Regardless of what your thoughts are on the Freedom Convoy, the hacking of a website that took donations from people in good faith and the subsequent doxing and harassment of the donors should be terribly alarming. Even if you have no sympathy, what’s preventing you from being on the wrong side at some point down the line? Eventually that’s what happens. Encroachments are made on a small number and that number increases over time and most of those encroachments are done with full support of most people in the general public and therefore there is no opposition to the intrusion of people’s lives despite overwhelming evidence governments have never ever been interested in the well being of the population. By the time most people realize they should be taking a stand, it’s too late to do anything about it. For me, I think we may be at that stage in Canada. If we aren’t, we are perilously close.
I also wonder why this was a story in June 2021, but it doesn’t apply today….probably because of the Emergencies Act and probably because what’s going on today suits an agenda or a narrative. https://globalnews.ca/news/7937654/rcmp-clearview-ai-facial-recognition-canada/amp/
I look at this hack and I wonder why can’t we hack Jeffrey Epstein’s list of people who took part in the sexual abuse of underage girls for years? The answer, of course, is because the names on Epstein’s list would turn the world’s power structure upside down and those who have control of our planet (both right and left wing figures) are on the same team when it comes to this and so the names of those disgusting individuals will never come out.
Bank accounts of donors to the convoy have been frozen and there will be no expense spared to get to the bottom of those who helped fund an operation opposed to government mandates yet there really is nothing that can be done when it comes to the bank transactions of the Trudeau family and their connection to the Kielburgers (WE Charity).
What this weekend should show you is that Canadian governments do have the ability to do whatever they want whenever they want and the political parties will cover for each other. Our system and the people in it are as dirty as a mud bog. As much as the Conservatives are speaking out about mandates today, my question is where have their MPs been for two years? Had they been a truly effective opposition to Trudeau, we never would have reached the point of having this convoy parade/peaceful protest from all over the country until everyone reached Ottawa. That was a culmination of people (right or wrong) that had reached their respective limits. Canada, because there was no opposition at any time to Covid restrictions, has been one of the most locked down countries in the world. You can say what you want about approaches taken in Florida and South Dakota as well as those in New York and California but the reality is that we need these diametrically opposite approaches and viewpoints in order to achieve some sort of a medium (which is what happened in the United States). Saskatchewan, which has been the least restricted province in Canada, has been branded as a ‘Florida’ but that’s far from reality. To listen to federal Conservative politicians now take a firm stance against restrictions rings hollow to me. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon today when you know you have half of the population on side with you. The real time for leadership was well over a year ago. The decimation being used as evidence to oppose restrictions today was very much obvious 12 months ago.
Should Trudeau have talked to the protesters? History suggests that whether we should or shouldn’t, we normally do engage and try to find a common ground. Had the federal government come forth with a mandate dropping plan, even if it wasn’t immediate, I would have been one of the first people to say it’s time for the truckers/protesters to go home. Personally, I do believe these folks played a major role in the Provincial governments announcing their mandates coming to an end. I think BC was the last province to put forth a plan. Maybe they still should have gone home at that point. With ten restriction free provinces, how much longer can Trudeau keep his boots on our throats? I guess we will find out.
Everyone seems to agree Canadians have a right to peacefully assemble and protest. What we don’t agree on is what is peaceful. I’m of the opinion from what I saw on social media that this was as peaceful as you can get for three weeks. I’ve seen other demonstrations where structures have been burned and people have been killed yet the label of ‘peaceful’ was still applied. Before the convoy even arrived in Ottawa, the participants were provoked by Trudeau as he called them racists and a ‘fringe minority’. The Chairman of Canada said he didn’t want violence but every word and every action from him showed otherwise all the way up until his evoking the Emergencies Act.
This Emergencies Act is a big deal. I don’t think many Canadians understand it. Heck I don’t even necessarily understand it, but I do know there really is no recourse for you if you are in opposition to whatever the government wants to do. Our civil liberties have been suspended and while it’s been stated it’s only for ‘30 days’, the reality is that nothing that has gone on for the last two years has been on a timeline originally given by a political leader. No matter what happens from here on out, even a lifting of this Act will result in a ‘less free Canada’. You can be assured of that. Even without the Act, a lifting of mandates around the country was still going to be done in a way where some things considered normal in February 2020 are not normal anymore.
I wonder how many aspiring police officers still want to be police officers today. Their reputations have been destroyed and the bulk of the people who have supported them through various controversies and high profile incidents in years past are the very people who were taking part in this protest. The people who are quick to ‘defund the police’ or rush to judgment of them for various decisions an individual officer may make in the heat of the moment are the ones applauding what has gone on in Ottawa this weekend. The next time police are on the hot seat for something, those supporting them this weekend will turn on them. The ones who usually defend them, I’m guessing here, maybe aren’t going to be so quick to come to their aid anymore.
Institutions that have lost public trust include (but not limited to) governments, public health (doctors), mainstream media, law enforcement, human rights lawyers, and privacy commissioners. Yet, this has all been done to keep us safe. You tell me if you feel ‘safer’ today than what you felt in February 2020.
Once again Mike an awesome column with views and opinions that resonate with a lot of people , provincially,nationally, as well as around the world. It’s good to see that this convoy has triggered international attention and condemnation of what has, and is still transpiring. One thing that I would like to bring to everyone’s attention was awhile back, many financial institutions were hacked, and the banks were going crazy wanting to find and charge the villains that caused the breach as this was a criminal act….. but now the government and these same financial institutions are complicit in sharing data obtained illegally by criminal
hackers, and yet somehow this is justified and anyone who may have contributed are now doxxed and vilified !!!! Fascism at its finest !!!
Thank you for sharing Mike. I think you capture how people feel today. A little ashamed that we have let it come to this. We are responsible as we are the electorate. Every Canadian bares responsibility for what has happened in Ottawa. Time for a Great Rebuild with Canadians that care.