[Barrin92]

okay so this is an unlawful protest that has a detrimental impact on residents, the environment, and local business. Can someone explain to me why this is tolerated and why these people are not simply being arrested?

What it reminds me of is that 2014 standoff with the Bundy family on federal land in the US or farmers in France. Some groups can just do whatever they want apparently.

[ctoth]

I don't really want to get into the weeds here, but when you take a step back and squint a little bit it's hard to tell if this message was written by someone complaining about Canadian Truckers or about the 2020 Summer riots. Maybe let's lean a little more towards letting people express themselves and not bringing in the people with guns?

[Barrin92]

I had the exact same take on the riots in 2020 and I don't condone rioting in general. Disrupting public order, destroying property, or just causing economic damage and thinking the law is just some suggestion seems to be an increasing and pretty bad trend.

Expressing yourself is fine, disturbing public life because you don't get your will isn't. That's not how civilized societies resolve issues. This is now apparently a controversial take on multiple political sides.

[dontreact]

I agree with you, but I also see violence as an inevitable consequence of growing inequality. If we continue to let wealth inequality grow, more and more people will feel the game is unfair, and choose to play another game, even if the "rising tide that lifts all boats" is lifting their boat somewhat.

[dkjaudyeqooe]

> Maybe let's lean a little more towards letting people express themselves and not bringing in the people with guns?

Sounds awesome until I come to your place banging pots and pans all night and blocking your driveway, for an extended period.

As long as someone else is paying the price, standing on principle is easy.

[nitwit005]

It's not as if everyone who committed crimes while those 2020 protests were going on got away with it. They did arrest people.

And generally arresting looters and rioters seems quite popular on both sides of the political spectrum. They often didn't have anything to do with the protests, and were just taking advantage of the police being busy.

[chroem-]

> And generally arresting looters and rioters seems quite popular on both sides of the political spectrum.

I beg to differ. Any attempts to contain the mass violence were decried as "Trumpist fascism".

[nitwit005]

And you believe every single liberal agrees with that idea? You're just holding up a minority opinion and smearing the rest with it.

[yonaguska]

I don't think the protests were actually popular among every single liberal, but it was considered taboo to say anything against them. I lost several friends during this period, expressing my concerns about the protests, and more specifically the organization behind them. I was called an Uncle Tom.

My former workplace hired outside therapists to attend to us people of color, and held special town halls and discussions. Meanwhile, I was losing sleep because the local strip mall was being looted, and I had to listen to gu shots all night. I spent one night sleeping on the floor of my living room with my guns due to reports of break-ins in my neighborhood.

[nitwit005]

I'll totally agree that it was a bit of a taboo to speak badly of the protests in some circles, but the enthusiasm for the whole thing quietly died among many people for exactly the reasons you describe.

[chroem-]

That was the messsage being blasted at max volume by CNN, NYT, WaPo, and the rest. They were outraged when the capitol police responded to far left insurrectionists setting the national mall on fire. So yes, it is safe to say that was a mainstream viewpoint.

[nitwit005]

Conservative news sources put out insane stuff all the time. Do all Conservatives believe all of it?

It's not odd to publish editorials from activists when a bunch of protests are going on. That doesn't mean everyone is on board.

[kevintb]

For one thing, they didn’t block access to hospitals or harass health care workers.

[ctoth]

I mean I said I didn't want to get into the weeds here, just wanted to make a meta point. But if we must, then perhaps this is a bad criteria to use:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/la-hospita...

[technothrasher]

I'm not sure that article is useful to your point, as it states that the Sheriff's office was claiming they were blocking the hospital, but that "The Independent could find no evidence of them blocking emergency exits."

[projct]

Snopes:

> While the sheriff's department said protesters at one point blocked entrances and exits at the hospital, no videos or photos confirmed that was the case.

[snip, most of the article about the shooting itself]

> Rather, video footage showed a handful of deputies standing in a driveway (apparently an entrance to the hospital’s emergency room), while the small group of protesters paced up and down a sidewalk feet away from them.

> At one point, deputies detained a journalist with LA’s NPR station, KPCC, who was reporting on the small protest, as well as a male protester who “refused to comply” with deputies’ demands to leave the area.

> The sheriff’s department said the reporter, Josie Huang, ignored deputies’ repeated commands and did not present “proper” press credentials. But she said and videos of her arrest show she didn’t have time or space to react to deputies orders before they shoved her and forcefully took her into custody. In one video, she can be heard shouting “I’m a reporter… I’m with KPCC” as officers push her to the ground. They cited her with obstructing justice, though KPCC is urging authorities to drop the charge.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-deputies-compton/

[slg]

Adding onto this to say that the LA Sheriff's Department has less than zero credibility when it comes to any matter concerning either race or protests against police action. They literally have violent and racist gangs operating in that department. There is a reason why "Google LASD Gangs" has become a meme in LA and LA-centric circles of the internet. It is a known problem and almost no one in power is working to fix it.

[pseudo0]

I called 911 during one of those summer 2020 riots and got put on hold for close to 10 minutes. Tough luck for anyone who had a heart attack or stroke during those riots I guess?

[lern_too_spel]

Rioters should be and were arrested.

[blitzd]

Easy to say when you're not the one being held hostage, unable to sleep for days on end.

[manquer]

There are peaceful ways to protest and expressing oneself, occupying a city this way and stealing food from a homeless shelter is not one of them that should be tolerated.

Edit: See my comment below for sources on homeless shelter

[kangaroozach]

Stealing food? Can you cite that?

[bryanlarsen]

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/convoy-protesters-...

[manquer]

It was covered in the news well [1] [2] [3] [4]. Even Trudeau mentioned it in his comments.

[1] https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-homeless-shelter-staff-hara...

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/canada-trudeau-deno...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/police-say-ottawa-tru...

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/world/canada/trudeau-truc...

[refurb]

Trudeau also called the protest “anti-trans”.

Since this protest is making him look bad, I’d take what he says with a grain of salt.

[manquer]

It is just not him saying this happened, of course he would use it for his political advantage.

I was just trying to show that the homeless shelter claim is beyond just random stranger on the internet ( he argubly is more credible than me however Low that maybe)

[screye]

> unlawful protest that has a detrimental impact on residents, the environment, and local business

So every protest that has ever happened ?

If anything, the associated violence and demands of the protest are pretty tame in comparison to what the BLM or Indian Farmers protests demanded.

It is easy to dismiss the protestors because the reason for the protests sounds unimportant within our peer groups. However, a Democracy bestows equal rights onto people, and the validity of a protest is determined more so by its ability to be visible (the emotional fervor) than the merit of its points.

> Some groups can just do whatever they want apparently

Yep.

[bryanlarsen]

> So every protest that has ever happened ?

Ottawa, being the capital, gets two types of protests. The legal ones who get a permit have their route planned out in advance, and the police shut down the streets while the protest occurs. It's sort of like a parade. It's inconvenient and annoying, but no single street gets shut down for more than a couple of hours.

And it's not just the agreeable protests that get permits. They pretty much have to give a permit to anybody who asks for one.

For the illegal protests like the G20 occupation and when the indigenous people blocked a freeway exit, the police come in fast and hard.

> If anything, the associated violence and demands of the protest are pretty tame in comparison to what the BLM or Indian Farmers protests demanded.

Not in Canada.

edit: there's a third type of protest, the small ones. You're welcome to stand on the sidewalk with a sign and yell as long as you don't interfere with anybody.

[screye]

> stand on the sidewalk with a sign

> legal ones who get a permit have their route planned out in advance

So the kind of protests that don't matter ?

A protest, by definition, is meant to display discontent from the masses because conventional means have failed. If a protest does not hit where it hurts, it isn't an effective protest. If shouting loudly worked, then twitter outrage would have been sufficient for pressuring the Govt. into accepting their demands.

A slight tangent, but this is exactly why I dislike 'permitted' or 'side walk' protests. You're walking down a pre-cleared street supporting an already popular movement with institutional support to show what exactly ? It reeks of the kind of slacktivism that has been memed to death over the last decade.

The people are clearly expressing their disillusionment with the overreach of the Govt. in terms of the intrusion of privacy permitted to the Govt. by law. If you are disillusioned by the system, of course you'd just extra-legal means to display your discontent.

Now, the Govt. ofc is allowed to react with force. If anything, I support removal of actively destructive protests with force. But, the current Canadian Govt. has supported far more egregious protests in the other nations (specifically the farmers protests and 2020 riots). So, I am enjoying a bit of schadenfreude seeing Trudeau get a piece of his own medicine.

[bryanlarsen]

> So the kind of protests that don't matter ?

10,000 people marching through downtown get lots of attention and they get heard. They shut down the downtown core for most of a day, and inconvenience a lot of people. They attract lots of media attention.

This protest is only 250 people.

[jonwithoutanh]

This is all fine and dandy but these people aren't protesting the correct part of the government that has authority to enact the changes they want. That is, if we are talking about mask, and vaccine mandates. They need to protest their provincial governments for those changes.

The Federal demands they have are for our democratic government to resign and instill a dictatorship made up of people of their choosing...

Why the fuck should anyone listen to these people?

[daenz]

>The whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable. Activists take that discomfort w/ the status quo & advocate for concrete policy changes. Popular support often starts small & grows. To folks who complain protest demands make others uncomfortable... that’s the point.

https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1334184644707758080

[bawolff]

I don't really find that compelling.

Some level of discomfort is ok. Some is not. There is a line somewhere. Usually it involves the level of violence involved (terrorists after all are just making people very "uncomfortable" [what's more uncomfortable than being blown up] to achieve a political end.).

To make the ad absurdum argument explicit: if your argument for why this protest is ok applies to 9/11 to the same extent that it applies to this protest, maybe its a bad argument. That doesn't mean that this protest is neccesarily not ok, just that this is a really bad argument to use to prove the point.

[koenigdavidmj]

So you arrest them all.

Now they can’t drive away the <N> trucks in downtown Ottawa. You just exhausted all your leverage with them when you decided to throw the book at them.

You call a tow truck driver. They say “I don’t have a class 3 tow truck, there’s no way I can move a semi.”

You call a class 3 tow truck driver. They know they’re risking their reputation with the trucking industry, so they refuse. If they’re the trolling sort, they say they have COVID.

Now what? There’s a lot of mess to clean up, and you don’t have the equipment you need to do it.

[MatteoFrigo]

For a chuckle, here is a tow-truck operator commenting on this exact situation: https://rumble.com/vtwtvi-tow-truck-operator-refuses-to-assi...

[gknoy]

At some point in that line of events, where do the bulldozers come out? Is the government obligated to preserve the condition of vehicles that are effectively a roadblock? (It probably is, but at the same time .... how far are you going to get in suing the government for siezing/dismantling/bulldozing your vehicle?)

[koenigdavidmj]

If there are five trucks there, most of this is moot. If there are a couple thousand, this gets interesting.

- How many bulldozers do you have nearby?

- How many bulldozers do you have nearby that are on the government's side here?

- Where's your nearest hole or parking lot big enough to put a couple thousand trucks in, indefinitely?

- Who's going to pay for that? Your truckers are in jail, so you threaten to...jail them if they don't pay?

It's Canada, not Xinjiang. The worst they can do is jail you in a cushy prison for longer, with people who already counted the cost.

[givemeethekeys]

> unlawful protest

Please, give me examples of what you'd consider "lawful" protests of any significance.

[topspin]

The ones that align with the correct narratives. Pointing out the double standard this creates is wrongthink. Dems da rules.

[lariati]

Civil disobedience is perfectly fine IMO as long as you exactly follow all the rules, get the proper permits, etc.

[dragonwriter]

> Civil disobedience is perfectly fine IMO as long as you exactly follow all the rules, get the proper permits, etc.

That's not civil disobedience, at all.

That's just civil obedience.

[toast0]

Ignoring the question of if it's unlawful or not; mass arrests are kind of difficult to do, and mass towing is kind of difficult to do (and I don't know if tow truck drivers are aligned with those in the convoy, but they might be?). Neither of these things are without consequences, either. As long as the protesters are mostly peaceful and respecting property (which I think seems to be the case, but I haven't spent a lot of time looking into this), encouraging the group to disperse without use of force would probably have better outcomes than escalating the conflict with arrests or towing.

[jimbob45]

As an American that is (involuntarily) more concerned with the weather right now than Canadian politics…

What makes it unlawful?

[jeromegv]

Blocking a street for many days is typically considered illegal.

I'm not saying that they should be prevented from protesting (and I strongly disagree with that protest), just answering the question as to why this might be illegal.

[laughingpine]

While this is just one part of the protest, but what is happening in Coutts is illegal. Alberta passed an act recently (2020) restricting where you can protest - https://www.alberta.ca/protecting-critical-infrastructure.as...

The Coutts border crossing and highway is currently blocked. This is in contravention of the Critical Infrastructure Act as highways are included.

[klyrs]

IIRC, bill C-51 defined this as an act of terrorism. Wonder how that's going to play out. When it's indigenous people blocking a pipeline, the SWAT teams come out.

[meragrin_]

> When it's indigenous people blocking a pipeline, the SWAT teams come out.

After how many court proceedings?

[throwawaylinux]

What law is it typically considered to violate? Does blocking the street for an hour break that law, or does it have to be "many days"?

[favorited]

Do you not think there are laws everywhere about blocking traffic? When you reach a destination in your car, do you just park in the middle of the street?

[vba616]

I don't, but I think of it as normal, because commercial vehicles including delivery trucks do it all day every day in the area that I live in. They do it in the right lane of city streets that have two lanes each way, and they do it on streets where you have to cross over a double yellow to get around.

Aside from that, I have lived in the approximate center of a moderate sized city (metro area of ~1 million) and noticed that there are occasional, authorized events that take over and prevent any and all traffic. Bicycle races for instance.

Assuming one isn't vehemently against a protest in the first place, debating blocking traffic boils down to the technical requirements for permits and coordination with authorities. It's only a shocking breakdown of public order if people strongly oppose the underlying cause.

[throwawaylinux]

I'm asking you since you brought it up. And the question was not a hypothetical about someone parking in the middle of the street but specifics about what laws have specific people broken here.

[kevintb]

Blocking access to a hospital is illegal.

[cal5k]

> okay so this is an unlawful protest that has a detrimental impact on residents, the environment, and local business.

The pearl-clutching about this protest has been something else.

[MatteoFrigo]

One can listen to the organizers directly to find out who they are and what they want: https://rumble.com/vtp2lw-freedom-convoy-organizers-press-co... You may agree or not agree, but as an added bonus you'll learn something about the economics of the trucking business.

[halostatue]

Please remember that whatever you think you’re learning about the economics of the trucking business, the people involved in this represent less than 10% of the truckers in Canada — and they also have no clue how little their protest matters as it is the _American_ mandate preventing the moronic holdouts from crossing the the border.

[cal5k]

You should seek to understand before parroting talking points like this.

First, federal jurisdiction includes: mandating vaccine passports at the border, firing employees in federally-regulated industries that are unvaccinated, and preventing unvaccinated Canadians from being able to travel via plane or train domestically. There is also evidence to suggest that the Canadian government pressured the US government into implementing their own mandate on cross-border transportation to match ours.

Second, over 30% of Canadians polled support these specific protests, and over 50% of Canadians want to see an end to all provincial and federal mandates. In the face of omicron there is zero science to support vaccine passports or other restrictions, and frankly there never was.

Third, many vaccinated Canadians like myself are supportive of peaceful protests aimed at restoring basic charter rights even for those we might disagree with. I've always thought it disgusting that Canadians cheered on while unvaccinated Canadians lost their jobs or couldn't send their kids to university... this is exactly why minority rights are so important.

Finally, it's common for protests to occur in Ottawa about all manner of issues because it's the nation's capital. Suggesting that none of the protestors understand who has jurisdiction over what is false.

[halostatue]

Oh, I _do_ understand. I just happen to realize that the people who claim that there is "zero science to support vaccine passports or other restrictions, and frankly there never was" do not know the first thing that they’re talking about. There is substantial evidence in both epidemiological data _and_ in socio-psychological data that all of the measures taken over the last year have worked (and it is, in fact, the waffling inconsistency and grift of populist governments like Doug Ford’s which have caused the waves to slope the way that they have).

Amongst governments that have been driven by science and not by pseudo-scientific bullshit covering crypto-capitalist garbage (like New Zealand), the subsequent waves have been smaller and more contained—and they have _not_ returned to the levels of lockdowns required. What makes vaccine passports required are people who refuse to give the first damned care about their fellow citizens. AND THEY WORK. Vaccination appointment went _up_ when SAQ implemented vaccine passport requirements.

There are no charter rights being violated either by the lockdowns or by vaccine mandates. Your statement about "minority rights" is extremely disingenuous, as minority rights are not about people who _choose_ not to do something based on misinformation and disinformation, but on characteristics of who they are (skin colour, Indigenous, etc.), where they are from, the languages they speak, their gender and/or orientation, the culture from which they hail, and/or religions that they practice (and courts tend _not_ to pay much attention to any claim of minority status without historical evidence of discrimination against claimed minorities). The assholes in the Truck Tantrum are — by and large — WASPy conspiracy believers. They are the exact _opposite_ of minority, and exactly why they need to be laughed out of town.

I have no problem with them protesting. I also have no problem with laughing at them because they are claiming things which are demonstrably false and are whining over loss of privilege as if it were the same as real discrimination. People who _choose_ to be antisocial like the Flu Truck Convoy jackasses don’t get to claim that they’re discriminated against because society tells them to take a hike.

[cal5k]

>The assholes in the Truck Tantrum are — by and large — WASPy conspiracy believers. They are the exact _opposite_ of minority, and exactly why they need to be laughed out of town.

Okay bigot.

[MatteoFrigo]

They explain their position on the American side of the problem in the interview itself. I have no idea whether they are right or wrong, but they are not morons.

[ls15]

> okay so this is an unlawful protest that has a detrimental impact on residents, the environment, and local business. Can someone explain to me why this is tolerated and why these people are not simply being arrested?

I would say, just end those unlawful and unscientific vaccine mandates that have a detrimental impact on societies and businesses, so everyone can move on.

[halostatue]

Vaccine mandates are lawful and constitutional, and well supported by science.

[ls15]

Btw., the SCOTUS has already blocked nationwide vaccine mandates in the US:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/13/politics/supreme-court-va...

> In freezing a lower court opinion that allowed the regulation to go into effect nationwide, the majority sent a clear message the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with protecting workplace safety, overstepped its authority. In contrast, the justices said that a separate agency could issue a rule to protect the health and safety of Medicare and Medicaid patients.

So they made an exception for healthcare workers in order to protect "the health and safety of Medicare and Medicaid patients". Patients are only protected by vaccination of healthcare workers if the vaccine is sterilizing, which is not the case (science).

[halostatue]

We’re talking about Canada. I don’t care what SCOTUS says because it has less than zero jurisdiction over Canada, where all of the lockdowns, restrictions, and vaccine mandates have _already_ passed multiple levels of constitutional review.

Strictly speaking, SCOTUS erred in its decision (other vaccine mandates in the past _have_ passed constitutional muster), but that’s unsurprising given that there are no thoughtful conservatives on the bench. Even Scalia, one of the most ignoble Justices to ever serve on SCOTUS was smarter than any other conservative on the bench now and would _likely_ have disagreed with this decision. Most of the recent justices have no business being on the court either as wholly unqualified or because of unconstitutional abrogation of duty by the legislative branch under Mitch McConnell.

[ls15]

Not for SARS-CoV-2 and especially not for the Omicron variant. It is laughably absurd.

[halostatue]

Said like someone with an incorrect idée fixe instead of actually looking at (a) jurisdictions where they’ve worked (b) actual epidemiological and socio-psychological science. There are mistakes made by scientists during this pandemic (downplaying the efficacy of masks for months). Recommendations on vaccine mandates and vaccine passports aren’t one of them.

[benmmurphy]

кто кого

[sleepingadmin]

>okay so this is an unlawful protest that has a detrimental impact on residents, the environment, and local business.

Could you elaborate on what makes the protest unlawful? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_assembly

If all it takes to invalidate this human right is a couple agent provocateur's causing some violence. Then protesting is essentially illegal for everyone. That's not how it works. Which is also why the ottawa police are backing off and saying the military has to do it. The military backed off saying nope.exe.

>Can someone explain to me why this is tolerated and why these people are not simply being arrested?

It's a peaceful protest that has every right to exist.

>What it reminds me of is that 2014 standoff with the Bundy family on federal land in the US or farmers in France. Some groups can just do whatever they want apparently.

https://notthebee.com/article/come-and-laugh-with-me-at-the-...

Many great videos on there that make it abundantly clear that the media has quite falsely mislabeled this lawful protest. If I might make a suggestion, analyze your media source's bias. You seem to be listening to the yellow journalism.