…and apply the law consistently regardless of religious or Racial or financial status of the protesters….that would be…Woke?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
dismissed last week the suggestion he should meet with the convoy protesters. “That is the decision Canadians took in the last election, by voting for parties that were supporting those mandates,” he said. Translation: You had your chance to vote last fall so take a hike. This was after the Ottawa police chief said the situation might not have a “policing solution.”
And yet, Trudeau
called for “constructive dialogue” during the 2020 anti-pipeline
campaign to “shut down Canada.”
The left is suddenly against unlawful protest tactics, while the right is cheering them on
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Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart
released a statement on Friday warning protesters against blocking roads and digging in for the long haul, as has happened in Ottawa: “My message to the convoy is this: Vancouver doesn’t want you here. Make your point and then go home.” This is petulant sneering, but Stewart was, perhaps unsurprisingly,
arrested in 2018 for blocking access to a Kinder Morgan job site in Burnaby, as part of an anti-Trans Mountain pipeline protest.
One prominent University of Ottawa professor encouraged people to avoid calling those involved with the convoy “protesters.” Instead, he advised, “call them occupiers,” and added that this was necessary in order to “frame coverage.” However, he had a much different position two years ago. “Protests are meant to disrupt. They’re meant to bring reality crashing down on you,” he wrote.
Nevermind that before labelling protesters as “occupiers” was considered derisive by some on the left, there was the anti-capitalist occupy movement. It was only a matter of time before those with different politics adopted similar tactics.
Blocking infrastructure has always been inappropriate, not just when it is done by those with the wrong political views. Properly and competently policed cities is the bare minimum that should be expected from governments.
What is happening in Ottawa is indeed something different, but I am not sure how much of that is because it is new to Canada, or different in general. Perhaps it is just the plain visibility of it that is unnerving. A protest camp near a pipeline might struggle for attention, not so a camp in front of Parliament. There is still no indication that the intent of the protesters is to be violent, rather than to be a massive unyielding nuisance, but the fact local police
don’t appear to have control of the situation is worrying. Mayor Jim Watson
conceded Sunday that the protesters are “calling the shots.”
What is becoming increasingly clear is that this is a country that — despite laws, legislative bodies and regular elections — is governed by whoever can block traffic the longest.
www.ottawapolice.ca
