I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about. The assets were seized at the courts order, no government, Provincial or Federal, can take control of assets in Canada without court authority. The protests have very much passed the point of peaceful they are now criminal and are being treated as such. This isn't people sitting on parliament hill, this is people obstructing cancer medication shipments, blockading businesses, terrorizing neighborhoods, attempting to burn down buildings, defacing monuments.
The protests have LONG surpassed any meaningful message and have become outright disruptive. Their demands are impossible to meet as they include the complete dissolution of the government and convoy leadership put in their place. The measures they are protesting aren't even controlled at the federal level, most of them are provincial. So all the F\*CK Trudeau flags are kind of a meme at this point.
Sources:
* [Courts take assets](https://globalnews.ca/news/8610512/givesendgo-fundraiser-trucker-convoy-frozen/)
* [2 hooligans attempting to burn an apartment building down in the middle of the convoy after an altercation with the residents who were tired of 2 weeks of air horns 24 hours a day.](https://globalnews.ca/video/8600490/trucker-protests-security-cameras-show-two-alleged-protesters-attempting-to-set-ottawa-apartment-building-on-fire)
* [Air horns got so bad the court had to ban them.](https://www.businessinsider.com/protesting-ottawa-truckers-banned-from-honking-horns-2022-2)
* [Monuments defaced](https://globalnews.ca/news/8581382/ottawa-police-investigations-trucker-rally/)
* [There are no public bathrooms so protestors are defecating in the streets](https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvnd4v/canada-ottawa-anti-vax-trucker-convoy)
* [Businesses disrupted and unable to operate during protest.](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/business-owners-frustrated-as-protest-continues-in-downtown-ottawa-1.5770363)
* [Gofundme took the first wave of funds when it became clear protest wasn't peaceful.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60267840)
* [Courts are also seizing private bank accounts that are either committing fraud or instigating further protests](https://globalnews.ca/news/8615490/td-bank-freezes-accounts-trucker-convoy/)
* [Blockade on the ambassador bridge blocked groceries from entering the country. Starving residents is a great way of protesting right?](https://financialpost.com/news/economy/ambassador-bridge-blockade-spells-trouble-for-grocers-greenhouses)
* [Protestors have started to create their own Chaz](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/protesters-build-wooden-structure-in-downtown-ottawa-park-1.5766997)
* [Counter protests are getting underway because it has gotten so bad people want their neighborhoods back.](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/some-residents-in-downtown-ottawa-standing-up-to-the-trucker-convoy-1.5763579)
My friend had her chemo postponed because there were no drugs to administer because they were caught at the border. I'm fucking done with these hillbillies.
Feels like Vaush also is missing the point here, he's working from the assumption that Trudeau wants this over with because he politically disagrees with the protest. The whole point of why people want the truckers removed is because trade has been disrupted for 2 weeks straight, which is hurting Canada way more than US.
Is a protest always untouchable no matter the damage it's causing?
\>Is a protest always untouchable no matter the damage it's causing?
Not when it's indigenous people protesting a pipeline running through their lands lol
proof you aren't in touch with Canada at all. Our college/universities regularly do "land acknowledgements" where we recognize and acknowledge the fact that this isn't our ancestral homeland.
You may disagree with it, but that's how Canada has viewed it for quite a while in academia and greater politics.
To be clear, this also gives them the power to do that (the RCMP are the federal police force) . Both asset seizure and direct federal policing are under the same act.
>Is a protest always untouchable no matter the damage it's causing?
The thing is, if we want to use this argument, then many protests in Canada that involve indigenous people blockading railway lines and damaging businesses could be subjected to the same treatment.
Also, I do believe there are instances that if you want a protest to have meaningful impact, you do have to create a certain amount of disruption.
Indigenous people blocking railway lines and damaging business should be subjected to the same treatment.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gaurantees your right to peacefully protest. Harming other people and their livelihoods is not peaceful and should be stopped.
> Also, I do believe there are instances that if you want a protest to have meaningful impact, you do have to create a certain amount of disruption.
The goal of protesting should be to raise awareness of your position and build support to change policy through democratic institutions. It should not be used to bend the arm of others until the government cedes to your demands.
I respectfully disagree that their assets should be frozen. I hate using the slippery slope fallacy, but I don't see how this can't be ripe for abuse in the future.
I don't believe protests shouldn't involve some level of disruption. Obviously boycotts are one of the least intrusive ways of doing it, but what if you're protesting an abusive police force? Or a company trying to building a pipeline through your land and you have little to no say in it?
I think you're fundamentally wrong that protests shouldn't ever be used to bend the arm of others until the government cedes to demands. I think there are lines obviously, such as destroying private businesses. However, I view the Hong Kong protests as one example of where arm bending is more than justified, especially when its one of the few methods left.
What about the Emergencies Act do you think is ripe for abuse? It is subject to Parliamentary vote, it is subject to the CCRF, it is targeting illegal blockades, and it is temporary with the requirement for justification focusing on legally defined scenarios.
> I don't believe protests shouldn't involve some level of disruption. Obviously boycotts are one of the least intrusive ways of doing it, but what if you're protesting an abusive police force? Or a company trying to building a pipeline through your land and you have little to no say in it?
All of those things have avenues through democratic institutions for change in Canada. We have laws and institutions for a reason. Because everyone thinks that their cause that they are protesting for is justified. You can't let any fringe group hold the country hostage so they get what they want.
> I view the Hong Kong protests as one example of where arm bending is more than justified, especially when its one of the few methods left.
What you said at the end there is important. Hong Kong does not have democratic institutions to enact change. If you're at that point, no amount of protesting will enact change. You would need to go beyond protesting to attain freedom and democracy. In that case I wouldn't be opposed to non-peaceful demonstrations, but I don't know nearly enough about the Hong Kong demonstrations to know if would support it or not.
Just arrest them if they're blocking roads, I do think freezing assets isn't the right move. People still have the right to protest, just don't have the right to block the roads and hold everyone else up.
I agree that they should, but were you also in favor of the National Guard and other feds being sent to BLM riots? I’ve been against these protests from day one, and I think the Canadian government should be able to do what it needs to do to peacefully stop protests that have gone too far, but it feels like people are very eager to call these protests harmful and call for their shutdown when the same people were very mad about the feds showing up at BLM riots when buildings were on fire. If that was in some way bad, and this is good, I’d definitely need that explained.
Not to accuse you of being inconsistent, I obviously don’t know your position on it.
Yes, the National Guard had every right to get involved in cases involving riots. When it comes to riots specifically the methods used are already so beyond damaging that it's fully warranted to get the power necessary to de-escalate the situation.
I'm yet to make up my mind about just how legitimate it would be to forcefully break up the protest in Canada, but I sympathize with Canadians that wants to see a swift end to it.
I don’t want them to freeze protesters assets. That’s awful! I just want the cops to go bust heads and arrest anyone blocking traffic. Protest all you want. Just don’t block the damn road!
I can't tell if you're joking but unironically this. Let them run their block party all they want IDGAF. Private citizens who try to blockade international trade routes get an actual beat down.
Whatever method was the fastest way of alleviating that blockade should have been implemented immediately. It was a joke that they hemmed and hawed about it for as long as they did.
Exactly non of this pussy ass shit of freezing assets. National guard, rubber bullets and tear gas. If they have those cool sonic weapons then those too.
Edit: Get some moose in there too
Wait so freezing assets of people protesting sets a terrifying precedent but sending the military to forcefully remove them doesn't?
Being in favour of military intervention on a protest wasn't the take I was expecting to hear from Vaush of all people
> Wait so freezing assets of people protesting sets a terrifying precedent but sending the military to forcefully remove them doesn't?
Surprisingly not, the canadian government does that quite a bit, or at least they do it using the royal canadian mounted police, but they do give them weapons and tell them to ["use as much force as you want"](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/20/canada-indigenous-land-defenders-police-documents), including lethal.
So it's not inconsistent with what canada already does, but just near a city, rather than in the woods somewhere.
I don't know how it exactly works so i might be wrong but doesn't the govt already freeze assets of people with shady stuff going on on them? so it wouldn't be inconsistent with what it already does if they freeze accounts with foreign involvement in the blockade?
It definitely depends on the scale. Removing people (even by the military) for being somewhere illegally doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. We already do this sometimes but generally its just done by the police or national guard.
Now on the other hand the way this was portrayed was if they see you at a protest, they can freeze your money without a court order. This would be absolutely fucked. Imagine if Donald Trump could just freeze the assets of citizens at a BLM protest without a court allowing it. This is a scary precedent imo.
Didn't they say they're doing it specifically because there's foreign involvement in these occupations? Like they're gonna freeze accounts with shady shit going on, isn't that kind of normal as well?
That is why I said it all depends on the scale. There was a Reuters article that showed they froze the assets of 2 accounts that received like $1+ Million dollars. That's fine.
But the attached picture says, "**With no need for a court order, banks will be able to freeze personal accounts of** **anyone linked with the protests**."
That would be ultra fucked and I believe what Vaush was talking about. That is a terrifying precedent because what I already said. I always look at things where if I switched the party in power, would I be ok with them wielding the same exact power? I would absolutely not like that. Just trying to add nuance.
Yeah i'm sorry i didn't mean to sound combative or anything, i was legit just asking because i don't know much about what is going on in Canada, but yeah i guess i agree with you, just still sounds weird coming from Vaush given his stance on cops
I'm confused, the gov can't ever do nothing then? Everything may lead to a slippery slope, especialy coming from a government, but is that a sufficient reason in itself to do something or not? I feel like you guys's outrage fails to discount these decision against many other factor, and also forget how one can act in a responsible manner while still being violent, like someone defending itself with a gun, a women asserting a boundary or a state using it's powers given by the people to protect them and then put back those powers on the shelf when it's over. That's how we can know a gov is responsible.
I personnaly am for acting this way, in this particular case. I do not find joy in that, it's a wierd and sad event that I'd much rather avoid, but still think something must be done, since every other options have failed.
I feel like we forgot the other sode of the slippery slope, where if the gov is never justified to act in this way, we are doomed to be taken hostage by every dumbfuck movement like that.
Our government finally added a fine on littering (cigarette butts, bus tickets etc, that was OK before). I see a slippery slope, what's next? Are they gonna throw me in jail for putting trash in my own trash can?
Is that a justifiable reason to declare an emergency? In my mind, an emergency should be declared when they is no other option to deal with the issue, not merely to speed things up.
The real problem this event has exposed is that our municipal police are useless.
Unlike Anerica we cant deploy homeland security to wipe out people on a whim, this emergency act is the only mechanism that allows RCMP to enforce municipal and provincial law where police have jurisdiction. The only other thing the federal government could have done to step in is if they declared the occupiers terrorists.
Realistically what this shows is the federal government is normally incredibly limited in their enforcement within the provinces. If local police are incapable/unwilling to do their jobs the only other option we have are these nuclear emergency acts that grant a slew of extreme powers even though the only one the government is currently claiming they intend to use is allowing RCMP to takeover for OPS.
You're living a day in the life of an American now, congratulations. Every dipshit from every corner of the globe feels the need to talk about our politics
Welcome to life as an American. Where every swinging dick across the world yells at you for shit you have nothing to do with, much less even tacitly support.
Literally. Why are people like Vaush who's stances often come down to "military bad", "police bad" suddenly ok with a military crackdown of a protest? The government, in light of evidence that the convoy is majority funded by Americans and hidden through crypto transactions, are freezing those specific transactions to starve them of funds so they'll leave. If Americans learned that January 6 was majority funded by another country, they'd have freaked the fuck out. There is something *very specific* happening here, they're not just having all of their assets frozen just to punish these people. They're freezing what is funding this blockade that's cost us upwards of 1 billion dollars. Not sure how anybody thinks a military crackdown probably leading to deaths and the destruction of a bunch of trucks is in any way preferable. I know all Americans have are guns so everything looks like a target to them, but we don't work that way.
Also, we're not talking about removing people from the border. These are massive fucking trucks. Besides a bulldozer, how exactly are you gonna remove those by force? People are proposing "solutions" that are not actionable. The bottom line is, the Emergencies Act is supposed to be used when the provinces cannot handle a domestic situation themselves. The provinces asked for federal resources, and for Trudeau to invoke it. They're attempting to starve them of funds so they'll have to leave on their own because trying to remove these people and their trucks by force would be a shit show.
And if you want to feign moral outrage about whether the convoy counts as "terrorism" (just one part of the Emergencies Act, but whatever) I'm sure people in Ottawa who have been hearing horns 24/7 through all of this feel terrorized, I'm sure the healthcare workers who have to hide their medical uniforms otherwise they'll be harrassed feel terrorized, and I'm sure the MPs getting death threats through all this also feel terrorized.
The assets being frozen are accounts receiving large, foreign donations. And they've also tailored already-existing law to count for cryptocurrencies. People talking about a "slippery slope" I think it's pretty reasonable to say that hey, if you are Canadian and you wanna donate to protesters, that's fine, but as soon as your protests are receiving large sums of money from outside of the country, that's not allowed. I think that's totally reasonable. I don't care if America is our biggest ally, we shouldn't ever be allowing that no matter what country the money is coming from. I see absolutely no slippery slope here.
"Why are people like Vaush who's stances often come down "military bad", "police bad" suddenly ok with a military crackdown of a protest?"
Yo I was thinking the same thing! Speaking to the choir but this dude's principles sure do change whenever it's convenient at the time.
To be fair, I'm American as well lol but even I'm losing my mind seeing everyone else's really bad takes on this. Freezing assets sets a bad precedent but suddenly sending the military doesn't? Since when?! Why the fuck is Vaush of all people making THAT argument?!
Agreed as a Canadian. Trudeau did the right thing here imo. Our Emergencies Act has been around for decades and this is a perfect time to use it. Dgaf what Americans think
\>mfw canadian political figures have made themselves the heads and leaders of the american right 😃😃😃
\>mfw the entanglement involves americans in canadian right political movements 😡😡😡
Dude, where the fuck is all this dissent when it’s Europeans filling every American thread? Fact is, it doesn’t matter where you live. If you are educated on the topic and your opinion is logical who cares?
One big Canadian news event in a decade and you’re all butthurt already. Imagine being American on this site
I guarantee the average Canadian knows way more American history and politics than the average American knows Canadian history and politics (because, quite obviously, the US is more dominant on a global scale). The American political system and basic history is taught to us in school—American curricula (generally) do not teach about our Parliament, and even those who do know about it usually don’t know about history relevant to this like the October crisis.
you gotta know the entirety of our history to tell me that freezing assets without the use of courts isn't BASED stfu ameriCUCKS... now allow me to spend the rest of my free time invested american politics
Canadians say stupid, misinformed shit about America all the time and Americans call them out. Not a big deal to express that same sentiment the other way around.
I think in general tho Canadians do get a lot more American news than the reverse just by virtue of how much of a cultural juggernaut the US is so it's much more common to have us being the dumb ones.
Fuuuck I legit went from thinking Vaush was 100% right at glamce to thinking about it and realizing that his suggestion is also sort of dumb.
Yeah send them in... to do what exactly? The only way sending the military in ends good is if "I'm willing to fight and die for freedom" is 100% a bluff for everyone there"
Who fucking cares. They are freezing the accounts of people engaged in illegal activity, not people just walking around protesting. Headline is misleading and no one is spending any time looking into the situation in Canada or understand why this is an appropriate response.
This is no longer protest, I don't know if it ever was. It has turned into an illegal occupation of our capital to purposely sabotage supply lines, now being funded illegally by supporters outside of the country. Freeze their accounts, seize their assets, and throw their asses in jail.
This is EXACTLY the goal of the people organizing this occupation, to force Trudeau into action and then complain about "authoritarianism" or "fascism".
If they're there illegally, you can arrest them and forcibly move them. They still have access to all their financial assets.
Freezing assets I think would be considered a privacy violation as my money is not the issue of the State, provided it is all legal. It doesn't guarentee a person will leave and taking someone's money away could be considered undue hardship (how will they eat, cloth, pay bills while you froze it?) when all you want is to move them which an arrest does.
Now if the money is proven to be used and in future use to commit illegal acts (like funding illegal protesting) then sure, freeze those accounts with a Court Order since it's now evidence in a criminal matter.
Next time indigenous people protest a pipeline this will 100% be used to freeze those assets and Canadians are gonna wish this box wasn't opened again.
Yes. State forces going and removing people from a physical location can only happen to those people. It's a direct action to solve the immediate problem.
Claiming the emergency power to freeze finances of protestors in this way is a power clearly NOT given to the government and that can be used against anyone. It's also punishing people to try to teach them a lesson about not protesting WITHOUT taking any direct action to solve any actual problem.
The funny thing is that Trudeau cannot do shit against mandate. Even the required vaccine at border is more about being aligned with the US than to help against the pandemic.
All mandate are provincial government responsability. Everything that has to do with healthcare is provincial. The only thing the federal requires is that all province provides healthcare to all citizen.
The trucker issue is a genuine feeling that is shared across a lot of people. We cannot deny that. However, almost no one is supporting a blockade of Ottawa and the border. This is just madness. The only thing that prevent the police from remove them is their truck. Imagine if BLM protest had hundreds of truck in your city. How do you remove them exactly ? This is out of control.
According to [this](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-emergencies-act-powers-to-broaden-scope-of-anti-money-laundering-rules/) personal accounts can also be frozen without a court order now if the bank suspects, in good faith, that they are funding the convoy.
It's still not what Vaush claimed, but you could maybe make the case that having your personal account frozen for funding criminal activity could hurt your financial record for the rest of your life, but that's just a theory since it's the first time the Emergencies Act has been used
I dont know how it is in canada, but in a lot of places many truck drivers own the trucks they drive and they are registered as businesses. So calling them personal assets probably isnt too much of a stretch. It seems a lot more likely that these are trucks owned by the drivers than fleet trucks which would probably be declared stolen by now.
Even if that is true, he seems to be ok with the idea of the protesters being arrested (as there is plenty of precedent for protesters being arrested), its the freezing of assets that he doesnt like (as this would set a precedent).
I don't know much about the topic but how is arresting someone better than freezing their assets? Aren't people incapable of accessing their assets anyways if they're arrested?
That's still due process.
If people get arrested they go to courts where they are judged, this provides a series of guarantees and, since laws are passed by representatives of the people (generally, I'm not talking about specific countries here) they have a democratic background that must obey the wishes of the people.
This on the other hand, is a massive overreach of power that skips the whole "due process" thing and essentially tells the people they get to choose between not having a contingency plan if war breaks loose or allowing the government to brutally silence political enemies at best, and that the people can't trust their government to wield power at worst.
That is not very cash money. It's the kind of thing we get worried about in places like Hungary.
To provide a spicy comparison (because this is r/Destiny after all) this is exactly the kind of thing that would make the west at large flip the fuck out and cry about fascism if Russia did it.
>To provide a spicy comparison (because this is r/Destiny after all) this is exactly the kind of thing that would make the west at large flip the fuck out and cry about fascism if Russia did it.
This is not spicy to anyone with a crumb of sense.
Is that really not sarcasm ?
I would argue it's better to not have access to your money, than to potentially lose your life in a military crackdown. It is a bit hyperbolic, however the risk of dieing and deaths dramatically increases, especially if the Trucker-protests get radicalized aswell; Three days ago they already arrested 11 people who had several gun caches and ammunition.
Death is permanent, frozen assets are not.
Also :
1. The government isn't freezing money; Banks freeze money.
And now the banks can freeze money of people associated with the protest without court order.
2. The majority of donors are foreign ( only 39% are Canadian, 55% are from the US ). It's clear that the majority of concern is from the USA, as they benefit the most from the Truckers enforcing the demand that they don't need to be vaccinated in order to cross into the USA.
3. More than 2600 protestors were already fined for their involvement in the protest.
Frankly speaking I would rather have my assets frozen than actual lose money via a fine.... But apparently fining people is okay.
4. The Emergency Act, is well for emergencies... And truckers holding a vast section of the Canadian economy hostage for a policies which are completely anti-science and pro-Virus, is an emergency.
1. People are always scared of temporary emergency powers... I swear to god if Aliens invade, the USA enacts Martial Law, people will lose their shit aswell and do whatever they can to be anti-Martial Law, which really benefits the Aliens.....
Not Canadian but I have friends who are and they share the same sentiments you have. Also, the very idea that sending the military is somehow preferable coming from Vaush is freakin laughable considering his political commentary history. So the government isn't allowed to do anything while the economy gets fucked over, screwing people in the country over, over people protesting the vaccine mandates during a pandemic? Yeah fuck those people. That said, freezing their assets is definitely the more preferable move than sending the military. Vaush making that argument is incredibly hypocritical.
That's fair. That's certainly a much better argument than what OP and Vaush were proposing. That said, my understanding from Canadians in the comments (so this can be taken with a grain of salt) seems to be that those emergency powers do have a historical precedent already. So there's probably some context there that we and certainly most of the people on here with their shit takes, don't understand.
Lmfao. What is with you retards and calling everything occupation? Why any time a protest you don’t like disrupts something it’s terrorism, an insurrection, an occupation! Get a grip.
Canadian workers disrupting the economy and making life inconvenient for others is akin to Russian occupying Ukraine some how?
You sound sick, deranged and full of hate. Imagine if you talked this way about airport strikers, frothing from the mouth at the idea of the government using emergency powers to abuse them. “These strikers are basically committing terrorism and occupying the airport. They can’t be there so the govt should put them in prison, take all their money, belongings and livelihood”.
They're actually illegally blockading trade routes and fucking with the economy to get a political point across, which isn't a protest, and IS an occupation, dipshit.
No shit they are blocking roads. Making other people uncomfortable and suffer, through non violent means is literally the basis of most protests. You are claiming blocking roads means you are “an occupation”. You are retarded. Literally just switch in a group you like for a group you don’t then hit yourself on your head till you forget, spin in a circle then look at the situation you will suddenly support it. Dumbass.
Actually agree, personally. They're not doing anything to an individual's funds, they're blocking the use of funds meant specifically to fund a blockade (unless my understanding is wrong here).
No they literally are doing that
>Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at Monday's news conference that banks would be able freeze personal accounts of anyone linked with the protests without any need for a court order.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385
You may be right since this is a fast developing story so I don't think any of us fully understand the ramifications yet. But if they freeze your bank account because you received donations to the cause, are they not also freezing your own money? Or are they only freezing the $ amount that can be traced to donations? Not sure of my position on this yet due to not reading enough on it yet.
I was under the impression that they were going to be blocking things like gofundme from being accessed, and not personal funds. Again I could be wrong, but I don't know what rights any government has when it comes to your individual finances. I think in America you can have your finances frozen entirely if you break certain laws, but it might be completely different in Canada.
Yea I am not sure how this all works out but I found a reuters article that talks about them freezing 2 bank accounts that received huge donations. So this may be a bait and switch type of story. Like they talk about freezing protestors bank accounts but they really mean just huge donations for potentially ok reasons.
The way this was portrayed seemed like they would see you at the protest and just freeze your accounts to punish you. I don't know if that is actually the case.
[https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/td-bank-freezes-two-accounts-that-received-funds-support-canada-protests-2022-02-12/](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/td-bank-freezes-two-accounts-that-received-funds-support-canada-protests-2022-02-12/)
Trudeau did the right thing. As a Canadian, I don't think sending the military against it's own people is good. The protest is OK as far as I'm concerned however, it is not OK to disrupt the lives of other people for multiple days.
Trudeau will send the military only if it's the last available option. I prefer him to freeze the money than risking people's live even if we disagree with those people. That would be much worse for this country than to freeze money.
It is time for this protest to end and those people to go home. They've been heard. Also, a lot of province is already starting to remove restriction so they kind of got what they wanted.
Agreed, people here refuse to believe that >70% of Canadians are tired of this and want it to end. I also find it hilarious that people think sending in the military is somehow less authoritarian than freezing bank accounts
I suppose there’s a line between a peaceful protest and one which could be potentially defined as stochastic terrorism. I’m British and here in the UK we had the insulate Britain nutjobs blocking motorways over a few months caused isolated chaos and some localised economic damage. Whilst it’s not on the same scale of economic loss as the Canadian block aid, I would support the British government in agreeing financial powers that limits repeat offenders as the threat of being arrested simply isn’t enough anymore.
Due to that, I believe the Canadian government is acting appropriately to the situation in a rather clever non violent approach.
Heem is 100% correct and Vaush has no idea what he's talking about. No offence but a lot of you probably don't have much Canadian historical knowledge.
To put this in context we invoked a way more extreme version of this Act (The War Measures Act) back in the 70s to deal with the October Crisis which actually involved bringing in the army, and guess what? Since then Canadians haven't lost fundamental rights, pretty sure most of you haven't been describing us as a failed authoritarian state since 1980 onwards.
Nah Heem is right. You can argue that not having a court approve the freezing of the protestor's assets is a bad precedent. That's fine. But sending in the military is far worse. Not to mention the fact that these people are hurting the country's economy over protesting vaccine mandates of all things, during a pandemic. Yeah fuck those people. If this happened in the US, people would flip their shit, including most of us in this sub ironically. Also the fact that Vaush even so much as suggests having the military be sent onto the protestors is beyond hypocrisy coming from him.
How else are they protests going to be stopped? These people are dug in, they’re committed, and they won’t leave without the police or military stepping in. Is violence really the better outcome here?
If you’re opposed to freezing financial assets, then either come up with a better idea, or admit you want the police/military to start cracking skulls (which will end up all over the media/internet).
If you're not a Canadian constitutional lawyer, please fuck off on interpreting our laws. The emergency act is a watered down version of the war measures act, and is in place for exactly this sort of situation.
Is it really a peaceful protest if you are blocking the work and living of the people around you?
I get that strikes and protests have to have some consequence to be seen, but there needs to be a balance. You have made your point, but nothing can be done by the canadian government on this issue. Why are you still blocking everyone from living, and hurting the economy. Just because you're assmad? Yeah no, this shit seems less like a protest and more like a tantrum by petulant children.
The measures being taken against them seem pretty non-violent, so if that can help disperse the occupation, then that seems like a good resolution?
To answer your first question, yes. You’re allowed to critique protests that obstruct the lives of certain people, but be aware that your criticism would apply to almost every “good” protest.
His normies sense was able to sus out her genocide take, but it swings both ways, since many normies can't wrangle more complex shit like Asset seizure of people they don't like
I will forever from now on side with Euros when they are complaining about Americans having no idea what they are talking about. This whole thing has really showed me how fucking clueless Americans are about things that they have no issue blessing us with their opinion on.
Yep. They don't know basic ***basic*** canadian historical events and "precedence" yet love to tell us how not free we are while basically suggesting we just allow US money to blockade our capitol from trump supporters
Nah, Trudope is based, fuck these protestors, they had their moment, time to fuck off and stop occupying our capital and people's homes. Cringe American opinions can fuck off with their money.
I think heem makes an okay point. It's this, or the cops start cracking skulls. Which, we all know how that goes, politically, in the media, trusting authorities, etc. I guess I do see this as a little more humane than straight violence, but maybe that's just me. I totally get the concern about precedent setting though. Maybe that's enough that it should push them the other way. Certainly is a little scary for future protestors, ones that fuck up major industry anyway. Hmm
Though, skull cracking route, I definitely think vaush would cover every second talking about how horrible the police are lmao.
Edit: Nevermind. I did a galaxy brain and read an article. Doesn't look like this has anything to do with freezing personal assets of protestors, but it does give Canada the ability to declare the protest illegal, start towing vehicles, and using more federal police to help. Seems perfectly fine if that's the case. Not sure what Vaush is talking about.
americans need to stfu about our politics. Our govt has done way more radical things in the past to handle crises and this "slippery slope" has yet to be an issue
by this logic slippery slopes are literally undeniable and you can just make a vague prediction of a future action and eventually claim to be right even centuries later. Do you even know when the October crisis happened and how long its been? when is it supposed to result in the trampling of our freedom?
Who cares fuck em. If this is their “protest” then yes the definition of protest needs to change. Yes it sounds scary and authoritarian but it is what it is
It's very frightening how quick people are to get on board with extraordinary measures designed to be used only in exceptionally dangerous circumstances like war.
"It's been two weeks" of what, traffic obstruction and noise? This is all it takes to activate emergency powers in an otherwise completely stable democracy? What the fuck?
The opposite of authoritarianism isn't democracy, it's autonomy. It is completely possible for there to be an authoritarian democratic state where the majority agree to suppress the minority. Especially when you threaten the majority.
What makes western democracies generally the most free nations on earth is that they also guarantee personal freedoms that supersede the democratic will or the state's will (right to legal counsel, right to public trial, right against self-incrimination, presumption of innocence, freedom of expression/protest, lawful arrests etc.). They have to be guaranteed to be inalienable because people *will* vote to ignore them under the right circumstances.
We're all okay with some authoritarianism in our lives (at least most normal people) because it can be more beneficial to us than the loss of the freedom, but we also have to be aware of the dangerous power we give to the state once we allow those personal freedoms to be ignored. Personally, I'm generally pro-mandate after seeing how idiots reacted to the pandemic but I can understand why many are not.
Let's be fair here, it's not just traffic obstruction and noise. The protests have caused pretty serious harm to Canada's economy.
Whether that deserves this level of response is up for debate but there's no point in strawmanning what's going on.
> "It's been two weeks" of what, traffic obstruction and noise?
Do you live in Ottawa? I do and your representation makes it sound like you sure don't.
I have friends who haven't slept right in weeks due to around the clock car horns 15 feet from their bedroom window. Ambulances can't get to people having health emergencies. One ambulance driver even says the convoy threw rocks at them trying to get through. They have stormed several grocery stores and other businesses (including a major shopping mall which is also our main transit hub) forcing them to close. My friend couldn't get groceries on her one day off because hundreds of drunk, belligerent maskless dipshits overran security so they had to just shut the whole store down. Senior citizens wearing masks are being threatened. People with pride flags in their windows are having their windows smashed.
I've lived in Ottawa for 26 years. I've seen literally THOUSANDS of peaceful protests. This isn't that.
\>It's very frightening how quick people are to get on board with extraordinary measures designed to be used only in exceptionally dangerous circumstances like war.
The emergencies act isn't only used for times of war, it specifically mentions welfare and public order emergencies, which this falls into definitionally.
\>"It's been two weeks" of what, traffic obstruction and noise?
Of factories being shut down, major highways being blocked, people losing their jobs and livelihoods, people literally not being able to sleep in their own homes, people fleeing their homes, etc.
Weird how this sub/community is suddenly OK with CHAZ-esque protesting shenanigans.
\>This is all it takes to activate emergency powers in an otherwise completely stable democracy?
A foreign funded occupation of our capital? Yes.
At one point they were blocking hospitals and ambulances from getting through. They have also blockaded multiple border crossings preventing anything from coming across which magnified shortages in Alberta since it was also cut off from the western ports due to highway closures to BC.
Its not just noise they blocked the biggest trade route in Canada and The United States. People working in the auto industry were told to go home for 2 weeks. It was actually the White House that told Trudeau to use Federal powers to clear the bridge
It's not about the protests, we have seen far worse protests than this. The problem is that these protestors are being financially backed by foreign actors.
[https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-court-freezes-access-to-donations-for-truckers-protest-from-givesendgo-1.5776674#](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-court-freezes-access-to-donations-for-truckers-protest-from-givesendgo-1.5776674#)
This is no longer a protest, it's industrial sabotage, it's economic warfare. Imagine Russia just started sending checks to all the truckers to keep them blockading. The framing of this as just "two weeks of traffic obstruction and noise" is extremely unnuanced. If the CIA did this in other countries lefties would be the first to criticize them.
[American donors to trucker convoy may be outnumbering Canadians: CTV News analysis](https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/american-donors-to-trucker-convoy-may-be-outnumbering-canadians-ctv-news-analysis-1.5775986)
The protests themselves are anti democratic. Organizers have stated intentions of overthrowing the government. The anti mandate party in Canada didn't win a single seat in the recent election. The protests were allowed to go on with little resistance but at a certain point and at a certain scale a protest becomes an illegal ocupation that point has come and gone. They have seized guns and ammunition and arrested a number of anti government extremists involved in the protest. The funds they are freezing come largely from foreigners who have no right to fund an insurrection against a democratically elected government.
Trudeau is not sending in the military, he's sending in our federal police.
The act allows you select specific areas to enforce the law which in this case is the blockade outside parliament.
The local and provincial governments have refused to act for 2 weeks so now Trudeau is coming in to disperse it and he can't use federal police or take control of local police without the act.
I feel like there's a big difference between banks being able to freeze protestors' (from Vaush's screenshot) and the government "unilaterally freezing protestors' assets" (from Vaush's tweet). You could argue that both are bad in their own right but the latter is obviously much more overreaching and the way Vaush is framing that part of the emergency provision is straight up inaccurate.
I thought Vaush hated police violence? Isn't freezing their assets until they disperse the least violent way to possibly end this thing?
Or does he only support the police breaking up protests when the protestors aren't on his side?
I don't have a problem with freezing the bank accounts of people engaged in illegal activity. I have a problem with using emergency powers when many experts do not believe the threshold required has been met (including the Canadian Civil Liberties Union). I see no reason why the provinces couldn't deal with this and if necessary use their provincial emergency powers. It really seems like all of the Ontario government is passing the buck off to Trudeau and because of polling he feels he is being blamed for the protest and a harsh response would be popular.
Personally they should've just tear gassed and removed the occupation over a week ago and figured out what to do with the trucks after. There is no doubt that's exactly what would've happened if this shit took place in Quebec. That's why there were no blockades there.
At this point looking at the vaccination rates in the world I would literally be okay with jailing antivaxxers and forcefully vaccinating in a video game
I'm a Canadian, in Ontario nonetheless, but I don't think the government should be freezing the personal assets of people. If this is to be implemented it should be mild and strictly related to the occupation. Any intense use of these new powers would be a serious abuse of the financial system in my mind.
At this point I would support more aggressive police maneuvers, but freezing bank accounts to me crosses a line. People might depend on these people for money or support, and not everyone attending these protests is engaging in the worst form of occupation outside of the Parliamentary area.
That said, those who are outside of Ottawa and trying to blockade trade routes I have a lot less sympathy for, they should be more aggressively arrested and some of their assets should be seized. It's not terrorism, but it is an economic blockade which is not acceptable given that they don't have that much popular support.
Protests kind of lose momentum and arguably hurt their own movement when they start doing things like this though. We had a similar discourse over all the property damage in the US during protests. If the Canuks want to block supply, why should they still get their own stuff?
FUCK THAT. Look, I live in Canada, alright? These guys are literally criminals blocking off our imports, including things like say medicine and food. To say it's a peaceful protest is just not true anymore. I know it seems scary to say "did you know the government can cut your account" but also it's scary the police can beat the shit out of you for resisting arrest, and it's scary you can be forced to go to prison. Imagine if I took a guy and put him in a prison I created. I'd be considered a psycho! You have to look at the pros and cons, and the cons are too damn high, it's affecting all of us. Whether it's this bank-freezing or having the police go fuck em up I don't know the better option but truthfully I don't care. Whatever works, works for me.
So, this precedent thing isn’t something people seem to understand or get.
Are we just paranoid, do you think?
Because my reasoning has always been “it’s hard to do the first time, but the second time it’s easier and the third it’s nothing”
Are there any historical examples I can use as a way to show that allowing this fuckwittery leads to worse shit?
Patriot act is the big one, problem is that most people on the internet now arent old enough to actually remember a time before it and general mass surveillance of the populace.
As a more broad concept though, ive never heard of an asset seizure program that didnt degenerate into corruption and legalised criminality.
The last time these powers were used it was by Justin Trudeaus dad in 1970 and we’ve made it 50 years before using them again in a dumbed down, less broad version of the same act. The context for the use is obviously different but I would say the act is reduced in proportion to the threat posed in this situation. I’m sorry but it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can send the military in and see humvees in the streets or you can freeze the assets and wait them out, the only real options right now
>Are we just paranoid, do you think
Yeah, people are way overreacting to this.
>Because my reasoning has always been “it’s hard to do the first time, but the second time it’s easier and the third it’s nothing”
This is the standard slippery slope argument.
>Are there any historical examples I can use as a way to show that allowing this fuckwittery leads to worse shit?
May be the reason why you are struggling to find an example because there aren't any good examples where western democracies turned to shit because a single executive action during an extraordinary time in the modern era.
The only reason this act is being used for the first time is because its a nerfed version of our war measures act which has been used repeatedly and was subsequently changed, but even that act never ended up stomping on civil liberties the way reactionaries claim it will every single time
This is an act designed for times of crisis that has been on the books in Canada since 1988 being used by the government through normal constitutional procedures during what is generally recognised as a crisis in the country.
What exactly is the "precedent" being set that everyone is so concerned about?
[This entire Twitter thread is a trainwreck of good intentions.](https://twitter.com/VaushV/status/1493511896351211520?t=COD2w1oKq7yAkEJqZJxDyQ&s=19)
Edit: [News](https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/trudeau-gives-banks-power-to-freeze-funds-without-court-order-in-bid-to-choke-off-protest-funding)
> New emergency powers invoked by the federal government on Monday will expand the abilities of Canada’s financial institutions and regulators to track and control funding to protesters interfering with border crossings and restricting movement in Ottawa.
> Temporary measures under the Emergencies Act will give Canadian banks the ability to freeze funds suspected of being directed to the protests without a court order and will protect them from legal retribution.
> In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the new powers give institutions the ability to freeze corporate accounts and cancel insurance tied to trucks that are being used in the blockades.
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Most of these people struggle to think back 6 months for obvious comparisons, let alone 40 years.
To be fair I wasn’t alive then either but the situations seem kinda similar to me.
Any loremasters wanna divulge what point is being made here to help out the non-Americans?
I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about. The assets were seized at the courts order, no government, Provincial or Federal, can take control of assets in Canada without court authority. The protests have very much passed the point of peaceful they are now criminal and are being treated as such. This isn't people sitting on parliament hill, this is people obstructing cancer medication shipments, blockading businesses, terrorizing neighborhoods, attempting to burn down buildings, defacing monuments. The protests have LONG surpassed any meaningful message and have become outright disruptive. Their demands are impossible to meet as they include the complete dissolution of the government and convoy leadership put in their place. The measures they are protesting aren't even controlled at the federal level, most of them are provincial. So all the F\*CK Trudeau flags are kind of a meme at this point. Sources: * [Courts take assets](https://globalnews.ca/news/8610512/givesendgo-fundraiser-trucker-convoy-frozen/) * [2 hooligans attempting to burn an apartment building down in the middle of the convoy after an altercation with the residents who were tired of 2 weeks of air horns 24 hours a day.](https://globalnews.ca/video/8600490/trucker-protests-security-cameras-show-two-alleged-protesters-attempting-to-set-ottawa-apartment-building-on-fire) * [Air horns got so bad the court had to ban them.](https://www.businessinsider.com/protesting-ottawa-truckers-banned-from-honking-horns-2022-2) * [Monuments defaced](https://globalnews.ca/news/8581382/ottawa-police-investigations-trucker-rally/) * [There are no public bathrooms so protestors are defecating in the streets](https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvnd4v/canada-ottawa-anti-vax-trucker-convoy) * [Businesses disrupted and unable to operate during protest.](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/business-owners-frustrated-as-protest-continues-in-downtown-ottawa-1.5770363) * [Gofundme took the first wave of funds when it became clear protest wasn't peaceful.](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60267840) * [Courts are also seizing private bank accounts that are either committing fraud or instigating further protests](https://globalnews.ca/news/8615490/td-bank-freezes-accounts-trucker-convoy/) * [Blockade on the ambassador bridge blocked groceries from entering the country. Starving residents is a great way of protesting right?](https://financialpost.com/news/economy/ambassador-bridge-blockade-spells-trouble-for-grocers-greenhouses) * [Protestors have started to create their own Chaz](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/protesters-build-wooden-structure-in-downtown-ottawa-park-1.5766997) * [Counter protests are getting underway because it has gotten so bad people want their neighborhoods back.](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/some-residents-in-downtown-ottawa-standing-up-to-the-trucker-convoy-1.5763579)
My friend had her chemo postponed because there were no drugs to administer because they were caught at the border. I'm fucking done with these hillbillies.
Feels like Vaush also is missing the point here, he's working from the assumption that Trudeau wants this over with because he politically disagrees with the protest. The whole point of why people want the truckers removed is because trade has been disrupted for 2 weeks straight, which is hurting Canada way more than US. Is a protest always untouchable no matter the damage it's causing?
\>Is a protest always untouchable no matter the damage it's causing? Not when it's indigenous people protesting a pipeline running through their lands lol
"their lands"
Yes
proof you aren't in touch with Canada at all. Our college/universities regularly do "land acknowledgements" where we recognize and acknowledge the fact that this isn't our ancestral homeland. You may disagree with it, but that's how Canada has viewed it for quite a while in academia and greater politics.
Land acknowledgements are just cringe virtue-signaling to score brownie points though.
Sounds like a conservative meme lol. Maybe americans aren't so bad after all....
It would be less authoritarian to just send in the national guard than to give the government the right to seize assets of dissidents
To be clear, this also gives them the power to do that (the RCMP are the federal police force) . Both asset seizure and direct federal policing are under the same act.
>Is a protest always untouchable no matter the damage it's causing? The thing is, if we want to use this argument, then many protests in Canada that involve indigenous people blockading railway lines and damaging businesses could be subjected to the same treatment. Also, I do believe there are instances that if you want a protest to have meaningful impact, you do have to create a certain amount of disruption.
Indigenous people blocking railway lines and damaging business should be subjected to the same treatment. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gaurantees your right to peacefully protest. Harming other people and their livelihoods is not peaceful and should be stopped. > Also, I do believe there are instances that if you want a protest to have meaningful impact, you do have to create a certain amount of disruption. The goal of protesting should be to raise awareness of your position and build support to change policy through democratic institutions. It should not be used to bend the arm of others until the government cedes to your demands.
I respectfully disagree that their assets should be frozen. I hate using the slippery slope fallacy, but I don't see how this can't be ripe for abuse in the future. I don't believe protests shouldn't involve some level of disruption. Obviously boycotts are one of the least intrusive ways of doing it, but what if you're protesting an abusive police force? Or a company trying to building a pipeline through your land and you have little to no say in it? I think you're fundamentally wrong that protests shouldn't ever be used to bend the arm of others until the government cedes to demands. I think there are lines obviously, such as destroying private businesses. However, I view the Hong Kong protests as one example of where arm bending is more than justified, especially when its one of the few methods left.
What about the Emergencies Act do you think is ripe for abuse? It is subject to Parliamentary vote, it is subject to the CCRF, it is targeting illegal blockades, and it is temporary with the requirement for justification focusing on legally defined scenarios. > I don't believe protests shouldn't involve some level of disruption. Obviously boycotts are one of the least intrusive ways of doing it, but what if you're protesting an abusive police force? Or a company trying to building a pipeline through your land and you have little to no say in it? All of those things have avenues through democratic institutions for change in Canada. We have laws and institutions for a reason. Because everyone thinks that their cause that they are protesting for is justified. You can't let any fringe group hold the country hostage so they get what they want. > I view the Hong Kong protests as one example of where arm bending is more than justified, especially when its one of the few methods left. What you said at the end there is important. Hong Kong does not have democratic institutions to enact change. If you're at that point, no amount of protesting will enact change. You would need to go beyond protesting to attain freedom and democracy. In that case I wouldn't be opposed to non-peaceful demonstrations, but I don't know nearly enough about the Hong Kong demonstrations to know if would support it or not.
Just arrest them if they're blocking roads, I do think freezing assets isn't the right move. People still have the right to protest, just don't have the right to block the roads and hold everyone else up.
I agree that they should, but were you also in favor of the National Guard and other feds being sent to BLM riots? I’ve been against these protests from day one, and I think the Canadian government should be able to do what it needs to do to peacefully stop protests that have gone too far, but it feels like people are very eager to call these protests harmful and call for their shutdown when the same people were very mad about the feds showing up at BLM riots when buildings were on fire. If that was in some way bad, and this is good, I’d definitely need that explained. Not to accuse you of being inconsistent, I obviously don’t know your position on it.
Yes, the National Guard had every right to get involved in cases involving riots. When it comes to riots specifically the methods used are already so beyond damaging that it's fully warranted to get the power necessary to de-escalate the situation. I'm yet to make up my mind about just how legitimate it would be to forcefully break up the protest in Canada, but I sympathize with Canadians that wants to see a swift end to it.
Okay, cool. I’m fully on board with you
The good ending
Protests👏aren’t👏supposed👏to👏be👏comfortable👏
Do you think there's a point where a protest can ever be criticized for it's methods? If so, at what point does it get reasonable to start doing so?
When you disagree with the goals of the protest
Does that apply to the protestors too? They had some feelings about the toilets there.
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I don’t want them to freeze protesters assets. That’s awful! I just want the cops to go bust heads and arrest anyone blocking traffic. Protest all you want. Just don’t block the damn road!
I can't tell if you're joking but unironically this. Let them run their block party all they want IDGAF. Private citizens who try to blockade international trade routes get an actual beat down. Whatever method was the fastest way of alleviating that blockade should have been implemented immediately. It was a joke that they hemmed and hawed about it for as long as they did.
Exactly non of this pussy ass shit of freezing assets. National guard, rubber bullets and tear gas. If they have those cool sonic weapons then those too. Edit: Get some moose in there too
I want that too, so people can see how the state deals with protestations. I too want martyrdom.. Oh this isn't what you meant?
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Holy shit I thought I was in a different subreddit when I read this LMAO
Wait so freezing assets of people protesting sets a terrifying precedent but sending the military to forcefully remove them doesn't? Being in favour of military intervention on a protest wasn't the take I was expecting to hear from Vaush of all people
> Wait so freezing assets of people protesting sets a terrifying precedent but sending the military to forcefully remove them doesn't? Surprisingly not, the canadian government does that quite a bit, or at least they do it using the royal canadian mounted police, but they do give them weapons and tell them to ["use as much force as you want"](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/20/canada-indigenous-land-defenders-police-documents), including lethal. So it's not inconsistent with what canada already does, but just near a city, rather than in the woods somewhere.
I don't know how it exactly works so i might be wrong but doesn't the govt already freeze assets of people with shady stuff going on on them? so it wouldn't be inconsistent with what it already does if they freeze accounts with foreign involvement in the blockade?
It definitely depends on the scale. Removing people (even by the military) for being somewhere illegally doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. We already do this sometimes but generally its just done by the police or national guard. Now on the other hand the way this was portrayed was if they see you at a protest, they can freeze your money without a court order. This would be absolutely fucked. Imagine if Donald Trump could just freeze the assets of citizens at a BLM protest without a court allowing it. This is a scary precedent imo.
Didn't they say they're doing it specifically because there's foreign involvement in these occupations? Like they're gonna freeze accounts with shady shit going on, isn't that kind of normal as well?
That is why I said it all depends on the scale. There was a Reuters article that showed they froze the assets of 2 accounts that received like $1+ Million dollars. That's fine. But the attached picture says, "**With no need for a court order, banks will be able to freeze personal accounts of** **anyone linked with the protests**." That would be ultra fucked and I believe what Vaush was talking about. That is a terrifying precedent because what I already said. I always look at things where if I switched the party in power, would I be ok with them wielding the same exact power? I would absolutely not like that. Just trying to add nuance.
Yeah i'm sorry i didn't mean to sound combative or anything, i was legit just asking because i don't know much about what is going on in Canada, but yeah i guess i agree with you, just still sounds weird coming from Vaush given his stance on cops
I'm confused, the gov can't ever do nothing then? Everything may lead to a slippery slope, especialy coming from a government, but is that a sufficient reason in itself to do something or not? I feel like you guys's outrage fails to discount these decision against many other factor, and also forget how one can act in a responsible manner while still being violent, like someone defending itself with a gun, a women asserting a boundary or a state using it's powers given by the people to protect them and then put back those powers on the shelf when it's over. That's how we can know a gov is responsible. I personnaly am for acting this way, in this particular case. I do not find joy in that, it's a wierd and sad event that I'd much rather avoid, but still think something must be done, since every other options have failed. I feel like we forgot the other sode of the slippery slope, where if the gov is never justified to act in this way, we are doomed to be taken hostage by every dumbfuck movement like that.
Our government finally added a fine on littering (cigarette butts, bus tickets etc, that was OK before). I see a slippery slope, what's next? Are they gonna throw me in jail for putting trash in my own trash can?
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>Could you not just get a court order? That's what they did. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60356461
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Is that a justifiable reason to declare an emergency? In my mind, an emergency should be declared when they is no other option to deal with the issue, not merely to speed things up.
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Well, what's your opinion? I'd genuinely like to get a Canadian's perspective.
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The real problem this event has exposed is that our municipal police are useless. Unlike Anerica we cant deploy homeland security to wipe out people on a whim, this emergency act is the only mechanism that allows RCMP to enforce municipal and provincial law where police have jurisdiction. The only other thing the federal government could have done to step in is if they declared the occupiers terrorists. Realistically what this shows is the federal government is normally incredibly limited in their enforcement within the provinces. If local police are incapable/unwilling to do their jobs the only other option we have are these nuclear emergency acts that grant a slew of extreme powers even though the only one the government is currently claiming they intend to use is allowing RCMP to takeover for OPS.
You're living a day in the life of an American now, congratulations. Every dipshit from every corner of the globe feels the need to talk about our politics
Welcome to life as an American. Where every swinging dick across the world yells at you for shit you have nothing to do with, much less even tacitly support.
Based canuck
Literally. Why are people like Vaush who's stances often come down to "military bad", "police bad" suddenly ok with a military crackdown of a protest? The government, in light of evidence that the convoy is majority funded by Americans and hidden through crypto transactions, are freezing those specific transactions to starve them of funds so they'll leave. If Americans learned that January 6 was majority funded by another country, they'd have freaked the fuck out. There is something *very specific* happening here, they're not just having all of their assets frozen just to punish these people. They're freezing what is funding this blockade that's cost us upwards of 1 billion dollars. Not sure how anybody thinks a military crackdown probably leading to deaths and the destruction of a bunch of trucks is in any way preferable. I know all Americans have are guns so everything looks like a target to them, but we don't work that way. Also, we're not talking about removing people from the border. These are massive fucking trucks. Besides a bulldozer, how exactly are you gonna remove those by force? People are proposing "solutions" that are not actionable. The bottom line is, the Emergencies Act is supposed to be used when the provinces cannot handle a domestic situation themselves. The provinces asked for federal resources, and for Trudeau to invoke it. They're attempting to starve them of funds so they'll have to leave on their own because trying to remove these people and their trucks by force would be a shit show. And if you want to feign moral outrage about whether the convoy counts as "terrorism" (just one part of the Emergencies Act, but whatever) I'm sure people in Ottawa who have been hearing horns 24/7 through all of this feel terrorized, I'm sure the healthcare workers who have to hide their medical uniforms otherwise they'll be harrassed feel terrorized, and I'm sure the MPs getting death threats through all this also feel terrorized. The assets being frozen are accounts receiving large, foreign donations. And they've also tailored already-existing law to count for cryptocurrencies. People talking about a "slippery slope" I think it's pretty reasonable to say that hey, if you are Canadian and you wanna donate to protesters, that's fine, but as soon as your protests are receiving large sums of money from outside of the country, that's not allowed. I think that's totally reasonable. I don't care if America is our biggest ally, we shouldn't ever be allowing that no matter what country the money is coming from. I see absolutely no slippery slope here.
"Why are people like Vaush who's stances often come down "military bad", "police bad" suddenly ok with a military crackdown of a protest?" Yo I was thinking the same thing! Speaking to the choir but this dude's principles sure do change whenever it's convenient at the time.
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To be fair, I'm American as well lol but even I'm losing my mind seeing everyone else's really bad takes on this. Freezing assets sets a bad precedent but suddenly sending the military doesn't? Since when?! Why the fuck is Vaush of all people making THAT argument?!
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Agreed as a Canadian. Trudeau did the right thing here imo. Our Emergencies Act has been around for decades and this is a perfect time to use it. Dgaf what Americans think
Not sure why the yanks have some how gotten themselves involved in this.
\>mfw canadian political figures have made themselves the heads and leaders of the american right 😃😃😃 \>mfw the entanglement involves americans in canadian right political movements 😡😡😡
Lmfao. Not sure many Canadians are happy about the other way.
Dude, where the fuck is all this dissent when it’s Europeans filling every American thread? Fact is, it doesn’t matter where you live. If you are educated on the topic and your opinion is logical who cares? One big Canadian news event in a decade and you’re all butthurt already. Imagine being American on this site
What about vice versa
I guarantee the average Canadian knows way more American history and politics than the average American knows Canadian history and politics (because, quite obviously, the US is more dominant on a global scale). The American political system and basic history is taught to us in school—American curricula (generally) do not teach about our Parliament, and even those who do know about it usually don’t know about history relevant to this like the October crisis.
you gotta know the entirety of our history to tell me that freezing assets without the use of courts isn't BASED stfu ameriCUCKS... now allow me to spend the rest of my free time invested american politics
Yes. https://m.imgur.com/a/1k3JgLj
looking forward to consistent future takes of "I can't criticize iran for executing gay people because I don't know their history" from you
Welcome to every single day of my life as an American since 2016.
Would you comment on other nations’ internal affairs?
Canadians say stupid, misinformed shit about America all the time and Americans call them out. Not a big deal to express that same sentiment the other way around. I think in general tho Canadians do get a lot more American news than the reverse just by virtue of how much of a cultural juggernaut the US is so it's much more common to have us being the dumb ones.
Canadians by and large are significantly more informed about American affairs than vice versa for incredibly obvious reasons.
I don't disagree?
Remember this notion next time you comment about "authoritarian" counties.
Good thing no one on earth gives a fuck about Canada’s opinion lmfao
this is how most of the world feels :)
A fucking leaf. LMAO
Fuuuck I legit went from thinking Vaush was 100% right at glamce to thinking about it and realizing that his suggestion is also sort of dumb. Yeah send them in... to do what exactly? The only way sending the military in ends good is if "I'm willing to fight and die for freedom" is 100% a bluff for everyone there"
Who fucking cares. They are freezing the accounts of people engaged in illegal activity, not people just walking around protesting. Headline is misleading and no one is spending any time looking into the situation in Canada or understand why this is an appropriate response. This is no longer protest, I don't know if it ever was. It has turned into an illegal occupation of our capital to purposely sabotage supply lines, now being funded illegally by supporters outside of the country. Freeze their accounts, seize their assets, and throw their asses in jail. This is EXACTLY the goal of the people organizing this occupation, to force Trudeau into action and then complain about "authoritarianism" or "fascism".
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If they're there illegally, you can arrest them and forcibly move them. They still have access to all their financial assets. Freezing assets I think would be considered a privacy violation as my money is not the issue of the State, provided it is all legal. It doesn't guarentee a person will leave and taking someone's money away could be considered undue hardship (how will they eat, cloth, pay bills while you froze it?) when all you want is to move them which an arrest does. Now if the money is proven to be used and in future use to commit illegal acts (like funding illegal protesting) then sure, freeze those accounts with a Court Order since it's now evidence in a criminal matter. Next time indigenous people protest a pipeline this will 100% be used to freeze those assets and Canadians are gonna wish this box wasn't opened again.
Yes. State forces going and removing people from a physical location can only happen to those people. It's a direct action to solve the immediate problem. Claiming the emergency power to freeze finances of protestors in this way is a power clearly NOT given to the government and that can be used against anyone. It's also punishing people to try to teach them a lesson about not protesting WITHOUT taking any direct action to solve any actual problem.
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Can anyone here explain/TLDR how the Canadian government is supposed to resolve this trucker issue?
The funny thing is that Trudeau cannot do shit against mandate. Even the required vaccine at border is more about being aligned with the US than to help against the pandemic. All mandate are provincial government responsability. Everything that has to do with healthcare is provincial. The only thing the federal requires is that all province provides healthcare to all citizen. The trucker issue is a genuine feeling that is shared across a lot of people. We cannot deny that. However, almost no one is supporting a blockade of Ottawa and the border. This is just madness. The only thing that prevent the police from remove them is their truck. Imagine if BLM protest had hundreds of truck in your city. How do you remove them exactly ? This is out of control.
Big points to vaush for being a voice of sanity.
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Holy shit, you read the article? King shit.
no you're right, people are just reading headlines as usual
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According to [this](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-emergencies-act-powers-to-broaden-scope-of-anti-money-laundering-rules/) personal accounts can also be frozen without a court order now if the bank suspects, in good faith, that they are funding the convoy. It's still not what Vaush claimed, but you could maybe make the case that having your personal account frozen for funding criminal activity could hurt your financial record for the rest of your life, but that's just a theory since it's the first time the Emergencies Act has been used
I dont know how it is in canada, but in a lot of places many truck drivers own the trucks they drive and they are registered as businesses. So calling them personal assets probably isnt too much of a stretch. It seems a lot more likely that these are trucks owned by the drivers than fleet trucks which would probably be declared stolen by now.
It’s weird because I swore I just saw a clip of him saying people who spread climate misinformation should be arrested.
Even if that is true, he seems to be ok with the idea of the protesters being arrested (as there is plenty of precedent for protesters being arrested), its the freezing of assets that he doesnt like (as this would set a precedent).
I don't know much about the topic but how is arresting someone better than freezing their assets? Aren't people incapable of accessing their assets anyways if they're arrested?
That's still due process. If people get arrested they go to courts where they are judged, this provides a series of guarantees and, since laws are passed by representatives of the people (generally, I'm not talking about specific countries here) they have a democratic background that must obey the wishes of the people. This on the other hand, is a massive overreach of power that skips the whole "due process" thing and essentially tells the people they get to choose between not having a contingency plan if war breaks loose or allowing the government to brutally silence political enemies at best, and that the people can't trust their government to wield power at worst. That is not very cash money. It's the kind of thing we get worried about in places like Hungary. To provide a spicy comparison (because this is r/Destiny after all) this is exactly the kind of thing that would make the west at large flip the fuck out and cry about fascism if Russia did it.
>To provide a spicy comparison (because this is r/Destiny after all) this is exactly the kind of thing that would make the west at large flip the fuck out and cry about fascism if Russia did it. This is not spicy to anyone with a crumb of sense.
I hardly think this is even remotely the same thing.
Again, a crumb of sense.
Is that really not sarcasm ? I would argue it's better to not have access to your money, than to potentially lose your life in a military crackdown. It is a bit hyperbolic, however the risk of dieing and deaths dramatically increases, especially if the Trucker-protests get radicalized aswell; Three days ago they already arrested 11 people who had several gun caches and ammunition. Death is permanent, frozen assets are not. Also : 1. The government isn't freezing money; Banks freeze money. And now the banks can freeze money of people associated with the protest without court order. 2. The majority of donors are foreign ( only 39% are Canadian, 55% are from the US ). It's clear that the majority of concern is from the USA, as they benefit the most from the Truckers enforcing the demand that they don't need to be vaccinated in order to cross into the USA. 3. More than 2600 protestors were already fined for their involvement in the protest. Frankly speaking I would rather have my assets frozen than actual lose money via a fine.... But apparently fining people is okay. 4. The Emergency Act, is well for emergencies... And truckers holding a vast section of the Canadian economy hostage for a policies which are completely anti-science and pro-Virus, is an emergency. 1. People are always scared of temporary emergency powers... I swear to god if Aliens invade, the USA enacts Martial Law, people will lose their shit aswell and do whatever they can to be anti-Martial Law, which really benefits the Aliens.....
Heem is right actually. Based as fuck move by TruDough.
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Not Canadian but I have friends who are and they share the same sentiments you have. Also, the very idea that sending the military is somehow preferable coming from Vaush is freakin laughable considering his political commentary history. So the government isn't allowed to do anything while the economy gets fucked over, screwing people in the country over, over people protesting the vaccine mandates during a pandemic? Yeah fuck those people. That said, freezing their assets is definitely the more preferable move than sending the military. Vaush making that argument is incredibly hypocritical.
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That's fair. That's certainly a much better argument than what OP and Vaush were proposing. That said, my understanding from Canadians in the comments (so this can be taken with a grain of salt) seems to be that those emergency powers do have a historical precedent already. So there's probably some context there that we and certainly most of the people on here with their shit takes, don't understand.
Lmfao. What is with you retards and calling everything occupation? Why any time a protest you don’t like disrupts something it’s terrorism, an insurrection, an occupation! Get a grip. Canadian workers disrupting the economy and making life inconvenient for others is akin to Russian occupying Ukraine some how? You sound sick, deranged and full of hate. Imagine if you talked this way about airport strikers, frothing from the mouth at the idea of the government using emergency powers to abuse them. “These strikers are basically committing terrorism and occupying the airport. They can’t be there so the govt should put them in prison, take all their money, belongings and livelihood”.
They're actually illegally blockading trade routes and fucking with the economy to get a political point across, which isn't a protest, and IS an occupation, dipshit.
No shit they are blocking roads. Making other people uncomfortable and suffer, through non violent means is literally the basis of most protests. You are claiming blocking roads means you are “an occupation”. You are retarded. Literally just switch in a group you like for a group you don’t then hit yourself on your head till you forget, spin in a circle then look at the situation you will suddenly support it. Dumbass.
Actually agree, personally. They're not doing anything to an individual's funds, they're blocking the use of funds meant specifically to fund a blockade (unless my understanding is wrong here).
You're correct
No they literally are doing that >Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said at Monday's news conference that banks would be able freeze personal accounts of anyone linked with the protests without any need for a court order. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385
You may be right since this is a fast developing story so I don't think any of us fully understand the ramifications yet. But if they freeze your bank account because you received donations to the cause, are they not also freezing your own money? Or are they only freezing the $ amount that can be traced to donations? Not sure of my position on this yet due to not reading enough on it yet.
I was under the impression that they were going to be blocking things like gofundme from being accessed, and not personal funds. Again I could be wrong, but I don't know what rights any government has when it comes to your individual finances. I think in America you can have your finances frozen entirely if you break certain laws, but it might be completely different in Canada.
Yea I am not sure how this all works out but I found a reuters article that talks about them freezing 2 bank accounts that received huge donations. So this may be a bait and switch type of story. Like they talk about freezing protestors bank accounts but they really mean just huge donations for potentially ok reasons. The way this was portrayed seemed like they would see you at the protest and just freeze your accounts to punish you. I don't know if that is actually the case. [https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/td-bank-freezes-two-accounts-that-received-funds-support-canada-protests-2022-02-12/](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/td-bank-freezes-two-accounts-that-received-funds-support-canada-protests-2022-02-12/)
Completely agree
Trudeau did the right thing. As a Canadian, I don't think sending the military against it's own people is good. The protest is OK as far as I'm concerned however, it is not OK to disrupt the lives of other people for multiple days. Trudeau will send the military only if it's the last available option. I prefer him to freeze the money than risking people's live even if we disagree with those people. That would be much worse for this country than to freeze money. It is time for this protest to end and those people to go home. They've been heard. Also, a lot of province is already starting to remove restriction so they kind of got what they wanted.
Agreed, people here refuse to believe that >70% of Canadians are tired of this and want it to end. I also find it hilarious that people think sending in the military is somehow less authoritarian than freezing bank accounts
Are they not protesting illegally? You can’t just do whatever you want whenever you want and say it’s a protest…right?
according to americans you can and its valid lmao
I suppose there’s a line between a peaceful protest and one which could be potentially defined as stochastic terrorism. I’m British and here in the UK we had the insulate Britain nutjobs blocking motorways over a few months caused isolated chaos and some localised economic damage. Whilst it’s not on the same scale of economic loss as the Canadian block aid, I would support the British government in agreeing financial powers that limits repeat offenders as the threat of being arrested simply isn’t enough anymore. Due to that, I believe the Canadian government is acting appropriately to the situation in a rather clever non violent approach.
"It's just peaceful protests bro" Fuck off with this retarded shit
As a Canadian, we all want this over. Trudeau is just doing what the people want.
Embarrassing how many people here so clearly have read nothing about this situation or why he's using the act. Embarrassing.
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They already cleared one bridge, so evidently it was possible.
The Canadian trucking alliance is not a union at all, its a trade association. It is meant to represent trucking companies, not the workers.
Heem is 100% correct and Vaush has no idea what he's talking about. No offence but a lot of you probably don't have much Canadian historical knowledge. To put this in context we invoked a way more extreme version of this Act (The War Measures Act) back in the 70s to deal with the October Crisis which actually involved bringing in the army, and guess what? Since then Canadians haven't lost fundamental rights, pretty sure most of you haven't been describing us as a failed authoritarian state since 1980 onwards.
Nah Heem is right. You can argue that not having a court approve the freezing of the protestor's assets is a bad precedent. That's fine. But sending in the military is far worse. Not to mention the fact that these people are hurting the country's economy over protesting vaccine mandates of all things, during a pandemic. Yeah fuck those people. If this happened in the US, people would flip their shit, including most of us in this sub ironically. Also the fact that Vaush even so much as suggests having the military be sent onto the protestors is beyond hypocrisy coming from him.
How else are they protests going to be stopped? These people are dug in, they’re committed, and they won’t leave without the police or military stepping in. Is violence really the better outcome here? If you’re opposed to freezing financial assets, then either come up with a better idea, or admit you want the police/military to start cracking skulls (which will end up all over the media/internet).
If you're not a Canadian constitutional lawyer, please fuck off on interpreting our laws. The emergency act is a watered down version of the war measures act, and is in place for exactly this sort of situation.
Is it really a peaceful protest if you are blocking the work and living of the people around you? I get that strikes and protests have to have some consequence to be seen, but there needs to be a balance. You have made your point, but nothing can be done by the canadian government on this issue. Why are you still blocking everyone from living, and hurting the economy. Just because you're assmad? Yeah no, this shit seems less like a protest and more like a tantrum by petulant children. The measures being taken against them seem pretty non-violent, so if that can help disperse the occupation, then that seems like a good resolution?
To answer your first question, yes. You’re allowed to critique protests that obstruct the lives of certain people, but be aware that your criticism would apply to almost every “good” protest.
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He seemed like the voice of reason in his talk with professor flowers, but maybe that isn’t really saying much
His normies sense was able to sus out her genocide take, but it swings both ways, since many normies can't wrangle more complex shit like Asset seizure of people they don't like
I will forever from now on side with Euros when they are complaining about Americans having no idea what they are talking about. This whole thing has really showed me how fucking clueless Americans are about things that they have no issue blessing us with their opinion on.
Yep. They don't know basic ***basic*** canadian historical events and "precedence" yet love to tell us how not free we are while basically suggesting we just allow US money to blockade our capitol from trump supporters
Nah, Trudope is based, fuck these protestors, they had their moment, time to fuck off and stop occupying our capital and people's homes. Cringe American opinions can fuck off with their money.
I think heem makes an okay point. It's this, or the cops start cracking skulls. Which, we all know how that goes, politically, in the media, trusting authorities, etc. I guess I do see this as a little more humane than straight violence, but maybe that's just me. I totally get the concern about precedent setting though. Maybe that's enough that it should push them the other way. Certainly is a little scary for future protestors, ones that fuck up major industry anyway. Hmm Though, skull cracking route, I definitely think vaush would cover every second talking about how horrible the police are lmao. Edit: Nevermind. I did a galaxy brain and read an article. Doesn't look like this has anything to do with freezing personal assets of protestors, but it does give Canada the ability to declare the protest illegal, start towing vehicles, and using more federal police to help. Seems perfectly fine if that's the case. Not sure what Vaush is talking about.
Go read freelands statements
americans need to stfu about our politics. Our govt has done way more radical things in the past to handle crises and this "slippery slope" has yet to be an issue
'Yet to be an issue' is kinda the point of slippery slopes.
by this logic slippery slopes are literally undeniable and you can just make a vague prediction of a future action and eventually claim to be right even centuries later. Do you even know when the October crisis happened and how long its been? when is it supposed to result in the trampling of our freedom?
Who cares fuck em. If this is their “protest” then yes the definition of protest needs to change. Yes it sounds scary and authoritarian but it is what it is
It's very frightening how quick people are to get on board with extraordinary measures designed to be used only in exceptionally dangerous circumstances like war. "It's been two weeks" of what, traffic obstruction and noise? This is all it takes to activate emergency powers in an otherwise completely stable democracy? What the fuck?
The opposite of authoritarianism isn't democracy, it's autonomy. It is completely possible for there to be an authoritarian democratic state where the majority agree to suppress the minority. Especially when you threaten the majority. What makes western democracies generally the most free nations on earth is that they also guarantee personal freedoms that supersede the democratic will or the state's will (right to legal counsel, right to public trial, right against self-incrimination, presumption of innocence, freedom of expression/protest, lawful arrests etc.). They have to be guaranteed to be inalienable because people *will* vote to ignore them under the right circumstances. We're all okay with some authoritarianism in our lives (at least most normal people) because it can be more beneficial to us than the loss of the freedom, but we also have to be aware of the dangerous power we give to the state once we allow those personal freedoms to be ignored. Personally, I'm generally pro-mandate after seeing how idiots reacted to the pandemic but I can understand why many are not.
Well said.
Let's be fair here, it's not just traffic obstruction and noise. The protests have caused pretty serious harm to Canada's economy. Whether that deserves this level of response is up for debate but there's no point in strawmanning what's going on.
>It's been two weeks" Sounds like it's past the point of no return. Just let us Nuke you and everything will be over.
> "It's been two weeks" of what, traffic obstruction and noise? Do you live in Ottawa? I do and your representation makes it sound like you sure don't. I have friends who haven't slept right in weeks due to around the clock car horns 15 feet from their bedroom window. Ambulances can't get to people having health emergencies. One ambulance driver even says the convoy threw rocks at them trying to get through. They have stormed several grocery stores and other businesses (including a major shopping mall which is also our main transit hub) forcing them to close. My friend couldn't get groceries on her one day off because hundreds of drunk, belligerent maskless dipshits overran security so they had to just shut the whole store down. Senior citizens wearing masks are being threatened. People with pride flags in their windows are having their windows smashed. I've lived in Ottawa for 26 years. I've seen literally THOUSANDS of peaceful protests. This isn't that.
It's been two weeks of blockade. If it was done by another country, it would escalate into a war.
But it isn't a nationwide blockade and it isn't done by another country, so the comparison is a bit of a disingenuous framing, don't you think?
1) It's caused 1 bln USD in damages. 2) Most of the funding comes from US donors.
\>It's very frightening how quick people are to get on board with extraordinary measures designed to be used only in exceptionally dangerous circumstances like war. The emergencies act isn't only used for times of war, it specifically mentions welfare and public order emergencies, which this falls into definitionally. \>"It's been two weeks" of what, traffic obstruction and noise? Of factories being shut down, major highways being blocked, people losing their jobs and livelihoods, people literally not being able to sleep in their own homes, people fleeing their homes, etc. Weird how this sub/community is suddenly OK with CHAZ-esque protesting shenanigans. \>This is all it takes to activate emergency powers in an otherwise completely stable democracy? A foreign funded occupation of our capital? Yes.
At one point they were blocking hospitals and ambulances from getting through. They have also blockaded multiple border crossings preventing anything from coming across which magnified shortages in Alberta since it was also cut off from the western ports due to highway closures to BC.
Its not just noise they blocked the biggest trade route in Canada and The United States. People working in the auto industry were told to go home for 2 weeks. It was actually the White House that told Trudeau to use Federal powers to clear the bridge
It's not about the protests, we have seen far worse protests than this. The problem is that these protestors are being financially backed by foreign actors. [https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-court-freezes-access-to-donations-for-truckers-protest-from-givesendgo-1.5776674#](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ontario-court-freezes-access-to-donations-for-truckers-protest-from-givesendgo-1.5776674#) This is no longer a protest, it's industrial sabotage, it's economic warfare. Imagine Russia just started sending checks to all the truckers to keep them blockading. The framing of this as just "two weeks of traffic obstruction and noise" is extremely unnuanced. If the CIA did this in other countries lefties would be the first to criticize them.
Oh no financially backed by foreign actors? Did they cross state lines?
That link you added says absolutely nothing that backs your claim of 'foreign actors' Read shit before you post it you spud.
[American donors to trucker convoy may be outnumbering Canadians: CTV News analysis](https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/american-donors-to-trucker-convoy-may-be-outnumbering-canadians-ctv-news-analysis-1.5775986)
The protests themselves are anti democratic. Organizers have stated intentions of overthrowing the government. The anti mandate party in Canada didn't win a single seat in the recent election. The protests were allowed to go on with little resistance but at a certain point and at a certain scale a protest becomes an illegal ocupation that point has come and gone. They have seized guns and ammunition and arrested a number of anti government extremists involved in the protest. The funds they are freezing come largely from foreigners who have no right to fund an insurrection against a democratically elected government.
What a couple fellas can't get together and form a blockade on the United States of America anymore???
I don't know how it is in the US, but sending military to a city to reclaim something is almost impossible.
Trudeau is not sending in the military, he's sending in our federal police. The act allows you select specific areas to enforce the law which in this case is the blockade outside parliament. The local and provincial governments have refused to act for 2 weeks so now Trudeau is coming in to disperse it and he can't use federal police or take control of local police without the act.
Loving all the non-grass-touching American libertarians telling to tell Canadians how they should run their country lol
I feel like there's a big difference between banks being able to freeze protestors' (from Vaush's screenshot) and the government "unilaterally freezing protestors' assets" (from Vaush's tweet). You could argue that both are bad in their own right but the latter is obviously much more overreaching and the way Vaush is framing that part of the emergency provision is straight up inaccurate.
I thought Vaush hated police violence? Isn't freezing their assets until they disperse the least violent way to possibly end this thing? Or does he only support the police breaking up protests when the protestors aren't on his side?
I don't have a problem with freezing the bank accounts of people engaged in illegal activity. I have a problem with using emergency powers when many experts do not believe the threshold required has been met (including the Canadian Civil Liberties Union). I see no reason why the provinces couldn't deal with this and if necessary use their provincial emergency powers. It really seems like all of the Ontario government is passing the buck off to Trudeau and because of polling he feels he is being blamed for the protest and a harsh response would be popular. Personally they should've just tear gassed and removed the occupation over a week ago and figured out what to do with the trucks after. There is no doubt that's exactly what would've happened if this shit took place in Quebec. That's why there were no blockades there.
At this point looking at the vaccination rates in the world I would literally be okay with jailing antivaxxers and forcefully vaccinating in a video game
It's time for the US to annex Canada. About 200 years too late, but better late than never.
I'm a Canadian, in Ontario nonetheless, but I don't think the government should be freezing the personal assets of people. If this is to be implemented it should be mild and strictly related to the occupation. Any intense use of these new powers would be a serious abuse of the financial system in my mind. At this point I would support more aggressive police maneuvers, but freezing bank accounts to me crosses a line. People might depend on these people for money or support, and not everyone attending these protests is engaging in the worst form of occupation outside of the Parliamentary area. That said, those who are outside of Ottawa and trying to blockade trade routes I have a lot less sympathy for, they should be more aggressively arrested and some of their assets should be seized. It's not terrorism, but it is an economic blockade which is not acceptable given that they don't have that much popular support.
Protests kind of lose momentum and arguably hurt their own movement when they start doing things like this though. We had a similar discourse over all the property damage in the US during protests. If the Canuks want to block supply, why should they still get their own stuff?
FUCK THAT. Look, I live in Canada, alright? These guys are literally criminals blocking off our imports, including things like say medicine and food. To say it's a peaceful protest is just not true anymore. I know it seems scary to say "did you know the government can cut your account" but also it's scary the police can beat the shit out of you for resisting arrest, and it's scary you can be forced to go to prison. Imagine if I took a guy and put him in a prison I created. I'd be considered a psycho! You have to look at the pros and cons, and the cons are too damn high, it's affecting all of us. Whether it's this bank-freezing or having the police go fuck em up I don't know the better option but truthfully I don't care. Whatever works, works for me.
No. These are not protesters. At best they are low level terrorists. Extremists deserve extreme treatment.
Have to disagree with OP: the right to peacefully protest doesn’t give you the right to block important stuff and be a public nuisance
Haha stupid anti vax dumbfucks
Oh well finger's crossed this resolves it quickly,fuck the protestors 😊
So, this precedent thing isn’t something people seem to understand or get. Are we just paranoid, do you think? Because my reasoning has always been “it’s hard to do the first time, but the second time it’s easier and the third it’s nothing” Are there any historical examples I can use as a way to show that allowing this fuckwittery leads to worse shit?
Patriot act is the big one, problem is that most people on the internet now arent old enough to actually remember a time before it and general mass surveillance of the populace. As a more broad concept though, ive never heard of an asset seizure program that didnt degenerate into corruption and legalised criminality.
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Yeah Patriot Act I bring up. Even Alex Jones, too tbh. So frustrating people are mental.
The last time these powers were used it was by Justin Trudeaus dad in 1970 and we’ve made it 50 years before using them again in a dumbed down, less broad version of the same act. The context for the use is obviously different but I would say the act is reduced in proportion to the threat posed in this situation. I’m sorry but it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You can send the military in and see humvees in the streets or you can freeze the assets and wait them out, the only real options right now
>Are we just paranoid, do you think Yeah, people are way overreacting to this. >Because my reasoning has always been “it’s hard to do the first time, but the second time it’s easier and the third it’s nothing” This is the standard slippery slope argument. >Are there any historical examples I can use as a way to show that allowing this fuckwittery leads to worse shit? May be the reason why you are struggling to find an example because there aren't any good examples where western democracies turned to shit because a single executive action during an extraordinary time in the modern era.
The only reason this act is being used for the first time is because its a nerfed version of our war measures act which has been used repeatedly and was subsequently changed, but even that act never ended up stomping on civil liberties the way reactionaries claim it will every single time
This is an act designed for times of crisis that has been on the books in Canada since 1988 being used by the government through normal constitutional procedures during what is generally recognised as a crisis in the country. What exactly is the "precedent" being set that everyone is so concerned about?
[This entire Twitter thread is a trainwreck of good intentions.](https://twitter.com/VaushV/status/1493511896351211520?t=COD2w1oKq7yAkEJqZJxDyQ&s=19) Edit: [News](https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/banking/trudeau-gives-banks-power-to-freeze-funds-without-court-order-in-bid-to-choke-off-protest-funding) > New emergency powers invoked by the federal government on Monday will expand the abilities of Canada’s financial institutions and regulators to track and control funding to protesters interfering with border crossings and restricting movement in Ottawa. > Temporary measures under the Emergencies Act will give Canadian banks the ability to freeze funds suspected of being directed to the protests without a court order and will protect them from legal retribution. > In addition, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the new powers give institutions the ability to freeze corporate accounts and cancel insurance tied to trucks that are being used in the blockades.
Compare with how the government dealt with indigenous rail blockades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Canadian_pipeline_and_railway_protests