Stephen Roney's Blog, page 153
February 15, 2022
The Real Stakes
The Emergency Act and its predecessor, the War Measures Act, has only been invoked three times in Canadian history. The video says a bit about how our government used it the first time.
Of course the Emergency Act will pass; Trudeau would not have announced it without getting a guarantee from the NDP.
If the Emergency Act is passed, Canada is no longer a democracy.
It has been well observed, perhaps first by Thomas Jefferson, that for a democracy to work, you need a class of people who are financially self-sufficient, who do not depend on government for their daily needs. Jefferson saw freeholders as the backbone of American democracy: they could survive and feed their families indefinitely in the absence of government. Only such a class can safely organize against the current government.
This is why democracy does not work in most places until the GDP per capita hits something around $10,000. This is the point at which enough people are not living hand to mouth that they can organize.
The chronic poverty of Canadian First Nations is due to the fact that the reserve system makes everybody dependent on the band council and the federal government for their daily necessities. This makes them unable to organize to defend their interests. They have to do what they are told.
Truckers owning their own trucks are an ideal group to fight for our freedoms. Unlike people on the factory floor, or professionals obliged to buy into the system at all times, or businessmen dependent on constant liaison and permissions from government, they are relatively free agents. They can come and go, largely off the grid, moving easily with their means of livelihood to a new jurisdiction if necessary, living in their trucks if necessary. This is why they were available to defend our freedoms.
The Emergency Act seems to deliberately target financial independence from government. It gives the government the power to go into bank accounts or private transactions, and seize assets without court permission, without review, without notice and without legal recourse. It is the perfect wrecking ball to destroy democracy. Under the Emergency Act, should the government choose, nobody can afford to stand against the government of the day.
If it is invoked now, for such trivial reasons, it hardly matters if it is time-limited. Setting the precedent means it can be used again, at a moment’s notice. No organized opposition to government can now form.
If it is invoked now, as it clearly will be, the only way to restore Canadian democracy is to take the Emergency Act off the books. And exact some penalty for those who allowed it to be used.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
A Journal of the State of Emergency
It is obvious that Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergency Act is a misuse of the Act. Aside from war or natural disaster, the Act is to be triggered only if Canadian national security is threatened by:
(a) espionage or sabotage that is against Canada or is detrimental to the interests of Canada or activities directed toward or in support of such espionage or sabotage,
(b) foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a threat to any person,
(c) activities within or relating to Canada directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective within Canada or a foreign state, and
(d) activities directed toward undermining by covert unlawful acts, or directed toward or intended ultimately to lead to the destruction or overthrow by violence of, the constitutionally established system of government in Canada,
but does not include lawful advocacy, protest or dissent, unless carried on in conjunction with any of the activities referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d)
In its own words, it is not to be used against lawful protest or dissent. That is exactly how it is being used now.
There been any espionage or sabotage. The government might point to the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge. But if blockade amounts to sabotage, strikes by unionized workers have also just been outlawed. Moreover, the blockade at the bridge has already been ended. There are smaller, less consequential blockages at Coutts, and one in Manitoba, but the Alberta and Manitoba governments both say there is no emergency.
There have been no threats of or use of violence against persons or property. Despite its size, the convoy has been a model of peaceful protest. The authorities may try to use the seizure of guns near the Coutts border crossing to claim (c) applies. This is pretty weak; Canadians have the right to own guns, and the possession of a gun is hardly evidence of an intent to overthrow the government. There are also claims online that this is a false flag, that the guns actually seized did not come from the convoy or the protesters. Given what the government has already resorted to, these claims are credible. We know they have been using plants and false flags.
There has been no activity for the purpose of overthrowing Canada’s constitution. The government and the NDP have made much of a memorandum, posted online demanding that the governor general dismiss the Trudeau government. However, this is not obviously in violation of the Canadian constitution, and did not call for any violence; and both the truckers and the online memorandum say it has nothing to do with the truckers.
The one charge the government might try is (b), clandestine or deceptive foreign influence. And it looks as though they are trying to do this. On the grounds that much of the money flowing into GoFundMe or GiveSendGo has been from the US.
This is simply inevitable. Nor is it obviously sinister. Nobody raised any red flags when Barack Obama endorsed Justin Trudeau a couple of elections ago. The government will have to demonstrate that, in this case, it was deceptive and clandestine. But it was not. Nobody was trying to conceal the sources of the donations. GoFundMe or GiveSendGo were following their standard practices. If they are problematic now, they were always problematic. There is no justification to declare an emergency.
As a practical matter, what does the Emergency Act accomplish? Nothing, in terms of public safety. The blockade of the Ambassador Bridge is already ended. If the Ottawa protest was ever unlawful, the Ottawa police always had the legal authority to break it up.
What is left, then, other than perhaps to seize the bank accounts and assets of any opponents of the government? To intimidate and cripple any future opposition to government power?
I suppose it does not matter that the use of the Emergency Act is illegitimate. If Parliament says it is proper, who can stop it? The Supreme Court?
But this is a serious stain on Canada’s reputation, and a serious destabilization of Canadian democracy. It threatens to throw Canada into a state of civil war. It is no trivial thing that, standing on the other side now are four provincial premiers, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the last surviving signer of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Emergency Act was intended for times of war. If Trudeau is now forced out of power, the stain will be on him. If he is not, Canada itself will wear the stain for the rest of history. If Canadian democracy survives.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
February 14, 2022
Brian Peckford and the Truckers - Joint Press Conference
Cancel Culture
I wonder if anyone really does not understand that the way to defeat a bad idea is to let as many people hear it as possible. This after all is the simple insight that gave us modern science: publish your results. Let anyone who can challenge them.
If anyone instead wants to suppress speech, or suppress an idea, it is because they think it is true.
Choose your reading or listening material accordingly.'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Fox News in Ottawa
Bad Guys Among the Counter-Protesters
February 13, 2022
Jason Kenney Makes a Good Point
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
A Journal of the Plague Year--Er, Decade
It's probably of little interest, but on my afternoon walk today, in this Toronto neighbourhood, absolutely nobody I passed was wearing a mask. One guy looked at me knowingly (I was not wearing a mask either) and said hi; as if we knew each other. A few weeks ago everyone would be wearing a mask.I think ordinary people are quietly expressing their feelings in this way.
Flying Monkeys
After a couple of weeks in which everyone seemed to be coming out in favour of the convoy protesters, we begin to see the counter-protests and the aggressively hostile tweets appear.
These counter-protesters are examples of the psychological phenomenon called “flying monkeys.” Watching them is informative.
These are people who could not legitimately expect to advance by their merits, but are determined to advance nonetheless. So their strategy is to seek preferment by showing unreasonable and unreasoning loyalty to whomever they think has the power to grant such preferment. They therefore become useful tools in the hands of any tyrant. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern were Shakespearean examples.
You can almost see this in images of their little protests. “Soy boys”; “beta males.” Relatively unattractive women. The mere physical contrast with the convoy supporters is striking. For one thing, they seem uniformly shorter.
Two Quick Thoughts
Two reflections on the current troubles.
1. The OPP deserve credit for ending the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge as peacefully as they did. It forms an honourable contrast to images of the French police using tear gas in Paris, and the Dutch police on horseback with truncheons. Or the New Zealand police playing Barry Manilow records.
Credit where credit is due.
2. I should have been a trucker instead of an academic.
