I still don't get how this is all ok. The way to break up illegal behavior is to arrest those responsible, and then charge them and try them for crimes. Which in this case, should have been trivially easy, since the participants of main importance were there, in public, sitting in their trucks.
Governments should not have tools so readily available that allow them to destroy a person's (or family's) finances without due process.
> Police didn't enforce the law which is why the feds needed to intervene.
That seems to be a pretty big problem. If the police aren't doing their job, fire their leadership and find people who will get it done. Does Canada have something analogous to the US National Guard that could have been brought in to deal with this if the local authorities were refusing to take action?
The outrage here -- at least to me -- isn't about how many people were affected by this or about how the truckers could have better made their point. It's that governments just should not have the power to "solve" problems like this in this way. (And before anyone decides to jump into whataboutism territory, yes, I acknowledge that the US has similar problems, and we suck as well for letting authorities get away with it.)
> I still don't get how this is all ok. The way to break up illegal behavior is to arrest those responsible, and then charge them and try them for crimes. Which in this case, should have been trivially easy, since the participants of main importance were there, in public, sitting in their trucks.
They did this, once they had the additional support they needed.
> That seems to be a pretty big problem. If the police aren't doing their job, fire their leadership and find people who will get it done. Does Canada have something analogous to the US National Guard that could have been brought in to deal with this if the local authorities were refusing to take action?
Not really anything specifically the same as the National Guard in terms of policing actions. The closest you could argue is the RCMP.
The city did eventually fire the police chief, get extra resources, and make arrests, as I'm sure if you've followed this story at all you'll have seen by now.
> The outrage here -- at least to me -- isn't about how many people were affected by this or about how the truckers could have better made their point. It's that governments just should not have the power to "solve" problems like this in this way. (And before anyone decides to jump into whataboutism territory, yes, I acknowledge that the US has similar problems, and we suck as well for letting authorities get away with it.)
I agree with you here. It should not have gotten to this point. Where do you draw the line though?
At what point is a person's right to protest crossing a line?
Is it blocking off roadways for several weeks?
Is it shutting down businesses in a downtown core?
Is it harassing people?
Is it threatening people?
Is it assaulting people?
Is it attempted arson?
I'm trying to envision where the line should be drawn in a way that respects right to protest and allows the locals to not have to endure the above.
At what point do you cut off their funding source(s)?
The failure on the convoy organizer's part was placing the trucks where they did and deciding to harass the people who just live in downtown Ottawa. If they were up on Parliament hill for these three weeks and there weren't collections of stories of the above, nobody would really care.[1] As I've mentioned elsewhere, Ottawa is familiar with large protests and marches. The people calling it an occupation aren't wrong, from the video I've seen and the stories I've heard from friends and family living down there.
Governments should not have tools so readily available that allow them to destroy a person's (or family's) finances without due process.
> Police didn't enforce the law which is why the feds needed to intervene.
That seems to be a pretty big problem. If the police aren't doing their job, fire their leadership and find people who will get it done. Does Canada have something analogous to the US National Guard that could have been brought in to deal with this if the local authorities were refusing to take action?
The outrage here -- at least to me -- isn't about how many people were affected by this or about how the truckers could have better made their point. It's that governments just should not have the power to "solve" problems like this in this way. (And before anyone decides to jump into whataboutism territory, yes, I acknowledge that the US has similar problems, and we suck as well for letting authorities get away with it.)