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The latest is insane.
Using powers granted under the Emergencies Act, the federal government has directed banks and other financial institutions to stop doing business with people associated with the anti-vaccine mandate convoy occupying the nation's capital.
According to the regulations published late Tuesday, financial institutions are required to monitor and halt all transactions that funnel money to demonstrators — a measure designed to cut off funding to a well-financed protest that has taken over large swaths of Ottawa's downtown core.
"Financial institutions" aren't just banks.
The government is also ordering insurance companies to suspend policies on vehicles that are part of an unlawful "public assembly."
These financial institutions can't handle cash, issue a loan, extend a mortgage or more generally facilitate "any transaction" of a "designated person" while the Emergencies Act is in place.
The regulations define a "designated person" who can be cut off from financial services as someone who is "directly or indirectly" participating in a "public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace," or a person engaging in "serious interference with trade" or "critical infrastructure."
So basically, the Canadian government chickened out and mandated instead that the banks and insurance companies to do everything. Then rat out their customers to the government once they're done.
Banks also are required to "disclose without delay" the "existence of property in their possession or control" or "any information about a transaction or proposed transaction" related to a "designated person" to both the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
"Those authorities are now in force and they're being used," said Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. "It's incredibly important that we follow the money."
It's not "incredibly important" for anyone interested in rule of law, due process, or proportionality of punishment. And the final part:
The Emergencies Act and its associated regulations are in effect for only 30 days; that period could be shorter if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet revoke it or if Parliament scuttles it after a vote. But a senior government official said there could be long-term implications.
"For the most part, financial institutions can decide who they do business with and they may decide to cease offering financial services," the official said.
Mark Blumberg is a lawyer at Blumberg Segal LLP who specializes in non-profit and charity law. In an interview, he said that while the Emergencies Act gives banks time-limited powers, these institutions "may just decide to shut the person's account down" because there could be "huge risks" for banks servicing these customers in the future.
So rather than deal with the protest in a sensible manner (they're breaking the law, right?), the Canadian government has put forward this ridiculous "emergency" and deputized a bunch of businesses to go crazy with legal immunity (but only if they toe the government line). In the meantime, the protesters can lose their insurance and freeze finances. So what's going to happen to protesters of any sort in the future, if banks and insurance companies see them as liabilities due to this emergency?
Now imagine if Trump and US financial institutions had this kind of power over BLM protesters. Wouldn't be a problem, right?
Hopefully, this will get reversed in the Canadian courts, because otherwise it's a huge move towards tyranny, particularly of the fascist sort.
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @03:55AM
To put it bluntly, you don't know what you're talking about, and - lucky you - I may have some time to do part of your homework for you.
The protesters are extremely well organized and well funded fascists.It's clear they had massive external funding before gofundme and givesendgo got involved.
It's never been about the vaccine mandates. Any Canadian trucker going to the USA has to be vaccinated to enter, Making it reciprocal for those coming back is a nothingburger.
The "protests" are a deliberate shitshow was organized by a loose coalition of christian dominionists (Taliban, but with a bilbe instead of a koran) and white supremacist ethnonationalists, more commonly known as Nazis. Personally, I smell Steve Bannon ("Flood the field with shit")and the IDU at play. Members of the Candadian Nationalist Party (socialism! but only if you're the Right Kind of canadian) were waving a giant godddamn literal Third Reich swastika flag around on Canada's Parliament Hill. One cell of the terrorist group Diagolon(extremely violent accelerationist white supremacists), was found in one of the border blocakdes with a list of people to kill, and a plan for killing police officers who interfered with the blockades. The RCMP are, on average, highly trained and competent, so they were arrested without a single shot being fired. Yet people bitch because it took them a week to do it. In my town, I've had protesters trying to jump in front of my vehicle, and many are using mirrors to dazzle drivers without the approved stickers.
The federal government's response has hardly been fascist. It's been exceptionally restrained; most people living near Parilament would happily witness the occupiers' deaths because...
One thing missing from much of the reporting is just how god damn disruptive it is to your life to have air horns going off 24/7 for weeks. It's a well defined torture technique. the occupiers have been harrassing and assaulting locals who dare to walk alone in public with masks, or with not-white-skin. Special attention gets paid to anyone working in medical services, and extra-special attention to reporters. And when the residents of one buiilding tried to convince them to stop shooting off fireworks all night, they stopped long enough to form a crew to load the lobby with firestarters, light them, and then block and chain shut the exits The security video is... disturbing to watch. The convoy organizers are trying very hard to provoke a military response, to fuel the narrative of a tyrannical regime. But doing nothing means you're weak! No matter what action is taken, they get to dunk on the leadership. Canada's Prime Minister is smart enough to not fall for it.
As for the perhaps inflammatory post subject, Nazi's primary tactic and goal is getting rid of everyone who isn't them. If you're not a Nazi, it's usually the first clear message you get from a Nazi.