is that it fits snugly with no gaps. A single layer fabric mask that fits is better than an N95 that has gaps. The N95 is best IF it is perfectly fitted.
I absolutely sympathize with the claim that government can't be trusted and is considering political and economic ramifications when determining restrictions. The MSM is equally guilty of just publishing whatever anyone says for the most part without fact checking.
The current variety of Covid-19 is not the last. Becoming more viralent but less deadly is a common path as the more deadly ones kill off their host. The varients that don't kill the host survive and spread faster. Having said that it isn't a rule.
This pandemic was predicted through science and more are predicted to come. We didn't learn from Sars. It doesn't seem we are learning from Covid. We can't trust government to keep us safe nor official health authorities that are influenced by politics including the WHO and obviously not corporations.
What we can trust is information derived from hard data.
This is tragic.
A woman who is critically ill with COVID-19 and was pregnant is now at the MUHC on a type of life support, after doctors at the Jewish General Hospital decided it was safest to deliver her baby prematurely, CTV News has learned.
The baby, born about two months before the due date, was transferred to the same health centre and is being cared for in the pediatric intensive care unit at the Montreal Children’s Hospital....“Compared to women of the same age, being pregnant means a six times higher risk of being admitted to the ICU,” said Boucoiran, referring to the latest Canadian surveillance data that will be published within the next couple of weeks.
As her health continued to deteriorate, she was transferred to the MUHC where she could be placed on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), according to two additional sources, which is a type of therapy that goes well beyond ventilation.
Once a patient is connected to the tubes and machine, the ECMO system adds oxygen to the blood and pumps it through the body, replacing the heart and lungs.
The treatment is used for a select group of patients and is seen as a last resort.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/montreal-hospital-delivers-baby-to-unvaccina...
Don't trust officials, not even heads of hospitals. Trust university researchers with established credentials and trust the doctors and nurses actively treating patients.
..1.56 min video from parliment
Matthew Green - Ndp
I see it...you see it.
The coddling of white supremacists and the brutal policing of Indigenous land defenders.
I'm not sure the Liberals see it though.
the police are not the surgeons many people are pretending they can be. they don't intervene in public demonstrations with consideration and fairness. they either dominate and destroy, or they sit back and watch. abolishing police means giving up the fantasy they will ever change
On Monday, when it was becoming clear that local residents were tired of waiting for the police to do anything and were on the verge of attempting to take matters into their own hands, the police chief held a press conference and threw out a claim that "arms and weapons" have been "brought into the national capital region." He didn't elaborate beyond that, but it did have the intended effect of putting a chill on efforts to organize a community response for a day or two.
And now today, as chatter has once again increased about local residents reclaiming the streets, the police put out this bullshit statement.
the police are not the surgeons many people are pretending they can be. they don't intervene in public demonstrations with consideration and fairness. they either dominate and destroy, or they sit back and watch. abolishing police means giving up the fantasy they will ever change
Sitting back and watching would actually be an improvement. Right now they're running interference for the protestors, seeming primarily concerned with ensuring that residents remain too scared to organize a collective response to the siege.
On Monday, when it was becoming clear that local residents were tired of waiting for the police to do anything and were on the verge of attempting to take matters into their own hands, the police chief held a press conference and threw out a claim that "arms and weapons" have been "brought into the national capital region." He didn't elaborate beyond that, but it did have the intended effect of putting a chill on efforts to organize a community response for a day or two.
And now today, as chatter has once again increased about local residents reclaiming the streets, the police put out this bullshit statement.
LOL. https://twitter.com/jchianello/status/1488977686361952258
Ottawa Police: "We won't even issue tickets for traffic violations because we don't want to provoke the convoy. They're armed and dangerous. But ordinary residents shouldn't organize with their friends and neighbours to protect their own neighbourhoods either. That would be too dangerous, given how many weapons the convoy has brought into the city. If you try, we'll arrest you. So, leave things to us, the trained professionals who've sworn an oath. What weapons? No idea. We haven't found them. But we know they must be there because otherwise what reason would we have for sitting idly by, collecting our fat paycheques, while goons from out of town terrify residents and workers in the downtown core? It has to be that they're too well-armed. Give us more money for big loud toys, please. If you do, next time we'll protect you. We promise."
..the police have a political agenda. there is no doubt in my mind.
..as if what douglas fir just posted is how the police are trained to respond when faced with armed people. as if the powers over parliament respond to armed demonstrators.
..as if this is how the secret services responds to armed people gathering on parliament.
They don't have the power to remove the truckers. A much smaller blockade in Alberta couldn't be cleared. A bigger budget would make no difference. There is no law giving them the right to stop more truckers from entering Ottawa.
Truckers carry weapons of all sorts for self-protection on the road. They likely don't ALL have weapons but I would be shocked if there weren't more than a few in those cabs. Militia types are part of the group.
If the truckers were without their trucks it would be fine for them to stay as long a they like ad continue protesting.
The trucks are the problem, not the protesters.
Police are taking pictures and video and have said tickets can be given later. I think truckers are going to find expensive tickets in their mailboxes in a few weeks.
Police are taking pictures and video and have said tickets can be given later. I think truckers are going to find expensive tickets in their mailboxes in a few weeks.
..the police aren't the only ones with agendas. with this in ottawa and at the alta border..i wouldn't be surprised legislation coming forward to restrict further demos. using the "guns" as the basis of the legislation that will be used against all demonstrations down the road. and a reason justify more spying.
..including the expansion of police powers.
Police in Canada have killed more unarmed citizens than citizens have been killed with AR15s in 50 years by licensed gun owners (and actually even criminals).
Despite presenting the so-called “Freedom Convoy” as a protest centered on the concerns of blue-collar workers, the "president" of the convoy apparently doesn’t believe in unity if you’re in a union.
James Bauder created “Canada Unity,” the group behind the “Freedom Convoy” that has shut down Canada's national capital. Bauder also authored the group’s rambling "memorandum of understanding," which calls for deposing Canada's elected government.
Two years ago, Bauder was part of a similar far-right convoy that mobbed a picket line and threatened to run over striking oil refinery workers.
https://pressprogress.ca/anti-vax-convoy-organizers-previously-targeted-...
The Federated Coop is funding this protest because of its relationship with some of its leaders who used their trucks as picket line busters when UNIFOR was on strike. The Ottawa police will not arrest them because they are on the same side.
..the police aren't the only ones with agendas. with this in ottawa and at the alta border..i wouldn't be surprised legislation coming forward to restrict further demos. using the "guns" as the basis of the legislation that will be used against all demonstrations down the road. and a reason justify more spying.
..including the expansion of police powers.
..maybe the loss of more civil liberties. this and more based on the helplessness of the police on display.
1) the visibility and viability of "the right wing" in the trucker convoy is, if nothing else, a scathing condemnation of the entire "left's" 2-year abdication of it's role as defender of the underdog and questioner of elite power.
democratic expression is gunna seek the light, as it can.
2) vaccines don't reduce transmission, so the injection requirement is about something else.
3) "fully vaccinated" = never ending injections, so "just get your shot and bring me my stuff" is a disingenuous argument
4) interprovincial injection requirements for truckers are being floated (duh) so "well the u.s. is doin' it and we're not-sovereign so shut up truckers" is a disingenuous argument.
5) racism is a factor everyday in canada, so the political/police response would be tainted with that.
but the bigger factor, is well, the bigger factor - tons, and tons, and tons of deployable iron, and a thousand times more spread from coast to coast to coast.
if mr smarm calls in the troops,
a) i wouldn't count on there not being some mutiny, which would open up a bit of a can o'worms.
b) big operation, days and days and days of livestreamed bad pr.
c) nation-wide solidarity protest and actions, from a perspective of "we tried politely with our horns and a sit-in and you responded with force?" ok...
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there's a lot of truckers who can't be at the protest - can't risk their living (margins are super, super thin), or drive for a big company.
but they could all call in sick. for a couple days. at a time. trucks might breakdown at weird, busy places, and take hours to remove. repeatedly.
then someone leaks another trudeau scandal (you know there's more..) at just the right time ... minority gov ...
i'm 60/40 on mr blackface surviving this.
cbc reported that truckers at the alberta border have opened up 2 lanes, in anticipation of a local (mla? municipal?) vote to lift local mask etc mandates tommorrow.
if not, they block things again. if they win... it will blow the lid off this shit.
power never concedes without a fight... lightbulb goes off ....
there was a "lost job over mandates" protest in my little nearby village, and there's _never protests there.
THE LINE CANADA @thelinecanada 9h
Support Freedom Convoy 2022.
February 5, 2022, Toronto. Queens Park at 12:00PM
i'm 60/40 on mr blackface surviving this.
Some people who blindly hate Trudeau are hoping this right-wing mob can get rid of Trudeau but the fact remains that we had an election less than 4 months ago that re-elected Trudeau for another term. The right-wing mob in Ottawa seems hell bent on ignoring Canada’s election results. They still can’t seem to accept the fact that Bernier’s PPC Party couldn’t even win one single seat. I think this right-wing mob will be a distant memory long before Trudeau leaves office.
Protesting is fine, using the trucks to intimidate is not. In Alberta they are/were blocking other truckers. If they block the lanes again for not getting their way the other truckers will be furious.
If they do get their way it will be very bad. They should have put off the vote until the blockade is stopped.
'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Shakespeare
Convo-Counch: Combating the Pro-Mandate Lockdown-Left Covid Narrative (and vid)
https://twitter.com/AnnGarrison/status/1488963584361070593
Believe whatever you want but know the other viewpoint...
"..What we are witnessing with the lockdown left is a flagrant, flamboyant display of hyper-obedience...
The left is becoming the woke enforcement arm of the establishment."
..from what some are saying here you would think someone or something is stopping the left from joining those truck drivers. that is not the case. the left is free to do so.
..and if they choose not to out comes the name calling.
..me personally..i see the wet’suwet’en struggle as a much higher priority than what the truckers are attempting.
..my other priority is to stay focused on what the police are doing. because i believe there are forces in play that are using the the truckers for other purposes than those of vaccines, masks and lock downs. all that is not clear for me at this point.
..what would they left do anyway? move in and take control of the agenda? try and manipulate the truckers like the right is? nasty business that. that requires the work of a nasty vanguard party.
..maybe the left could push their own agenda. which is what exactly? who has decided what that is? all looks pretty fractured if we look at babble as a small measure.
The supporters of the convoy are mostly right wing even when they are working class people. Like it or not working class people can support capitalism, oppose socialism, and oppose unions. They can also be racist and sexist. The left would cease to be the left if it supported working class people who oppose socialism , oppose unions. and are sexist, and racist. It would be a part of the right that opposes socialism.
The anti-vax convoy that shut down Ottawa claims it speaks on behalf of blue-collar workers. But the convoy’s founder and other top organizers were part of another far-right convoy that targeted striking oil refinery workers in Alberta.
https://twitter.com/gavinmcgarrigle/status/1488968135059247104?s=20&t=Y3...
Those claiming to be on the left joining forces with these anti-union goons would be funny if it weren't so dangerous. Dangerous to the public health and to liberal democracy.
I thought this article was good, on Breach:
https://breachmedia.ca/what-the-left-can-learn-from-the-freedom-convoy/
"People have every reason to be angry. They know the system is rigged against them. It’s up to us to tell a new story of how it’s rigged— one that doesn’t scapegoat Jews, immigrants, Indigenous peoples, and racialized folks, but instead unites us across our divisions and turns us collectively against those at the very top who are raking in billions off our backs. ...
But I can’t help but wonder what would happen if, instead of trying to diffuse people’s rage, we attempted to redirect it?
What if we told them that we’re angry too?
We’re angry and we’re tired.
We’re angry at a system that has left us overworked and underpaid. We’re angry at the pharmaceutical CEOs that care more about funneling billions into their offshore tax havens, than they do about vaccinating millions of people and stopping this ever-mutating virus.
We’re angry at the decades of government-led austerity that have left our ICUs overwhelmed and under-resourced.
We’re angry that Justin Trudeau somehow found the money to give airport authorities rent relief on their planes, while thousands of people we’re being evicted from their homes.
We’re angry that, while we lost our jobs, Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs walked away with an average $95,000 extra dollars in their pockets last year.
We’re angry that migrant farm workers in this country are being left to die in isolation.
We’re angry that Loblaws made $400 million in profit, and yet claims that it can’t afford to continue paying their workers an extra $2 an hour.
We’re angry that our governments can hand $18 billion dollars to oil and gas companies during a climate emergency, but still somehow can’t afford to provide every Indigenous community with safe drinking water.
And we’re tired too.
We’re tired of being told that we can’t eat with four friends in our own dining room but we can if we go to a crowded public restaurant. We’re tired of being told that we can’t leave our homes unless it’s to go to work. And if we do work from home, we’re tired of working our meaningless, bullshit jobs that make no sense as the world crumbles beneath us.
But we’re also tired of people not recognizing that our lives are deeply interdependent, and that their choices are not just their own. As Mia Mingus tells us, interdependence is the only moral and humane way to frame this pandemic. “Interdependence acknowledges that our survival is bound up together, that we are interconnected and what you do impacts others.”
And here’s the thing: recognizing our interdependence and rejecting those who seek to divide us is also the only way we can build a force strong enough to defeat those at the very top.
This, I believe, is the story we need to tell. "
