[smnrchrds]

As far as I know, the law does not demand asset seizure, but freezing. And the frozen accounts will be unfrozen when the emergency order expires or is lifted. The goal is to prevent the use of assets right now to finance blockades, not to deprive people of their property forever.

[totony]

People that argue this seem unaware of how dreadful freezing assets can be. 30 days without funds means you can't pay any debt, can't pay for food, can't use transportation, etc.

I don't believe "The goal is to prevent use of assets right now to finance blockades," it's clearly an intimidation tactic against "undesirables."

[unfocussed_mike]

I do think that is the goal. These are protestors with heavy, portable living quarters, after all; if you can't move them, you've got to cut off the money they use to live.

If governments don't come down hard on using heavy vehicles for blockades, and don't do what they can to stop that being a financially supportable method of protest, it will be repeated everywhere, like the Gilets Jaunes model of protest.

But ultimately I think it would be better to make life miserable for them by degrees, rather than attacking their personal finances.

So the Spotify/Peterson idea was a sarcastic joke (which humourless people have downvoted), but why _not_ make it difficult for them to protest by making it hard for them to buy stuff, or by making it difficult for them to return to their cabs when they leave them? Why not make the protests less liveable?

The thing about non-vehicular protest is that it eventually fizzles out; people make their point, they endure some notable hardship, it makes the press, they make their point and they move on. Generally this is how protest brings about small changes. But it's inherent in the process that it's difficult, extreme and inappropriate to permanently disrupt.

There is a balance, and protests are designed to attract law enforcement; civil disobedience, arrest and being very publicly removed by the police is ultimately part of the modern mechanism of protest.

Road-blocking with a truck in which it is presumably quite routine to be able to exist in a little more comfort for a few days at a time is another matter, and if the response does not reflect that, it'll go on forever.

It's a clever idea, but just because it has clever and innovative advantages over e.g. chaining yourself to a fence doesn't mean that it should be granted a pass.

Either the protesters and the police come to some point of collusion about what their very public arrest and removal will look like, or something ultimately has to be done to stop them disrupting forever.

[totony]

>Why not make the protests less liveable?

Protesting during multiple weeks in winter is already unliveable. I live in Canada and would probably not do that unless the issue is life-or-death. Using extra-judicial means to quell opponents is not what our government should be doing, be it by freezing assets, preventing exchange of goods or other. One of the basis of modern democracy is due process and executive/legislative separation.

[smnrchrds]

It wouldn't have made a difference if the Emergencies Act was not invoked. There is a court order to freeze assets which does not rely on the Act, just existing laws. Even without the act and by the order of the judiciary, the funds would have been frozen.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-judge-orders-up-to-20-mil...

[totony]

That's a specific order, to a specifics individuals. Plus, this is a legal matter and can have a back-and-forth in court. The emergency act allows freezing assets of anyone without a judge having its say. The scale is not the same.

[unfocussed_mike]

(Again -- what's with the downvotes on your comment? You have a legitimate opinion; I don't understand why it was downvoted when it didn't even needlessly snark at Joe Rogan like mine)

All protests ultimately end when the protesters allow themselves to be arrested or come to an agreement with the state or police for a way to protest over the long term that is present but less disruptive. Usually the process of protest involves some acceptance that the police are going to make your lives a little difficult; it's the nature of the beast.

But this is at a more significant scale, because each invididual protestor has a seriously outsize impact.

What happens to civil society if a bunch of truckers who believe a bunch of Qanon nonsense (and that is largely what is at work here -- not legitimate belief but conspiracy theories) can repeat this, over and over again, because of access to finance from outside (and even from abroad)?

I personally do not think that portable roadblocks on the basis of fringe belief funded by foreign state and non-state actors, going unchallenged, is something society should just do nothing about.

This isn't a one-off. Governments need to figure out how to allow this kind of protest for short periods but not tolerate for long periods, because road blockades have real consequences.

(As it goes, in the UK, it's the government that blocks roads with long tailbacks of lorries for purely partisan reasons)