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My crazy Q-Anon brother (lives in Illinois) says he's been watching live-streams 24/7 since this started.
He says it's peaceful and no defecating in the street and that they 'protesters' are keeping the sidewalks free of ice and it's basically just like a big family reunion
Then he said that the government is going to cause a "Tiananmen Square" situation.
Do any of you Canadians know what he's talking about? He's really freaking out (more than usual)
That is a ridiculous comparison, which I know the poster did not make. Being unvaccinated is an irrational choice. Being Jewish is quite a rational choice.
The Nazis had more than just Jews in the camps of course. Pacifists, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and more. It is not an illegitimate comparison simply because you side with the vaccines.
I suppose it depends how you define the problem of western Canada. It will take a constitutional earthquake to allow any notion of separation to really threaten the federal government
I don't really see how the western provinces voting on secession is any different than Quebec considering it.
The convoy has released a statement that “multiple believed reliable sources” have informed them of the presence of firearms in Ottawa:
“This private intelligence correlates with the approximately 2,000 firearms stolen in Peterborough, Ontario on Sunday morning.”
(See Tweet for video of Daniel Belford reading the statement)
Luke LeBrun
Quote:
The speaker is Daniel Bulford, a former RCMP officer and one of the main convoy organizers.
They are clearly trying to get out ahead of this by framing it to suggest the weapons were “planted” to “discredit” them. Extremely concerning, regardless.
I think they were planning a coup. Pat King was far too smug about his "war room," and I remember wondering whether his repeated references to it were a form of bragging, with him unable to keep his mouth shut. Army guys were involved, for pete's sake! What a coincidence! I wonder if this is information that came to the feds and made them feel confident in invoking the Emergencies Act.
I think they were planning a coup. Pat King was far too smug about his "war room," and I remember wondering whether his repeated references to it were a form of bragging, with him unable to keep his mouth shut. Army guys were involved, for pete's sake! What a coincidence! I wonder if this is information that came to the feds and made them feel confident in invoking the Emergencies Act.
A coup was the whole idea. With the convoy organizers replacing the legitimate government, of course.
One of my correspondents, this one in Ottawa, sent me the following recently:
It's from Vice, which has been surprisingly accurate before, especially in investigative journalism, and the item is dated January 28, but it is as relevant now as it was then. Basically, this "topple the government" movement has roots going as far back as 2019, and has percolated among a small group of organizers since then. Then Covid came along in March, 2020, and provinces and the federal government introduced restrictions; and in December, 2021, Trudeau announced the cross-border trucker vaccine mandate to take effect in January. The organizers saw their chance. Using the vaccine mandate to roil up the truckers was just an excuse to put their plan to topple the government in motion. The item is rather long, but well worth the read. A couple of excerpts:
Quote:
But there are mounting concerns the convoy could turn ugly. The stated objectives of the founders and organizers of the movement go well beyond vaccine mandates for truckers: The convoy, dubbed “Operation BearHug,” is seeking to abolish all measures in place to fight COVID-19 and removing Justin Trudeau’s government from power. If they don’t get their way, they intend to blockade Ottawa until their demands are met. This has been the plan from the very beginning.
Quote:
All of this is just the organizers. Those actually in the convoy, and cheering on from home, have trumpeted their intent to remove Trudeau from power. On Facebook and the secure messaging platform Telegram, supporters of the convoy have generally been careful to avoid espousing anything controversial—but things have slipped through. The call-signs of QAnon have popped up occasionally, and others have talked openly about their expectation that the government be toppled when they arrive. One meme, which has been shared widely, shows a truck gaining ground on the prime minister, calling their operation a “roadkill rally.”
It's from Vice, which has been surprisingly accurate before, especially in investigative journalism, and the item is dated January 28, but it is as relevant now as it was then. Basically, this "topple the government" movement has roots going as far back as 2019, and has percolated among a small group of organizers since then. Then Covid came along in March, 2020, and provinces and the federal government introduced restrictions; and in December, 2021, Trudeau announced the cross-border trucker vaccine mandate to take effect in January. The organizers saw their chance. Using the vaccine mandate to roil up the truckers was just an excuse to put their plan to topple the government in motion. The item is rather long, but well worth the read. A couple of excerpts:
Ah crap. I had hoped I was wrong. So do you think that this information is what triggered the Emergencies Act?
I think that it's one of the things. Others would include the cache of weapons found at Coutts, the truck full of guns that went missing near Peterborough and now heading for who-knows-where, the constant honking and other noise in Ottawa, the desecration of the War Memorial and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the border blockades at Windsor, Coutts, Surrey, Sarnia, and Emerson. Plus unsuccessful attempts to use truck convoys to shut down Quebec City, downtown Toronto, and other cities.
These, coupled with the absolute ineptness of the Ottawa police, helped. The mayor of Quebec City basically told protesters there, "Okay, you can have your weekend protest, but come Monday, we start towing." Toronto sealed off Queen's Park so well, that the only way to get through the area was on the subway, so trucks had pretty much nowhere to go. But the Ottawa police let things happen, until things got beyond their control.
Justin Trudeau himself is another reason. I certainly don't fault him for failing to meet and to enter into negotiations with the organizers (never mind that there was nothing that was negotiable, and they'd likely kill him if it was an in-person meeting), but his repeated entreaties to "Pack up and go home" over two weeks, were falling on deaf ears, and he failed to see that. His remarks about "They hold unacceptable views" bothered many, even those who did not support the truckers and the blockades--what, suddenly the Canadian government decides what is an acceptable view and what is not? It was obvious that he didn't want to be the second Trudeau who invoked the War Measures Act/Emergencies Act for only the second time in Canada's history. Which--and I'm only guessing here--is why he dithered for so long.
His own tipping point may have come when one of his own Liberal MPs turned on him last week, in a very public press conference. That, plus Doug Ford pleading for help, the Windsor mayor pleading for help, Ontario bleeding jobs because of the Ambassador Bridge shutdown, pressure from American authorities in Washington and Michigan to get that border open because Americans were being laid off too, the Ottawa police chief pleading for help, and the mayor of Coutts (population 250) pleading for help on national television (likely the only time that tiny Coutts ever merits a mention on the national news). Meanwhile, police in Paris were not putting up with any BS from truckers who tried to protest there; and even typically quiet and inoffensive New Zealand saw a lot of arrests, many quite rough, at a protest in support of Canadian truckers in Wellington; and Trudeau's hand was forced. Everybody holding hands and singing "Kum Ba Yah" was no longer an option.
It was a perfect storm of things that he, and only he, could address with any authority. He had to do something, and no matter how distasteful it was to him personally, I'm sure that Cabinet and other advisors told him that it had to be done. He simply couldn't say "Pack up and go home" any more, if he was to be taken seriously from here on.
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