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New Canadian Politics Thread

MapleLeafBlueJayBoy said:
Bring in the military and crack some skulls. Lol Which is most likely what they want.
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Nah. Revenge. This summer, their trailer parks/suburbs and public spaces should be loudly occupied by:

1) Ethnic/vegan food bazaar (to surround and block all the Tims in 20k radius)
2) A giant yoga outdoor studio with non-stop chanting on loudspeakers
3) Daily Pride parades, finishing up with raves
4) Zero-emissions vehicles drag races
5) Daily vax pop-up clinics
 
UWHabs said:
I saw another good twitter thread today which was basically "we never really expected stuff like this could happen here, so we have no preparations for it." And in some ways, you can kind of understand that. Like initially when we heard of the convoy, you assumed it would be a protest, maybe the truckers take over downtown for like a weekend with the protest, and then they go home. A pain, sure, but whatever.

But once they stayed, that's where the problems amplified. Because once they stay, and they dig in, then now it's not like the regular police force has the capacity to move them out, especially with so many of them just having to make sure things don't get any worse.

The issue is now to clear this out, you need to basically call in the army, and it's a military maneuver. Like, honestly, so much of my twitter feed is talking about this like a war zone. Like it's literally talking about "stopping the resupply", "taking things back a street at a time", etc... And yeah, calling in the army to take down a bunch of people with big trucks, massive stockpiles of diesel and fuel, yikes, that's a world of hurt.

Basically, they were too slow at the get-go to control and contain this, and now things are out of control. The fact that the opposition is not only supporting this still, but encouraging it, means it's less likely to die down. And it's not like Ford is going to be quick to help things out, so there's one less level of government who can help clear it out. My bro and his family live just outside of the core area, but they say they constantly have people going down their street since it's one of the few routes that these people use to refuel and stuff. They're certainly close to downtown, but still there's a lot of activity for a residential area with a bunch of kids and stuff around.
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Yes, but…

They haven’t even tried ticketing the truckers that are occupying Wellington St. Nor have they tried just declaring that any vehicle that has been parked illegally for more than 24hrs will be sanctioned and forcibly removed.

Whether the police follow through on that type of threat or not, there would be legal implications for truck owners that rely on insurance, financing, and clean records to maintain their businesses.

Maybe that isn’t the answer. But they have to at least try SOMETHING. Chief Sloly says there may not be a policing solution, by which he means we may need a political solution. But police have plenty of leverage, beyond driving their tanks in to forcibly remove people. They have not tried to exercise any of it.
 
manny said:
Yes, but…

They haven’t even tried ticketing the truckers that are occupying Wellington St. Nor have they tried just declaring that any vehicle that has been parked illegally for more than 24hrs will be sanctioned and forcibly removed.

Whether the police follow through on that type of threat or not, there would be legal implications for truck owners that rely on insurance, financing, and clean records to maintain their businesses.

Maybe that isn’t the answer. But they have to at least try SOMETHING. Chief Sloly says there may not be a policing solution, by which he means we may need a political solution. But police have plenty of leverage, beyond driving their tanks in to forcibly remove people. They have not tried to exercise any of it.
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Yeah, it's definitely been the "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas" mode. I have seen some good notes today that sounds like they might be starting to do stuff (like ticketing cars, preventing people from bringing in more diesel, etc...) but we'll see if it's enough to make a dent.
 
manny said:
Yes, but…

They haven’t even tried ticketing the truckers that are occupying Wellington St. Nor have they tried just declaring that any vehicle that has been parked illegally for more than 24hrs will be sanctioned and forcibly removed.

Whether the police follow through on that type of threat or not, there would be legal implications for truck owners that rely on insurance, financing, and clean records to maintain their businesses.

Maybe that isn’t the answer. But they have to at least try SOMETHING. Chief Sloly says there may not be a policing solution, by which he means we may need a political solution. But police have plenty of leverage, beyond driving their tanks in to forcibly remove people. They have not tried to exercise any of it.
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This is really important. I don't think the answer here should be to bring in the fucking military. It should be to bring in sufficient police presence to enforce the laws and by-laws being broken. Stategically select an area that offers reasonable access/egress, that an effective perimeter can be set up, etc and just go in and write tickets, issue citations, etc. If this is done professionally and non violently, but it still incites the protestors to start acting stupid and endangering the well being of the police involved, then move in with enough force to extract your people. At least at that point you've attempted to uphold law and order, and can now start looking at more aggressive options. At least attempt to start handing out the (quite heavy) fines that are appropriate here. Give these people an excuse to pussy out (who wants a 10K fine?) and some of them will. When some break and start sneaking off, others will follow. The longer you allow them to sit in defiance and solidarity with no repercussion, the bolder they're going to get. The fuck is the billions of dollars spent on policing actually for if they're unable to do their job when we actually need them to.
 
The province should be putting every OPP and MTO commercial vehicle inspector on the ground in Ottawa to do full inspections of every truck present. What a great opportunity for a blitz on truck safety to improve road safety in the province.

Wont happen on Dougy's watch of course. But that would impose some consequences in a hurry.

Of course the bigger city police usually have a few CV inspectors as well, so Ottawa police could do this. Probably start a riot though.
 
I guess what really guts me is that I remember the G20 protests in Toronto where military tactics were used to round up a fuck ton of peaceful protestors, beat the shit out of them and illegally jail them. I don't want this now either, but if globalization protestors get such a heavy fucking hand, why does an American alt right astro turf campaign get the fucking kid gloves?

Public protesting and demonstrations began one week ahead of the 2010 G20 Toronto summit, which took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on 26−27 June. The protests were for various causes, including poverty and anti-capitalism.

Protests mainly consisted of peaceful demonstrations and rallies but also took the form of a riot as a group of protesters using black bloc tactics caused vandalism to several businesses in Downtown Toronto. More than 20,000 police, military, and security personnel were involved in policing the protests, which at its largest numbered 10,000 protesters.[1][2] While there were no deaths, 97 officers and 39 arrestees were injured, and at least 40 shops were vandalised, constituting at least C$750,000 worth of damage.[3][4]

Over 1000 arrests were made, making it the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.[4] In the aftermath of the protests, the Toronto Police Service and the Integrated Security Unit (ISU) of the G20 Toronto summit were heavily criticized for brutality during the arrests and eventually went under public scrutiny by media and human rights activists. There has been legal action in the form of a class action lawsuit towards the Toronto police on behalf of all of those who were arrested despite the Toronto Police's several attempts to stop court proceedings by appealing the case. As of November 10, 2016 The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that it will not hear the Toronto Police Services Board's appeal. As a result, a class action lawsuit was able to proceed on November 25, 2016 towards trial.[2] Archived 2020-08-20 at the Wayback Machine On August 17, 2020, The Canadian Press announced that the lawsuit had resulted in a $16.5 million settlement. Those arrested were each awarded dollar amounts ranging from $5,000 to $24,700.[5]
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For clarity again, I don't want that done here. But how the fuck do you go from that, to this?
 
MindzEye said:
This is really important. I don't think the answer here should be to bring in the fucking military. It should be to bring in sufficient police presence to enforce the laws and by-laws being broken. Stategically select an area that offers reasonable access/egress, that an effective perimeter can be set up, etc and just go in and write tickets, issue citations, etc. If this is done professionally and non violently, but it still incites the protestors to start acting stupid and endangering the well being of the police involved, then move in with enough force to extract your people. At least at that point you've attempted to uphold law and order, and can now start looking at more aggressive options. At least attempt to start handing out the (quite heavy) fines that are appropriate here. Give these people an excuse to pussy out (who wants a 10K fine?) and some of them will. When some break and start sneaking off, others will follow. The longer you allow them to sit in defiance and solidarity with no repercussion, the bolder they're going to get. The fuck is the billions of dollars spent on policing actually for if they're unable to do their job when we actually need them to.
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Exactly this. A few people are entrenched and will not leave without force. I think that the rest will leave with even a little serious prodding. But if they don’t, at least you will have tried.

The scale of the occupation is such that if the people afraid of the legal implications leave, those that remain will be so transparently feeble that their cause will be even more of a laughing stock.

Right now the “movement” takes up several blocks. It’s probably 250 people. Stop making them feel like they are powerful simply by their presence and they will very likely run away. Also, it can’t be overstated that despite their big guts and big pickups, most of these people are fundamentally cowards. They’re afraid of a needle. They’re afraid of the meanies in the Liberal party. They’ll be terrified of a significant fine or actual (not just imagined) loss of employment. If you have 5-10 true believers in that group that stick around, deal with them using whatever means necessary once the rest have run away.

Also, I know Trudeau is using this as a political foil for later, but he could bring about the end with a few direct words. “We know you all take this seriously. We’ll be discussing restrictions in the coming days and weeks. Go home and be with your families and do your jobs.”
 
manny said:
Exactly this. A few people are entrenched and will not leave without force. I think that the rest will leave with even a little serious prodding. But if they don’t, at least you will have tried.

The scale of the occupation is such that if the people afraid of the legal implications leave, those that remain will be so transparently feeble that their cause will be even more of a laughing stock.

Right now the “movement” takes up several blocks. It’s probably 250 people. Stop making them feel like they are powerful simply by their presence and they will very likely run away. Also, it can’t be overstated that despite their big guts and big pickups, most of these people are fundamentally cowards. They’re afraid of a needle. They’re afraid of the meanies in the Liberal party. They’ll be terrified of a significant fine or actual (not just imagined) loss of employment. If you have 5-10 true believers in that group that stick around, deal with them using whatever means necessary once the rest have run away.

Also, I know Trudeau is using this as a political foil for later, but he could bring about the end with a few direct words. “We know you all take this seriously. We’ll be discussing restrictions in the coming days and weeks. Go home and be with your families and do your jobs.”
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Yeah, that's a part that irks me too. Like, the whole reason for this is because people are afraid of stuff that disturbs them. So if you actually start ticketing cars, give out fines for "violating the peace" or whatever by using air horns or honking, or tickets for excess idling, a bunch of them are definitely going to peace out. If you can narrow the crowd into just the true Q believers, then they're both going to take up a lot less space, and it's a lot easier to contain them. The problem now is that those small number of people can take up a lot of room with their trucks, and since they know they're not getting called out on anything, feel they have free reign and thus are "winning".
 
UWHabs said:
Yeah, that's a part that irks me too. Like, the whole reason for this is because people are afraid of stuff that disturbs them. So if you actually start ticketing cars, give out fines for "violating the peace" or whatever by using air horns or honking, or tickets for excess idling, a bunch of them are definitely going to peace out. If you can narrow the crowd into just the true Q believers, then they're both going to take up a lot less space, and it's a lot easier to contain them. The problem now is that those small number of people can take up a lot of room with their trucks, and since they know they're not getting called out on anything, feel they have free reign and thus are "winning".
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If there are no repercussions for this, what stops the next protest from being bigger, or a direct assault on the Parliament building a la Jan 6?
 
Another absurdity of this is that the areas they are occupying are basically empty except for Ottawa residents. Centre block is under renovation for 8 more years. MPs offices are often empty, and much more so now that 95% of government employees work remotely. So these honks and parking violations are really only affecting people who just happen to live there and have no actual skin in the game.

Other buildings this convoy is impeding are the department of justice (mostly remote workers), archives canada (limited hours, remote work), the supreme court (virtual hearings, remote work) and the war museum (we support the troops!)
 
MindzEye said:
If there are no repercussions for this, what stops the next protest from being bigger, or a direct assault on the Parliament building a la Jan 6?
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This would probably be stupidly easy too, considering that one random mentally disturbed homeless dude with an antique rifle managed to kill the soldier guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier and then enter parliament and get within spitting difference of the PM & a bunch of MP's.
 
One thing is that every protest ever should now use vehicles instead of marching like dummies.
 
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