While The World Is Preoccupied

 

While the invasion of Ukraine is undoubtedly the world-shaking event that the media are reporting it as, it would be unwise as Canadians to feel blasé about our home-grown problems, problems made abundantly clear by the recent occupation of Ottawa by a domestic force known as the trucker convoy.

Peopled by idiots all too eager to subscribe to misinformation propagated both domestically and internationally, it was a worrying indictment of the the health of our own democracy. 

Writer Noelle Allen offers some examples and insights into this scourge.

There’s a tweet making the rounds right now about how if the Governor General receives 958,000 emails saying that the sender is casting a non-confidence vote against Justin Trudeau, she will remove him from office. Of course, it has been quickly debunked. 

 There appeared to have been an absurd belief at the occupation of Ottawa that police could not arrest you if you were singing “O Canada” and a much more dangerous belief that they could not arrest you if children were present. There has also been a lot of discussion about the participants’ First Amendment Rights at the various blockades. In the U.S., this is the protection of freedom of speech, the press and assembly. In Canada it doesn’t exist...

The sentiments behind these absurd contentions are worrying in that they betray a contempt for democracy:

It’s telling that the Ottawa anti-vax group started off stating in their “memorandum of understanding” posted on the Canada Unity website that they expected to “form a committee with the Senate and the Governor General to override all levels of Canadian government.” They wanted to wipe the slate clean of all elected politicians and install their own governing junta. The federal election we had less than six months ago simply wasn’t good enough for them, though instead of trying to pretend the election was stolen as Trump did in the U.S., they went straight to trying to overthrow the government.

Allen laments the fact that discussion and compromise are not in the makeup of these miscreants: 

The hard-right fringe keeps coming up against the uncomfortable truth that there are other people in the country and they get to vote, too. But instead of leaving their bubbles, asking what they need to do to meet the rest of Canada in the middle and doing the hard work of democracy, they’ve turned to looking for ways to make our elected officials vanish. They’re like peevish customers who don’t agree with the approach of the front counter staff and are constantly trying to find a way to get what they want by demanding to speak to the manager, only in this case, they seem to believe the manager is the Governor General of Canada. 

Rather than mock or ignore these people, Allen sees them as dangerous:

... the willingness to press for what they want at any cost, to call our elected politicians traitors and threaten them with violence, to hold a city hostage, to simply expect to override the entire system of democracy to get what they want, makes this group dangerous. That way leads to a dictatorship. We need to prosecute those who participated in the illegal blockades fully and make it clear the cost of trying to break our democracy is high. Too high for them to try this again.

And on that last note, allow me to express my satisfaction that, like Tamara Lich, Pat King has been denied bail, the JP ruling against it due to the seriousness of the charges that will likely entail imprisonment. 

It would seem that Noelle Allen's hopes are being realized.

For further discussion on this topic, please click here.

 

What Is A Conscientious Voter To Do?

I think we all realize that democracy in many parts of the world, including our own, is in a state of malaise. The threats we face are not simply the obvious ones like cyberattacks, shadowy sources of funding for insidious trucker convoys and rampant disinformation.

Many of our problems are from within, with leaders who stand for little but a deep avidity for winning elections. That certainly seems to be the case in Ontario today.

There is the current premier, Doug Ford, in full campaign mode as he promises to surrender over $1 billion in rebates for licence sticker renewal fees going back to 2020; henceforth, there will no longer be fees, making the billion-dollar revenue loss permanent.. As well, the ending of two toll roads will leave an additional deep gap in provincial coffers, because, according to Doug, it's our money, not the government's.

Ford is counting on people selling their votes to him on the basis of slim individual savings at a future cost of slashed programs that all Ontario has access to. And in that, he may not be wrong, as he is not the only cheerleader for this 'relief.'

Predictably, but odiously, Ontario NDP has jumped on the bandwagon, something leader Andrea Horwath seems to have a particular knack for. (One may recall that in a previous election foray, all she could talk about was helping small businesses, with nary a word about working folk.)

Marin Regg Cohn writes:

If political leftists can’t beat the right-wing premier at his own game, they might as well join him in cutting government revenues. Which is why the loudest victory lap, after Ford’s Tories rescinded tolls in Durham, came from NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

 “Today is a victory,” Horwath exulted after Ford’s announcement, congratulating her Oshawa MPP Jennifer French — a New Democrat facing a tough re-election battle against the Tories — and the local activists she teamed up with to “free the 412 and 418” highways. Never mind that Bob Rae’s NDP government pioneered toll roads with Highway 407 in the 1990s, today’s New Democrats are firmly opposed.

Next, Horwath announced she was going along with Ford’s campaign-style announcement Tuesday to remove the annual license plate renewal fee. It wasn’t an NDP priority, she pointed out — small beer, perhaps — yet Horwath pointedly refused to say how she would make up the money to pay for her party’s other priorities.

It seems that whenever Horwath's party, instead of displaying principle and integrity, pursues anything that might get them into office while still insisting they are being steadfast.

“When it comes to the amount of money that’s being refunded, all of those pieces, I’m not particularly opposed to it,” Horwath told reporters.

Yet in the same breath, she restated NDP priorities to spend more on education, housing, health care, long-term care and child care. Where would that money come from?

Apparently, she is making some of the same assumptions about the mental acuity and character of the electorate that Doug Ford is making.

What is a conscientious voter to do? 

 

Truly Vile, Truly Racist

For those who have the delusion the trucker convoy that held Ottawa hostage for three weeks was but a benign display of patriotic fervour, please explain to me how a threatening, racist punk like Pat King became one of its leaders.

Warning: the following is quite vile, but it exposes the ugliness of King very effectively:

P.S.  Fellow Albertan Kerry Komix, who offered to put up 50K at his bail hearing today, is sure that these videos have been altered. Having met the miscreant four weeks ago, she had this to say:

"I do know that's not the person that I know," Komix said of the videos. "I know he loves everyone and does not discriminate, that's the person I know." 

I Rather Enjoyed This

Hope you do too.

H/t Alberta MD War Room

The Mockery They Deserve

While one shouldn't minimize the seriousness of what is going on in Ottawa, Jordan Klepper of The Daily Show metes out some well-deserved mockery of the mooks who have kidnapped our nation's capital.

Enjoy!

Such A Quandary

With such a fluid situation in Ottawa, what are opportunistic demagogues to do?

H/t Theo Moudakis

Breaking News!

 

Given the failure of police to stare down the hijackers in Windsor, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair says we are going to have to learn "to live with blockades."

Drs.Theresa Tam and Kieran Moore concur.

- more to come.

Threats From Within and Without

                                  

 

There seems to be a growing acknowledgement that the trucker siege of Ottawa and various border crossings is not simply a home-grown movement to end Covid-19 mandates. Increasingly, it looks like both an international and a domestic effort to destabilize democracy and sow distrust of our political structures.

Judging by the impotent response of various levels of government, it seems the latter is being accomplished, although a few minutes ago Ontario Premier Doug Ford declared a state of emergency. What action that translates into is yet to be seen.

A number of journalistic investigations are currently ongoing, one of which Owen writes about today in his blog, citing David Climenhaga's piece in The Tyee about American influence and funding of these illegal actions. Both are well-worth your time.

While the interference of external actors is significant, there is, unfortunately, formidable domestic facilitation of what has essentially become an insurrection. Judy Trinh notes the involvement of former military and RCMP personnel:

The group Police on Guard, formed during the pandemic, has endorsed the truck convoy.

The organization says it has "boots on the ground" in Ottawa and has linked to YouTube videos of its members participating in the protest.

Furthermore, the leadership team for the protesters calling themselves the Freedom Convoy includes:  

• Daniel Bulford, a former RCMP officer who was on the prime minister's security detail. He quit last year after refusing to get the vaccine and is the convoy's head of security.

• Tom Quiggin, a former military intelligence officer who also worked with the RCMP and was considered one of the country's top counter-terrorism experts.

• Tom Marazzo, an ex-military officer who, according to his LinkedIn profile, served in the Canadian Forces for 25 years and now works as a freelance software developer. 

While all three have interesting backgrounds, Quiggin's is especially noteworthy.

During his tenure at the RCMP, Quiggin was a member of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), which was created to thwart terror threats following 9/11. At INSET, Quiggin worked alongside top officials at CSIS, Canada's spy agency, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and municipal police forces.

 Bulford, the former RCMP officer, seems to have a cozy relationship with the authorities:

"[Police] all know that this group is here for everybody, and I make a point of saying to other police officers, when I see them, it's like, 'Just so you know, in my mind and in my heart, we're doing this for all of you as well,'" said Bulford.

 A Twitter video posted by Trinh this morning speaks volumes. Be sure to watch the entire, incredible clip:

This spirit of fraternity is in addition to the skills that have been brought to the siege.

Michael Kempa, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, says the convoy's policing and military expertise can be seen in the co-ordination of their activities in downtown Ottawa.

"They have this sort of military or police or at least survivalist training. Look at the sophistication of what they're setting up in terms of an encampment in downtown Ottawa," said Kempa, who studies policing across Canada.

"It looks like a military operation."

As examples, Kempa pointed to the tents and wooden structures used for kitchens that organizers have set up and the supply chain that has sprung up across the city to keep people fed, working and protesting. 

All in all, a very well-orchestrated and well-coordinated operation that did not emerge at random. If we are to retain faith in our government structures, something the insurrectionists are trying very hard to erode, it is now time to act with resolve and dispatch to end the hostage-taking of Ottawa and at our various border crossings. 

 

 

 

Change-Of-Pace Day

Since this is Hump Day, I felt a change of pace from the usual posts was in order.

Many will recall that Prince Harry and Meagan moved to the United States to get away from the relentless (so they said) British paparazzi. They also 'stepped back' from their royal duties, which means that they no longer have an assured income source. 

So what are hapless erstwhile royals to do for coin? Well, one of the sources seems to be Harry's motivational 'skills' as evidenced by his employment with Better Up, of which he is 'Chief Impact Officer'. (I merely report these things; I can't explain them.) Apparently, it is an organization that provides a coaching experience aligned to your business strategy. It also provides this 'opportunity' to individuals as well, all for about $500 U.S. per month.

Watching the video that follows reminded me of all the platitudinous garbage I was exposed to over the years on professional development days, not one of which ever made me a better teacher or human being. And yet there always seems to be an audience for the next big thing in personal and professional growth.

All I can say is that Harry picked the right country to reside in. Americans always seem to be on a quest for 'betterment', although judging by the results, they have a long way to go.

Please start the following at the eight-minute mark:

Sound And Fury

As the trucker convoy carries on, the first stanza of Yeats' The Second Coming seems more pertinent than ever:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The last two lines are particularly relevant as one considers the seeming impotence of the police and listens to trucker Jim as he pontificates into the ether.

H/t Renny Ronson

And who said the arts are irrelevant in today's world?

c

In The Fullness Of Hypocrisy

 

Those who read this blog with any regularity will know that I am a strong advocate of newspaper readership. Despite their flaws, mainstream media have something to offer that simply gleaning news from the internet lacks: reports and perspectives on a wide array of issues. Unlike the echo chamber that the pick-and-choose Web has become, they provide something sorely lacking in many people's perspectives: wide context with which to evaluate the world, and our place in it. Local, national and international reports and views have the potential to take us out of our limited bubble, rather than reinforce it as happens with those who attend the university of the internet.

With that is mind, I am taking the unusual step of reproducing a large portion of a column today, written by Althia Raj, as she addresses some of the fundamental and farcical hypocrisy evident in the Conservative Party of Canada and. to a lesser extent as asserted by Raj (although I don't really agree with her on this point), by Justin Trudeau that has emerged in the truckers' kidnapping of Ottawa:

Shockingly, the demonstrators have received the nearly incomprehensible blessing of Conservative MPs. Writing in the Toronto Sun Friday, Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge) said it an “honour and a joy” to walk among the protesters; she expressed pride that the trucking convoy was sparking mimics in other countries, and called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to dialogue with the protesters — whose organizers have called for the overthrow of his democratically elected government.

Last week, interim leader Candice Bergen (Portage-Lisgar), who has cheered the convoy since the beginning, saying their demands for freedom and respect were not too much to ask, also called on Trudeau to extend an olive branch to the protesters. Carleton MP and declared Conservative leadership contestant Pierre Poilievre also made a point of posing for pictures with the protesters, as have Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand-Norfolk) and several Saskatchewan MPs.

The Tory caucus is not united. But for every Pierre Paul-Hus, a Quebec MP and former lieutenant-colonel, who called for the streets be cleared and the occupation “controlled by radicals and anarchist groups” stopped, or a Shelby Kramp-Neuman (Hastings—Lennox and Addington), who tweeted that the increasing amount of bad-faith actors were not a legitimate protest, there is a Lianne Rood (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex) or Dean Allison (Niagara West) who “strongly disagree,” and see in Ottawa a peaceful assembly. Social media is full of Conservative MPs, such as Greg McLean (Calgary Centre) who decry “unbalanced media coverage,” choosing to focus on the protest’s “winter carnival” feeling rather than its lawlessness.

Who among us believes that if the truck convoy occupiers were anti-pipeline advocates, bringing a joyful message of hope for a greener and cleaner future while urinating on the streets, and blocking these MPs’ constituents from going about their daily lives or sleeping at night, there wouldn’t be a very different message from the Tory caucus?

Back in 2020, during the Indigenous-led railway blockades, Poilievre seemed to be standing on principle when he said, on CBC News Network: “You have the right to swing your fist, but that freedom stops at the tip of another person’s nose. And right now, these blockaders are taking away the freedom of other people to move their goods and themselves where they want to go, and that is wrong.”

Now, we see the double standard.

Most concerning in all this is the noticeable lack of voices decrying the use of foreign money supporting this occupation — a fact the police chief mentioned Wednesday and was later confirmed by attorneys general in Florida, West Virginia and Louisiana.

In 2012, the Conservatives were hell-bent on stopping the foreign funding of charities. Joe Oliver, then natural resources minister, suggested American interests were funding “radicals” who were preventing Canada’s natural resources projects from going ahead.

As more than $10 million was amassed on the GoFundMe platform, and at least $1 million more collected through other avenues, where is the Conservative outrage about outside funding for the convoy? Whether or not you think some of those protesting are just fed-up Canadians — and many are — there is no denying some also share a desire to destabilize the state.

While Ottawa residents deplore the vacuum of policing, there is also a vacuum of leadership.

Trudeau, by referring to the anti-vax as a “small fringe minority” with “unacceptable views,” likely emboldened a movement and encouraged the vaccine-hesitant to join a community that felt aggrieved and misunderstood by the majority. He should be called upon to explain why he sent ministers to dialogue with pipeline protesters but won’t do the same for those on the Hill. Thus far, the prime minister has said strikingly little about the occupation on his office doorstep.

Similarly, Ontario Premier Doug Ford needs to explain just what he’s ready to do to bring order to Ottawa. Saying the city’s police force just needs to ask for help has proven to be insufficient.

All of this is good to know and good to keep in mind, as long as large numbers of people don't get distracted too much by the next viral internet meme or conspiracy theory. 

The Kidnapping Of The Capital

 

Some call it the freedom convoy. Others call it an occupation. I call it a kidnapping.

What has happened and continues to happen in Ottawa is deeply disturbing. Not only is a minority (no matter how loudly their horns blare, that's what the truckers and their collaborators are) seeking to impose its will on the majority, it is doing so in a way that defies law and essentially kidnaps our nation's capital.

Freedom is the last thing this criminal activity is about.

And it is past time to stop pretending such aberrant behaviour is acceptable in a democracy. Yes, the right to protest is one of our cherished freedoms, but it has gone well beyond that. People are suffering through relentless horn blasts, harassments, and threats to individuals and businesses, not to mention the obstacles they represent to emergency-service vehicles. 

And sadly, the hatred they are generating is spreading, glommed on to by the uneducated and the credulous, i.e. those who graduated from the university of the internet.

Consider this sad display targeting and threatening people inside a public health building in Belleville:

H/t Johnny Fondue

It is extraordinarily demoralizing for health-care workers, especially as they anticipate incursions into Toronto today (Saturday).

How did we get here? That’s what Dr. Naheed Dosani has been asking himself.

It wasn’t so long ago that he and other health care workers were cheered from front porches every evening, celebrated as heroes for their work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, nearly two years in, as a protest against vaccine mandates is scheduled to roll into Toronto, they’re being told by hospital officials it might not be a good idea to wear their scrubs in public for fear they may be targets of abuse.

“How did we get to a place where a health worker has to fear for their safety just while they’re going to work?” asked Dosani, a palliative care physician.

 As the so-called “Freedom Convoy” arrives in Toronto Saturday and, with it, the threat of harassment or assault for health care workers — particularly those working in the cluster of hospitals near Queen’s Park — Dosani and other doctors interviewed by the Star said they are exhausted, frustrated and demoralized by those set to disrupt the city this weekend.

“I know the vast majority of Canadians stand united with health workers, but this small minority is a very vocal minority, and they can be very hateful,” Dosani said. “The hate that is being incited against health workers at this point by this small minority is having an impact on all of our psyches, it’s causing significant distress, and it’s traumatizing us health workers who have already seen so much trauma throughout the pandemic.”

Perhaps the best assessment is offered by an infectious disease specialist with the University Health Network in Toronto, Dr. Abu Sharkawy, who says,

the protest is indicative of a larger societal creep, fed by right-wing populists, that has created a movement of people who feel “emboldened and entitled to abuse, threaten and recklessly exercise whatever prejudice is within their hearts.”

Responding to advice that those working in healthcare should not wear clothing that indicate their profession, Sharkawy, who has been the recipient of death-threats, asks,

“How is it acceptable that we have to hide?” he said. “We’re being told you shouldn’t wear scrubs, you shouldn’t wear anything that can readily identify you as a health care provider? I mean, this is historic in terms of the level of depravity that this movement has reached, that in Canada in 2022 we have to be afraid to be a visible symbol of something that is unconditionally a good thing.”

The country has been turned upside down by a collection of miscreants. It is now time to remedy the situation. 

 

Yet Another Perspective

 

H/t Caryma Sa'd

My friend Steve sent me the following, his thoughts on the trucker protest, a protest he, like countless others, is fed up with. With his permission, I am posting it here:

1. 90% of Canadian truck drivers are vaccinated. Most vaccination mandates are decided provincially or locally. Even if the federal government were to drop the vaccine mandate for truckers, Canadian truckers entering the States are still required to be vaccinated.

2. The convoy was NOT sanctioned or organized by the Canadian Truckers Association. 

3. Two of the three principal organizers have never been truckers and have stated publicly they want to “overthrow” the Canadian government, and that doesn’t mean an election.

4. Most of the truckers I see on television are middle aged white guys. Many of the truckers I see on the road are south Asian.

5. The group has attracted the racist, lunatic fringe, and the antivaxxers from across the country who make up perhaps 5% of the population.

6. The convoy organizers have lost control of the group when their participants desecrate the War Memorial or Terry Fox statue and when front and centre on Wellington St., the truck reads “Fuck Trudeau”. Back in the day, we had 40,000 teachers protesting in TO and Hamilton abs had nothing like that.

8. Heightened security is costing Ottawa $800,000 per day.

9. Over and over, I hear the truckers involved spout the same lines, “My rights”. “My freedom”. Well. Take a look at China. They’ve closed down cities of 13 mil when they have a few dozen cases! No one goes to work. Basic groceries are delivered to your door. Maybe these truckers should experience that type of freedom?

I’m not getting burnt out on vaccines, mandates or mask wearing, I’m getting fed up with the antivaxxers.

A Real Trucker's Perspective

 It would seem that real truckers do their jobs, unlike the poseurs still in Ottawa.