A Slippery Slope-Choosing to Enact the Emergency Act.
Thank you, Willow, for your thoughts. I, like you, believe the majority of
Canadians couldn’t and wouldn’t get behind the plethora of varying messages
emanating from the mishmash of voices in Ottawa, Windsor and Coutts.
My disappointment lies with the confusion between law enforcement agencies
at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. The imagine of Keystone
Cops comes to the fore.
While the insanity at the Coutts border [the stockpiling of weapons]
certainly calls for the enactment of the Emergency Act, that situation was
dealt with by the RCMP before the enactment of the EA. The same is true of
the border closure at Windsor I believe.
So what justification was there to enact the EA? It seems economic reasons
led the Liberals to enact the EA. Will that now be the rational for
enacting the EA? The rail workers go on strike? First Nations people
blocking a highway or rail line?
A slippery Slope unless the inquiry’s final report clearly excludes or
carefully delineates the use an economic rationale.
Frank Lewis
On Fri, Nov 25, 2022 at 4:50 PM Willow Arune <walittleboots9@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
As a general rule, I am against any mass demonstration by any group that
causes upset in the lives of others or against a judicial ruling. No
matter the cause. The Convoy, unlike most such demonstrations, did not end
in an hour or two but tied up the core of Ottawa for weeks. In my opinion,
the few truckers who participated in the Convoy should have been fined or
otherwise dealt with. As to the organizers, a much stiffer penalty should
be awarded.
I appreciate the difficulties. We have the right to drive on roads, for
example. Segregating the Convoy members from working truckers would be
difficult. Once they parked,identification was easy.
But there are mass demonstrations for every conceivable cause, or so it
seems. Most do not infringe on the rights of others. That's fine. Beyond
that, no.
Most of these demonstrations are said to be "for the people". Hogwash.
Speakers at such events do not speak for me,nor for the majority of
Canadians. They speak for a very limited number, many of whom would be
hard pressed to explain why they are participating other than perhaps in a
very general manner.
On Thu, Nov 24, 2022 at 2:50 PM DSP.EA.Large.Messages@xxxxxxxxx <
dsp.ea.large.messages@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
*From:* Wynn Payne <wynn.payne@xxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* November 24, 2022 2:48 PM
*To:* DSP.EA.Large.Messages@xxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* Fwd: NP Platformed: Texts prove convoy had ruling class
shivering in its boots
Hi Guys
It's time again for a discussion.
What do you think about the trucker convoy and the enacting of the
emergency act?
I expect conflicting opinions so please be courteous as amazingly there
are other opinions than yours.
Wynn
-
Subject: NP Platformed: Texts prove convoy had ruling class shivering in
its boots
To: <wynn.payne@xxxxxxxxx>
Plus: Shakedown in Sharm el-Sheikh
<https://link.calgaryherald.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5lLmNhbGdhcnloZXJhbGQuY29t/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B959093f8>
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*QUOTE OF THE DAY*
*"We now find ourselves in a world where everyone freaks out when an
unsavoury dictatorship is allowed to foot the bill for an international
sporting event, but many of those same voices remain silent when equally
egregious regimes are handed large sums of cash in the name of ‘climate
justice.’ "*
— Jesse Kline
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[image: Alternate text]
ASHLEY FRASER/POSTMEDIA
*THE JOKES ARE WHERE THE TRUTH LIVES*
Among the zaniest nuggets of news to fall out of the Emergencies Act
hearings this week was a text-message exchange in which exasperated federal
cabinet ministers discussed mobilizing Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) tanks
against last winter’s truck convoy protests centered on Ottawa. On Feb. 2,
less than a week after the trucks showed up in the capital, Justice
Minister David Lametti urged
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXRpb25hbHBvc3QuY29tL25ld3MvY2FuYWRhL3RydWRlYXUtY2FiaW5ldC1mcmVlZG9tLWNvbnZveS10YW5rcw/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B1bf2ba7d>
the public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, to act fast.
“You need to get the police to move,” he typed to Mendicino. “And the CAF
if necessary. Too many people are being seriously adversely impacted by
what is an occupation.” Mendicino, allegedly recognizing Lametti’s plea for
army intervention as a joke, asked Lametti how many tanks he wanted.
Lametti answered, “I reckon one will do!”
These ministers are now blowing off their conversation as mere banter,
and I’m willing to go along with that. But I also think the jokes about
sending in tanks are psychologically telling, even considered as a joke.
There are untold millions of us who don’t like obstructive urban
protests, whether they’re done in the name of left-wing climate panic or
right-wing COVID paranoia. The “truckers” who invaded Ottawa to protest
public-health rules were counting on the same slow, passive police response
that various species of left-wing kook have received for decades when they
want to stop traffic or occupy some piece of infrastructure. And that’s
exactly what they got.
The Ottawa and provincial police forces didn’t really have plans or
tactics ready for a well-funded, determined protest by the hinterland
working classes; they hadn’t asked the question, “What if the trucks that
keep cities fed and fuelled are ever used passively, in numbers, as a
weapon *against* a city?”
The justice minister didn’t *sound* like he was joking when he described
this as “an occupation.” Two visions of a national capital city came
suddenly into conflict in a new way. A capital is supposed to serve the
whole citizenry; in a democracy, it’s supposed to be the ultimate venue for
the petitioning of popular grievances. But it’s also supposed to be a
civilized place to live for large numbers of government employees, and the
“occupying” truckers were making that difficult in nonviolent but unkind
ways.
In Lametti’s mind, the convoy protesters were already firmly “othered” by
the beginning of February. It’s not really a coincidence that he was
thinking of armies and tanks — having dark thoughts, expressed jokingly,
that no good Liberal would ever have about Greenpeace or Extinction
Rebellion.
Within a fortnight of Lametti’s remark about tanks, the Liberals had
declared a national public-order emergency and begun to take what used to
be called “war measures,” even though convoy blockades of key international
border crossings were already, at that moment, being dispersed. It was the
first use of federal emergency law since 1970, when the War Measures Act
was invoked against an outburst of actual political terrorism, murder and
kidnapping. The Ottawa protests were, in the end, uncannily nonviolent;
they had no lasting costs that anyone can point to, did no permanent harm
to anyone or anything.
This isn’t really what the Emergencies Act is for, as every sensible
person now recognizes, but you will still hear residents of Ottawa
defending the act’s use on the grounds that, well, *something* beyond
mere police activity was surely needed. It is almost as if the *mere use
of police force* against protesters wouldn’t have been sufficiently
satisfying. The interruption of parliamentary government, of ordinary
political life, was a *moral* imperative at that moment.
It won’t do to deny that this is a matter of a ruling class suddenly
being confronted with its subjects’ discovery of their potential power. And
the other side of this political struggle knows the truth, too. The
participants in the convoy protests know deep down that their protests
weren’t just about bouncy castles and street parties, or even about
COVID-19, but about expressing the power of the out-there Canadians, the
Canadians who dig and build and load and drill and grow and shoot and, yes,
drive truck. They meant to send a warning to the up-here Canadians, the
ones who think and write and count and code for a living. We’re supposed to
be in charge, lawyers and accountants and politicians found themselves
thinking: *where are our tanks?*
*— Colby Cosh*
*THE LATEST IN NP COMMENT*
- “By early Sunday morning, the last day of the conference, an
agreement was reached to set up a slush fund to compensate developing
countries for the 'loss and damage' they experience due to climate
change,"
writes *Jesse Kline* of COP27. "Unsurprisingly, the deal was hailed
as a huge win by the dictatorships, kleptocracies and Polynesian
micro-states that had been pushing for it
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXRpb25hbHBvc3QuY29tL29waW5pb24vZW5yaWNoaW5nLWRpY3RhdG9ycy1pbi10aGUtbmFtZS1vZi1jbGltYXRlLWp1c3RpY2UtaXMtY2VydGFpbi10by1mYWls/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047C6fa69593>."
- "The Liberal government has had nothing but contempt for the public
inquiry into its use of the Emergencies Act last winter, and Attorney
General David Lametti's testimony on Wednesday offered nothing to convince
Canadians otherwise," writes *Carson Jerema*. "Instead of elucidating
the decision to invoke the act and claim extraordinary emergency powers
amid the Freedom Convoy protests and blockades, Lametti repeatedly claimed
attorney-client privilege and avoided answering questions
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXRpb25hbHBvc3QuY29tL29waW5pb24vZGF2aWQtbGFtZXR0aS1jb3VsZG50LWNhcmUtbGVzcy1hYm91dC15b3VyLWVtZXJnZW5jaWVzLWFjdC1xdWVzdGlvbnM/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B325f5e1e>.
- "Like many Canadians, I have been watching the ongoing Public Order
Emergency Commission proceedings and coverage carefully," writes *Vivian
Bercovici* from Tel Aviv. "I often wonder how our federal leadership
would manage a true national threat or crisis, such as when Hamas hammered
Israeli civilians with thousands of rockets in May 2021. Or now, when
people are blown to bits at bus stops by terrorist bombs. When civilians
are attacked with the intent to murder and maim, that is a threat to
national security
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXRpb25hbHBvc3QuY29tL29waW5pb24vdml2aWFuLWJlcmNvdmljaS1pc3JhZWwtYnJhY2VzLWZvci13aGF0LW1heS1jb21lLW5leHQ/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B708dd924>.
We need a dose of reality in Canada."
- "A recent decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has
given Canadians yet another reason to question the federal government’s
relationship with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN)," writes *Jamie
Sarkonak*. "The decision tells us
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXRpb25hbHBvc3QuY29tL29waW5pb24vam9uLWtheXMtbGVnYWwtdmljdG9yeS1leHBvc2VzLWNhbmFkaWFuLWFudGktaGF0ZS1uZXR3b3Jrcy1hbnRpLWNvbnNlcnZhdGl2ZS1hZ2VuZGE/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B2647658a>
two things: that there are members of CAHN who are willing to use the
legal
system to silence its critics, and that there is a relationship between
CAHN and the Antifa movement."
- Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's video on drug policy "is a
call to restore law and order and better protect some of Canada’s most
vulnerable citizens," writes *Jamil Jivani*. "It also gets to the
heart of how a conservative approach
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9uYXRpb25hbHBvc3QuY29tL29waW5pb24vamFtaWwtaml2YW5pLXBvaWxpZXZyZS1zaG93cy1ob3ctdG8tc2F2ZS1wZW9wbGUtZnJvbS10aGUtcmF2YWdlcy1vZi1hZGRpY3Rpb24/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B340f59fa>
to social policy could improve the lives of many Canadians and start
healing some of our social ills."
- "Strange but apparently true: workers in a business hit by an
unexpected death experienced a statistically significant increase in wages
of 0.6 per cent in the following year. In the five years after the death
the 'average cumulative effect on the earnings of incumbent workers' was
close to €3,300 ($4,586)," writes *William Watson* about a new study
of the German labour market that suggests that when a worker dies
suddenly
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9maW5hbmNpYWxwb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9uL3dpbGxpYW0td2F0c29uLXN0dWR5LXdvcmtlcnMtZGVhdGgtcGF5LXJhaXNl/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047Bbaf1682e>,
the wages of his or her co-workers tend to go up.
- The Bank of Canada’s balance sheet is more than triple what it was
when the pandemic began, mainly because it has bought lots of government
bonds, write economists *Steve Ambler*, *Thorsten Koeppl* and *Jeremy
Kronick*. Several factors suggest it will stay big, they say
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9maW5hbmNpYWxwb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9uL2Jhbmstb2YtY2FuYWRhLWJhbGFuY2Utc2hlZXQ/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B33f547b2>
.
- "The federal government recently announced a 30 per cent 'Clean
Technology Investment Tax Credit' to incentivize spending on a range of
clean-energy technologies, such as wind, solar and storage," writes *Chris
Keefer*. "Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are also covered, a
bold step for Ottawa, given its historically lukewarm positions on nuclear
energy. But CANDU technology, which underpins the entire existing Canadian
nuclear sector, is left out of the tax credit pending further
consideration. This is bad news
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly9maW5hbmNpYWxwb3N0LmNvbS9vcGluaW9uL29waW5pb24tbnVjbGVhci1lbmVyZ3ktd2UtY2FuZHUtaXQtYW5kLXdlLXNob3VsZA/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047B0a4efd47>
for Canadian climate action and the Canadian economy."
*FROM ELSEWHERE*
The CBC’s “pretendian”-tracker, Geoff Leo, was the subject of yesterday’s
NP Platformed essay. His latest piece, published yesterday afternoon,
explores
the harms
<https://link.nationalpost.com/click/29797501.677/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2JjLmNhL25ld3MvY2FuYWRhL3Nhc2thdGNoZXdhbi9jaW5keS1ibGFja3N0b2NrLWJpcnRoLWNlcnRpZmljYXRlLW1hcnktZWxsZW4tdHVycGVsLWxhZm9uZC0xLjY2NjE3NTI/5aa050ad3f92a450996ef047Bc869ede4>
that white pretendians cause.
------------------------------
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