Canadian Politics Mega-thread - Page 88

On February 16 2022 01:17 JimmiC wrote:
if Federally the conservatives are more a fringe right party, liberals are the center right and NDP become the center left. It really depends who the conservatives pick to be their new leader but I do not see anyone bringing the group that was there base under Harper together.

On February 16 2022 02:07 JimmiC wrote:
Im not a fan of either, but I do wish more politicans would make the "right" albeit unpopular call like Mulroney did and then Chretien keeping it. There are many other things im not a fan of of those specific politicians.

This is why you should support the government lostening to the public health officials and other experts instead of the cry babies who are blaming the measures instead of covid and because of this making it worse for everyone.

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Ottawa police trying to break the nearly three-week siege of the capital by truckers protesting Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions began handing out leaflets Wednesday warning drivers to leave immediately or risk arrest.

Authorities in yellow “police liaison” vests went from rig to rig, knocking on the doors of the trucks parked outside Parliament, to serve notice to the truckers that they could also lose their licenses and see their vehicles seized under Canada’s Emergencies Act.

Police also began ticketing vehicles.

Some truckers ripped up the order, and one protester shouted, “I will never go home!” At least one trucker pulled away from Parliament Hill.

There was no immediate word from police on when or if they might move in to clear the trucks by force. But protest leaders braced for action on Wednesday.

Marie Eye, 43, of Victoriaville, Quebec, who has been making soup for the protesters, said she doubted police would be able to remove the rigs or the protesters.

“Well, so far they are just a piece of paper,” she said of the printed warnings. “We will see what happens. I don’t think they have the manpower to do it.”

"Since the onset of this demonstration, I have done everything possible to keep this city safe and put an end to this unprecedented and unforeseeable crisis," he said. "We have acquired new resources and enforcement tools, and stood up the new Integrated Command Centre.

Just days into the protest, Sloly suggested that his force was not equipped to deal with it.
"The longer this goes on, the more I am convinced there may not be a police solution to this demonstration," he said.

Police and provincial sources have told CBC News that the Ottawa Police Service's failure to provide the OPP and the RCMP with a firm operational plan for the 1,800 officers it has asked for has delayed the arrival of those extra officers.

Sources within and outside the OPS say they are concerned the force's leadership is burned out and has reached a breaking point.

"Right now the Ottawa Police Service is paralyzed," one source told CBC News. "They are paralyzed at the front line. They've been waiting for directions from the senior leadership team and are frustrated with how they're being viewed by the public because of the spectacular failure of their leader."

On February 17 2022 08:56 ZeromuS wrote:
Doug Ford refused meetings with the feds for a week. The Ottawa Centre MP was asking ford to meet and he wouldn't. Ford didn't attend any extra meetings or requests for meetings for the entire week before his Friday emergency announcement.

On February 17 2022 08:56 ZeromuS wrote:
With sloly out seems like stuff is starting to happen at least.

On February 17 2022 08:56 ZeromuS wrote:
Our city is a joke, it's a meme now. Ford has done next to nothing here to boot. Our police chief was somehow unable to see this coming. But we're going to blame the federal government and PM for what? Not calling in the military day 1 and trampling our constitutional conventions? Really?

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Hundreds of truckers clogging the streets of Canada’s capital stood their ground and defiantly blasted their horns Thursday as police poured in, threatening to break up the nearly three-week protest against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Busloads of police arrived near Ottawa’s Parliament Hill, and workers put up extra fences around government buildings. Police also essentially began sealing off much of the downtown area to outsiders to prevent them from coming to the aid of the protesters.

“The action is imminent,” said interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell. “We absolutely are committed to end this unlawful demonstration.”

Police continued negotiating with the protesters and trying to to persuade them to go home, Bell said. “We want this demonstration to end peacefully,” he said, but added: “If they do not peacefully leave, we have plans.”

Many of the truckers in the self-styled Freedom Convoy appeared unmoved by days of warnings from police and the government that they were risking arrest and could see their rigs seized and bank accounts frozen.

“I’m prepared to sit on my ass and watch them hit me with pepper spray,” said one of their leaders, Pat King. As for the trucks parked bumper-to-bumper, he said: “There’s no tow trucks in Canada that will touch them.”

Ottawa represented the movement’s last stronghold after weeks of demonstrations and blockades that shut down border crossings into the U.S., inflicted economic damage on both countries and created a political crisis for Trudeau.

The protests have shaken Canada’s reputation for civility and rule-following and inspired similar convoys in France, New Zealand and the Netherlands.

“It’s high time that these illegal and dangerous activities stop,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared in Parliament, not far from where the more than 300 trucks were parked.

“They are a threat to our economy and our relationship with trading partners,” he said. “They are a threat to public safety.”

Ottawa police began locking down a wide swath of the downtown area, allowing in only those who live or work there after they pass through one of more than 100 checkpoints, the interim chief said.

Police were especially worried about the children among the protesters. Bell said police were working with child-welfare agencies to determine how to safely remove the youngsters before authorities move in.

Early this week, the prime minister invoked Canada’s Emergencies Act, empowering law enforcement authorities to declare the blockades illegal, tow away trucks, arrest the drivers, suspend their licenses and take other measures.

On Thursday, Trudeau and some of his top ministers took turns warning the protesters to leave, in an apparent move by the government to avert a clash, or at least show it had gone the extra mile to avoid one.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government began freezing truckers’ accounts as threatened. “It is happening. I do have the numbers in front of me,” she said.

Ottawa police likewise handed out leaflets for the second straight day demanding the truckers end the siege, and also helpfully placed notices on vehicles informing owners how and where to pick up their trucks if they are towed.

The occupation has infuriated many Ottawa residents.

“We’ve seen people intimidated, harassed and threatened. We’ve seen apartment buildings that have been chained up. We have seen fires set in the corridors. Residents are terrorized,” said Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino.

The protests by demonstrators in trucks, tractors and motor homes initially focused on Canada’s vaccine requirement for truckers entering the country but soon morphed into a broader attack on COVID-19 precautions and Trudeau’s government.

The biggest, most damaging of the blockades at the border took place at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit. Before authorities arrested dozens of protesters last weekend and lifted the siege, it disrupted the flow of auto parts between the two countries and forced the industry to curtail production.

The final blockade, in Manitoba, ended peacefully on Wednesday.

The movement has drawn support from right-wing extremists and veterans, some of them armed — one reason authorities have hesitated to move against them.

Fox News personalities and U.S. conservatives such as Donald Trump have egged on the protests. Trudeau complained on Thursday that “roughly half of the funding to the barricaders here is coming from the United States.”

Some security experts said that dispersing the protest in Ottawa could be tricky and dangerous, with the potential for violence, and that a heavy-handed law enforcement response could be used as propaganda by anti-government extremists.

Trucks were parked shoulder-to-shoulder downtown, some with tires removed to hamper towing.

“There is not really a playbook,” said David Carter, a professor at Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice and a former police officer. “I know there are police chiefs in the U.S. looking at this and developing strategic plans and partnerships to manage a protest like this if it should occur in their cities.”

The presence of children also complicated the planning. As a showdown seemed to draw near, Canadian Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said: “To those who have children with them, this is no place for children. Take them home immediately.”

A class action lawsuit against the “Freedom Convoy” in downtown Ottawa has added 31 new named defendants and ballooned to a $306-million claim for the disruption to lives and livelihoods from the now three-week old occupation.

The claim has also expanded to include anyone who donated to the convoy after Feb. 4, the day the organizers’ initial GoFundMe campaign was cancelled when the fundraising platform said it had evidence “that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity.”

Two prominent downtown restaurant owners and a ByWard market server who’s been out of work since the demonstration began have also added their names as plaintiffs, alongside 21-year-old Zexi Li. Henry Assad, owner of the Happy Goat, and Ivan Gedz of Union Local 613, joined the lawsuit along with server Geoffrey Devaney.

The amended lawsuit was announced at a Thursday morning media conference by Ottawa lawyer Paul Champ, who on Wednesday successfully extended an injunction to silence demonstrators’ truck horns for another 60 days.

Champ said private investigators had been gathering information about the trucks at the demonstration, logging licence plates and tracing owners through provincial registries.

“It’s time to stop,” Champ said. “All the individual truckers who are still in downtown Ottawa, still causing mayhem, still causing chaos, still causing disruption to the residents and businesses of downtown Ottawa, it’s time to go home. And when you get home, I strongly recommend you get independent legal advice. Don’t listen anymore to the organizers. You’ve been led down a path that, unfortunately, is going to cause you some serious financial consequences.”

The lawsuit also names donors who gave money through GiveSendGo, the alternate fundraising platform organizers turned to when GoFundMe shut them down.

“Anyone who has materially contributed financially to the continuing occupation of downtown Ottawa knew what they were doing. Particularly the people who contributed to GiveSendGo who by that time knew the unlawful behaviour of the convoy participants,” he said.

“Those people knew that the air horns and rail horns were tormenting the people and businesses of downtown Ottawa and causing harm. And they wanted that to continue.”

Assad said he had to temporarily close three of his Happy Goat locations and many of his employees have been harassed and threatened.

“We need to take back our city,” Assad said. “Our city is being held hostage.”

As a restaurant owner, Assad says he’s in favour of easing the COVID-19 restrictions in place.

“But the methods and the organization behind the protest is very dangerous.”

Gedz said his business is down 25-50 per cent since the occupation began because people don’t want to come downtown.

“I’ve spent a lot of time walking around these protests … and on any given day it seems like something out of Mad Max movie. I don’t think people who haven’t been downtown realize just how bad it is.”

Both Assad and Gedz said they are aware of the extreme online backlash they could endure by coming forward. They’ve warned staff to distance themselves from the businesses on social media.

“If us as an organization can put ourselves forward and perhaps shield some of the hostility, we’re happy to do that,” Gedz said.

The statement of claim also expands the area covered by the class action from Bronson Avenue in the west, Somerset Street in the south and into the ByWard Market. It now includes up to 12,000 residents and hundreds of businesses, including the Rideau Centre which has reported it’s losing $3 million a day.

Among those named as defendants are convoy organizers Chris Barber, Benjamin Dichter, Tamara Lich, Patrick King, James Bauder, Tom Marazzo and its purported security advisor, ex-Mountie Chris Bulford.

Champ urged the named defendants to find lawyers and contact his firm.

“Reach out to me. We’re prepared to offer early settlement,” he said. “If you don’t, make no mistake. This is not going to be over when the trucks finally leave and the last truck horn blasts across downtown Ottawa.”