The commission was an opportunity for the government to show evidence of "activities directed toward or in support of threats or acts of serious violence" which, as you (almost) mention, is an absolute requirement for invoking the EA for a Public Order Emergency.
It never did. There was none.
As you say, this will change no minds. Some people believe the government should follow the law, even if that prevents it from accomplishing a goal that they like.
Some think the government should be allowed to do whatever it decides is for the greater good.
And some, many, claim to think the government should follow the law, but are trying to reconcile that with the fact that they just didn't like the Freedom Convoy, and therefore support the government anyway.
For a cop to go into hospital is a "low bar", in itself.
But that hypothetical hurt wasn't a traffic accident, or random street crime: it was a direct challenge to the government. Message received: if you come challenge lawful authority, and bring enough trucks, the cops and politicians both will just take it and take it, until somebody gets hurt, that's how they'll fold if intimidated.
Let's be clear: the protest wasn't just speech, it was intimidation. Like that big guy who stomped up to Freeland the other week, alarming everybody. All large, strong, powerful people and corporate bodies want "Intimidation" to be sanctified as "free speech". It's those who are being intimidated that want to "censor" it. Not the speech, the intimidation.
I didn’t see anything in the Prime Minister’s testimony today that would change my mind. That’s because my starting point goes back to the last time that our civil rights were suspended in peacetime.
In the run up to the FLQ Crisis BOMBS were set off and organized thugs not only plotted nefarious acts but carried them out. People were KIDNAPPED, including a British diplomat. One of the kidnappings went bad and Pierre Laporte showed up DEAD in the trunk of a car.
Even with this chain of horrors the NDP voted against the invoking of the War Measures Act. This harkens back to a time when people stood up to politicians who played fast and loose with rights and freedoms. Today standing up against a Government with a tyrannical streak reveals just how cynical and ruthless the political class is.
I bring this little history lesson up because of the sad, sad reality watching Trudeau today. Not an ounce of contrition or regret for freezing bank accounts and other collateral damage to innocent third parties. Just the serenity of being right, every time.
Politicians of all political stripes deserve respect and the ability to do their work in safety. Respect is easily earned by respectful treatment of others and on this front Justin Trudeau gets a C-. Let’s remember that all this trouble started with the weaponization of vaccines in the 2021 election campaign.
If our Liberal Government spent less time demonizing and dividing Canadians and put that effort into governing maybe the temperature and open hostility would drop?
Yes. Exactly what he should have done! Do we want our government to “negotiate” policy with every group of nut bars that come to town? Appearing decisive to restore order was absolutely critical to the global investment community.
Let’s be clear. The government made the right decision to invoke the Act. We needed to show to the world that we had control of our borders or face enormous damage to our economy. The key provinces were weak and for the most part driven by partisan political considerations. Doug Ford deserves the most opprobrium. His Province was the most vitally affected and his government was in hiding. It is still in hiding!
That said let’s concede that the the government probably went beyond the words of the statute. And it almost immediately rescinded the authority. What do we want our leaders to do when they encounter a critical issue that the legislation does not address. Wring their hands and do nothing?
The takeaway is that we need more nuance in defining where action is appropriate.
The PM made it clear that the dangerous precedent he wanted to avoid was disclosing the legal advice he received.
While the dangerous precedent of invoking the Act has long term implications, those are mostly for the governed. Disclosure of legal advice would have immediate implications for him.
Put on your sequins and get ready to kick high, Paul, coz I found my opinion changed after watching Trudeau’s performance today. I still think there was some supercilious hairsplitting going on around the CSIS Act, but I believed he had asked his officials the right questions and I became convinced he had made a tough decision on the matter. There’s vivid tread marks on the cops he tossed under the bus, ‘natch, but I surprisingly found him to be what we used to call in the IC, “a good brief”. Now , if he could just wipe that shit-eating grin off his chops, I could vote for him again!
"I can’t help noticing that the opposition leader hasn’t been his usual ebullient self this month." It's pretty clear that every time a minister or the PM opens their mouth on this topic you can be pretty sure they will create a cow patty and immediately step into it. Why would you want to get involved? Rather just sit back with your popcorn and watch the show. As they say - "You can't make this stuff up". Aside from that the opposition leader unafraid to go out and meet with Canadians in their backyard to listen to their concerns and solutions as he was in BC this week.
Firefighters have a plan of putting out a fire from the get go. However the actual plan of how to do this is developed when the scene of the fire has been observed and appraised.
The Fed's, standing back and watching the Laurel and Hardy show called the OPS gong show of how to not handle a protest, had to have felt like this is not getting any better.
Bringing the army into one's own Capitol to handle this situation would only have amped up the "Banana Republic" rhetoric.
Listening to and reading reports of this inquiry has only further proved to myself that the decision to use the Emergencies Act was the correct one.
Remember, unlike the decision makers at that snapshot in time, we now have the benefit of hindsight.
Still the question of why dialog / diplomacy was not not tried was not asked. Being afraid of people who disagree with you is a good enough reason. The question of why insult and denigrate people who disagree with you was not asked. Surely we must expect our government leaders to set their bar a lot higher than was the seen here.
I await Mr. Rouleau's conclusion and assume it will be the right one. I don't think I break any new ground when I say the only possible resolution was that these nutjobs were going to be removed by force, it's just a technicality whether it was authorized by the EA or something else. Even if trying to cut off the funds for paid hooligans to drive them away turns out to be done wrongly, there is no world in which it's better than having the police try to forcibly remove people, some of whom were armed.
I would like to commend Justice Rouleau and his team on this remarkable pulling of all threads. The report's advice will be of historic importance to our democracy.
Assuming that Trudeau is anything but a glib, superficial fraud who rode to power strictly on his famous last name and nice hair, doesn't make for successful journalism, in my view. Justin Trudeau wanted to invoke the Emergencies Act because his father did, that's the bottom line--being able to inflict it on a demographic that didn't vote for him and that he already has a habit of targeting just made it that much more satisfying for a proto-fascist who, by now, is so morally hollow he has no choice but to swallow his own swill and smile doing it.
You are right Paul, this commission couldn't possibly change my mind; mostly because everything we are witnessing now it revisionistic history. We'll never truly know what the actual plans or intentions were of everyone involved in that circus. I doubt even the witnesses are sure of anything at this point. I've crassly said that I didn't expect the government to hold itself accountable, but you've been a great help reading between the lines of testimony and it's your commentary that keeps me interested in the inquiry.
What I would like to see, not only from the Rouleau team but also from the witnesses and the spectators, is a focus on the actions and the results and make that the target for evaluation. Clearly there are lines of communications that were underused or neglected. Clearly the government had a legal tool at their disposal and nobody was properly trained on how to use it. These are areas with a real and measurable need for improvement. This is what this inquiry should exist for. Instead everywhere I turn everybody is waiting with bated breath for a 'gotch'ya' moment to nail anyone on the other side of the argument to the cross.
The damages, figurative or metaphorical, do not warrant such a negative reaction. In fact the overarching argument should be a lot simpler than the imagined Orwellian plot of government overreach. Regardless of the existence of a plan by the Police services at any stage of the protest and regardless of their intention to put this plan into action and regardless of the need of Emergencies act to put that plan into action, once the situation pushed the cabinet into considering invoking the Emergencies Act they also have to consider the harm in not invoking it. It's easy to criticize the decision now and say it was not needed, but if it had turned out that it was needed, how would you feel about the cabinet's inaction?
I think we need to be thankful that this is the most oppressive legal tool the government has their disposal and the worst that came out of using it is a lot of bad optics, nationally and internationally. Paul mentioned in this article that the PM "much preferred to explain his decision to use the act, rather than the decision to forego it." That's a missed opportunity. If everybody in the cabinet would have been on the same page, it would have been a good strategy to feed this inquiry the idea that the real problem was not invoking the act, but how it was invoked; more specifically the lack of due process that would prevent future governments from winging it like this one did in February.
Except that repealing the vaccination mandate for international truckers would have given not benefit unless the US also repealed its vaccination mandate
The commission was an opportunity for the government to show evidence of "activities directed toward or in support of threats or acts of serious violence" which, as you (almost) mention, is an absolute requirement for invoking the EA for a Public Order Emergency.
It never did. There was none.
As you say, this will change no minds. Some people believe the government should follow the law, even if that prevents it from accomplishing a goal that they like.
Some think the government should be allowed to do whatever it decides is for the greater good.
And some, many, claim to think the government should follow the law, but are trying to reconcile that with the fact that they just didn't like the Freedom Convoy, and therefore support the government anyway.
For a cop to go into hospital is a "low bar", in itself.
But that hypothetical hurt wasn't a traffic accident, or random street crime: it was a direct challenge to the government. Message received: if you come challenge lawful authority, and bring enough trucks, the cops and politicians both will just take it and take it, until somebody gets hurt, that's how they'll fold if intimidated.
Let's be clear: the protest wasn't just speech, it was intimidation. Like that big guy who stomped up to Freeland the other week, alarming everybody. All large, strong, powerful people and corporate bodies want "Intimidation" to be sanctified as "free speech". It's those who are being intimidated that want to "censor" it. Not the speech, the intimidation.
I didn’t see anything in the Prime Minister’s testimony today that would change my mind. That’s because my starting point goes back to the last time that our civil rights were suspended in peacetime.
In the run up to the FLQ Crisis BOMBS were set off and organized thugs not only plotted nefarious acts but carried them out. People were KIDNAPPED, including a British diplomat. One of the kidnappings went bad and Pierre Laporte showed up DEAD in the trunk of a car.
Even with this chain of horrors the NDP voted against the invoking of the War Measures Act. This harkens back to a time when people stood up to politicians who played fast and loose with rights and freedoms. Today standing up against a Government with a tyrannical streak reveals just how cynical and ruthless the political class is.
I bring this little history lesson up because of the sad, sad reality watching Trudeau today. Not an ounce of contrition or regret for freezing bank accounts and other collateral damage to innocent third parties. Just the serenity of being right, every time.
Politicians of all political stripes deserve respect and the ability to do their work in safety. Respect is easily earned by respectful treatment of others and on this front Justin Trudeau gets a C-. Let’s remember that all this trouble started with the weaponization of vaccines in the 2021 election campaign.
If our Liberal Government spent less time demonizing and dividing Canadians and put that effort into governing maybe the temperature and open hostility would drop?
Yes. Exactly what he should have done! Do we want our government to “negotiate” policy with every group of nut bars that come to town? Appearing decisive to restore order was absolutely critical to the global investment community.
Let’s be clear. The government made the right decision to invoke the Act. We needed to show to the world that we had control of our borders or face enormous damage to our economy. The key provinces were weak and for the most part driven by partisan political considerations. Doug Ford deserves the most opprobrium. His Province was the most vitally affected and his government was in hiding. It is still in hiding!
That said let’s concede that the the government probably went beyond the words of the statute. And it almost immediately rescinded the authority. What do we want our leaders to do when they encounter a critical issue that the legislation does not address. Wring their hands and do nothing?
The takeaway is that we need more nuance in defining where action is appropriate.
The PM made it clear that the dangerous precedent he wanted to avoid was disclosing the legal advice he received.
While the dangerous precedent of invoking the Act has long term implications, those are mostly for the governed. Disclosure of legal advice would have immediate implications for him.
That’s where he draws the line.
Put on your sequins and get ready to kick high, Paul, coz I found my opinion changed after watching Trudeau’s performance today. I still think there was some supercilious hairsplitting going on around the CSIS Act, but I believed he had asked his officials the right questions and I became convinced he had made a tough decision on the matter. There’s vivid tread marks on the cops he tossed under the bus, ‘natch, but I surprisingly found him to be what we used to call in the IC, “a good brief”. Now , if he could just wipe that shit-eating grin off his chops, I could vote for him again!
"I can’t help noticing that the opposition leader hasn’t been his usual ebullient self this month." It's pretty clear that every time a minister or the PM opens their mouth on this topic you can be pretty sure they will create a cow patty and immediately step into it. Why would you want to get involved? Rather just sit back with your popcorn and watch the show. As they say - "You can't make this stuff up". Aside from that the opposition leader unafraid to go out and meet with Canadians in their backyard to listen to their concerns and solutions as he was in BC this week.
Firefighters have a plan of putting out a fire from the get go. However the actual plan of how to do this is developed when the scene of the fire has been observed and appraised.
The Fed's, standing back and watching the Laurel and Hardy show called the OPS gong show of how to not handle a protest, had to have felt like this is not getting any better.
Bringing the army into one's own Capitol to handle this situation would only have amped up the "Banana Republic" rhetoric.
Listening to and reading reports of this inquiry has only further proved to myself that the decision to use the Emergencies Act was the correct one.
Remember, unlike the decision makers at that snapshot in time, we now have the benefit of hindsight.
Thanks Paul for the great post 👏🏻👏🏻
Still the question of why dialog / diplomacy was not not tried was not asked. Being afraid of people who disagree with you is a good enough reason. The question of why insult and denigrate people who disagree with you was not asked. Surely we must expect our government leaders to set their bar a lot higher than was the seen here.
I await Mr. Rouleau's conclusion and assume it will be the right one. I don't think I break any new ground when I say the only possible resolution was that these nutjobs were going to be removed by force, it's just a technicality whether it was authorized by the EA or something else. Even if trying to cut off the funds for paid hooligans to drive them away turns out to be done wrongly, there is no world in which it's better than having the police try to forcibly remove people, some of whom were armed.
I would like to commend Justice Rouleau and his team on this remarkable pulling of all threads. The report's advice will be of historic importance to our democracy.
Assuming that Trudeau is anything but a glib, superficial fraud who rode to power strictly on his famous last name and nice hair, doesn't make for successful journalism, in my view. Justin Trudeau wanted to invoke the Emergencies Act because his father did, that's the bottom line--being able to inflict it on a demographic that didn't vote for him and that he already has a habit of targeting just made it that much more satisfying for a proto-fascist who, by now, is so morally hollow he has no choice but to swallow his own swill and smile doing it.
You are right Paul, this commission couldn't possibly change my mind; mostly because everything we are witnessing now it revisionistic history. We'll never truly know what the actual plans or intentions were of everyone involved in that circus. I doubt even the witnesses are sure of anything at this point. I've crassly said that I didn't expect the government to hold itself accountable, but you've been a great help reading between the lines of testimony and it's your commentary that keeps me interested in the inquiry.
What I would like to see, not only from the Rouleau team but also from the witnesses and the spectators, is a focus on the actions and the results and make that the target for evaluation. Clearly there are lines of communications that were underused or neglected. Clearly the government had a legal tool at their disposal and nobody was properly trained on how to use it. These are areas with a real and measurable need for improvement. This is what this inquiry should exist for. Instead everywhere I turn everybody is waiting with bated breath for a 'gotch'ya' moment to nail anyone on the other side of the argument to the cross.
The damages, figurative or metaphorical, do not warrant such a negative reaction. In fact the overarching argument should be a lot simpler than the imagined Orwellian plot of government overreach. Regardless of the existence of a plan by the Police services at any stage of the protest and regardless of their intention to put this plan into action and regardless of the need of Emergencies act to put that plan into action, once the situation pushed the cabinet into considering invoking the Emergencies Act they also have to consider the harm in not invoking it. It's easy to criticize the decision now and say it was not needed, but if it had turned out that it was needed, how would you feel about the cabinet's inaction?
I think we need to be thankful that this is the most oppressive legal tool the government has their disposal and the worst that came out of using it is a lot of bad optics, nationally and internationally. Paul mentioned in this article that the PM "much preferred to explain his decision to use the act, rather than the decision to forego it." That's a missed opportunity. If everybody in the cabinet would have been on the same page, it would have been a good strategy to feed this inquiry the idea that the real problem was not invoking the act, but how it was invoked; more specifically the lack of due process that would prevent future governments from winging it like this one did in February.
Except that repealing the vaccination mandate for international truckers would have given not benefit unless the US also repealed its vaccination mandate
So very well written. Thank you.
Hats off to our PM for clearly rising to the moment.