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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: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Friday February 18 2022, @04:17AM (17 children)
I half agree but in an odd way i guess:
Trudeau fecked up big time and doesn't have the cojones (??) to do things correctly and is trying to correct his hindsight 20/20.... or something.
They saw the convoys coming and did nothing, even though they could have just blocked off access to the Parliament buildings, say, a km or 2 away. Force the protesters to walk to the protest if they want to.
They fecked up letting the protesters set up hot tubs and conveniences: should have made it not so nice for them. Finally, they did this.
They also should have stopped the constant honking right away, and i don't mean the cops, i mean the protesters: the truckers fecked up big time by pissing everyone off. There was violence against their 'neighbours', the constant honking kept people awake and pissed them off......
....protesters should really try to get the people behind them, not against them.
And Trudeau fecked up big time in this way: If natives peacefully protest ON THEIR OWN LAND protesting pipelines going through illegally, the RCMP are called in and they are hauled off as fast as possible.
These protesters are pissing everyone off and Trudeau did nothing for a long time and is now trying to 'recover'.
Why no one 'up there' considered blocking the protesters from reaching their destination is beyond me.
Peaceful protests are fine, but the truckers don't get it. They have pissed off anyone in the area that might have supported them if they had peacefully protested: instead, they (and by them i mean enough idiots to make a significant difference: they're not all idiots) honked day and night and took to violence with their 'neighbours'. Just not smart. Smart protesters don't piss off those who could support them.
Aside, if they HAD peacefully protested and 'occupied', they might have gotten free food, gas and support from their 'neighbours'. Instead, the whacko fringe of the group took over and now it's all turned stupid.
Stupidity on the part of the protesters for letting the whackos take over and stupidity on the part of those who call themselves our leaders.
All this nonsense is, i think, Trudeau's way of saying "If you plan on being protest assholes, think again in the future because we'll penalize you til the dick is deep down your throat".
In the future, i'd like to see the truckers police themselves and eliminate the idiots right from the start.
Peaceful protest.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 18 2022, @04:25AM
Sounds like you need a prime minister with a more competent "way of saying".
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Friday February 18 2022, @07:09AM (14 children)
Are you anywhere near where this is happening? Honest question because communications from the protest organisers, if I am remembering correctly, are saying that that are not honking at night, and the impression is that they are mostly getting on well with the local residents. Curious to know the truth.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @07:20AM (2 children)
Of course they are going to say that. The organizers are smart enough to know they need the people on their side to stand any chance. Check any social media site or news site, on the other hand, to see first-hand reports of the truckers themselves honking at night, acting like idiots, being stupidly racist, and generally carrying on. Now that doesn't mean that they are all doing it, but a group gets judged by its most visible and memorable members especially when they don't self-regulate.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Friday February 18 2022, @12:48PM
SN is about as social as my media gets. I can well believe that some of them would be being idiots and causing trouble, but less sure that is how the whole thing should be characterised. I do watch YouTube vids sometimes though and linkies are always welcome.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday February 18 2022, @12:56PM
The problem is that Trudeau is using this as an means not only to dodge doing his job, but to create a huge extension of government power, using those financial institutions as proxies. The "but they're well funded"/"but they honk" excuses are a waste of time. They don't and can't justify these emergency measures in the least.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Gaaark on Friday February 18 2022, @10:51AM (9 children)
No, i'm not near: all i've got is the news, but i've seen the videos and heard the news (and the CBC is 'fairly good' at reporting the truth).
The honking has stopped because of a court order (so i heard) after locals took the truckers "freedom of speech" honking to court. The judge said that honking was not freedom of speech, just an annoyance.
There were also incidents of the truckers harassing hospital staff and violence against food-kitchen staff.
But no, not local, but i'll take the news from the CBC over the protest organizers... i have sympathy for the locals who couldn't sleep at night because of the noise: i have enough of that from my own son. If i'd had them on top of him.....sheeeeeit, i'd be fecked royally!!!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Friday February 18 2022, @01:07PM (5 children)
Thank you for the well reasoned response. I had a look at the CBC website and read some of the front page stories so I feel a little more informed about the situation now. I didn't find anything about the honking court case though - that would have been interesting.
I tend to be a little wary of the media, particular in the last few years some outlets really seem to have gone to crazy town. And I do have a some sympathy for the truckers (at least in terms of how they portray themselves, not so much the media version of them) as the COVID response in my own country is a little over the top, but most of the population seems to be fine with it. I worry about the precedence being set by some really authoritarian measures when the public health benefit is minimal (e.g.severely restricting the freedoms of the unvaxed for a couple of percentage points in vaccination coverage). Sometimes it feels like I'm living in the end-game of some global conspiracy theory :)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @06:12PM (1 child)
A bit old now, but see https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/injunction-ottawa-granted-1.6342468 [www.cbc.ca]
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday February 19 2022, @07:26AM
Thanks for that. The article did not say they had been honking at night though - it was only suggested by the picture they used.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 19 2022, @12:02AM (2 children)
For a simple backgrounder, try this group [antihate.ca] which has been reporting on Canadian hate groups since forever.
Think about this. When the convoy planning first came to light, an organization dedicated to tracking extremists, white supremacists, islamophobes, and fascists in Canada... already had files on the major players.
"Vaccine mandates" was something the organizers thought would play well. It's ridiculous that it worked for longer than fifteen seconds; any Canadian trucker going to the USA has to be vaccinated due to USA rules, so coming back was never going to be forbidden.
(Score: 2) by The Vocal Minority on Saturday February 19 2022, @07:43AM (1 child)
Sorry, but to an outsider like me that article looks like a politically motivated hit piece so I'm not particularly inclined to take it seriously.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 19 2022, @08:20AM
It is not because you are an outsider, Vocal, it is because you are a right-wing idiot of the sort being tracked. Of course you are not going to take it seriously, until you face a situation like Runaway, where your insanity is made public, and your financial resources are shutdown, and your are excoriated, expunged, exiled, excommunicated, ostracized, defenestrated, fricasssied, and discombuberated, like these poor fascist Canadians pretending to be truckers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @04:32PM (1 child)
Nice use of quotes, "double-plus good" [substack.com] would have been more appropriate.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday February 18 2022, @10:48PM
Yeah:
the Conservatives (and probably the Liberals too) have cut funding to the CBC, forcing them into a 'click-bait' format.
Plus them spending money on things like Don McLean ($1 million contract???).... stupid.
This is why i try to get my news from as many sites as i can, so i can maybe try to suss out the truth between the lines.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 20 2022, @02:59AM
Somebody needs to sneak around (hop roof to roof) and stuff Nerf Balls covered in Crazy Glue in their horns
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @11:46PM
The organizers are lying; Pat King is a hopeless egomaniac who can't resist livestreaming, and just yesterday was recorded telling people they need to "...get those horns honking again."
Criminals lie, who would have thought?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 18 2022, @06:14PM
IIRC MPs warned police to not allow the protesters close to Parliament, but the police allowed them through anyway. Though I don't have a good source on this.