Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Yamer

Call it pedantry if you want, but I distinguish sedition from protest.

I mean, protesting was part of what they were doing, but it wasn't the only thing they were doing. Technically, KKK rallies and demonstrations have elements of protesting as well, but there are elements involved that go beyond protesting.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Suppose someone wanted to stand outside Calgary city hall holding a sign that says "Sean Chu must resign", and accosting everyone who enters the building repeatedly yelling, "Sean Chu must resign" at them. Would that not be protected political expression to you? I mean they're trying to get a democratically elected government official removed from their post. I don't see the difference in principle.

I clarified in an edit. In your hypothetical I would call that a protest.

If the same person was yelling "Sean Chu must resign and be replaced by Bobby Joe NOW because reasons through a process I made up in my head" I would not.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Yamer

Call it pedantry if you want, but I distinguish sedition from protest.

These aren't mutually exclusive terms. Protests very often take the form of sedition from a pendantic definition stand point. I walked by a guy yesterday outside the leg with a sign shouting for Kenney to resign. Totally crazy- potentially seditious if he was around 5 months ago.

Here's what canada's criminal code says about sedition:

Seditious words

59 (1) Seditious words are words that express a seditious intention.

Marginal note:Seditious libel

(2) A seditious libel is a libel that expresses a seditious intention.

Marginal note:Seditious conspiracy

(3) A seditious conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to carry out a seditious intention.

Marginal note:Seditious intention

(4) Without limiting the generality of the meaning of the expression seditious intention, every one shall be presumed to have a seditious intention who

(a) teaches or advocates, or

(b) publishes or circulates any writing that advocates,

the use, without the authority of law, of force as a means of accomplishing a governmental change within Canada.

So really, they would have had to have created a structure or conspiracy for them to actually acquire power in order to be criminally seditious. As CHL pointed out, they failed abjectly to do that in Ottawa IMO- sitting on your ass honking your horn all day is not going to get you political power. Now, the Coutts protestors who did have a plan to attack the RCMP and acquire power by force at the border- that sounds like a good case of sedition. But protestors can be seditious.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

1. The right to the quiet enjoyment of one's property, in the case of nearby residents?

2. The negative affect on nearby businesses

3. The potential threat of crowd violence, fires, explosions etc.

4. The impeding of normal traffic

5. The wasting of the public's time, money and effort, that could be used for more productive means

6. Etc.

So, the regular things associated with a protest.

Don't get me wrong; if this is in front of my business or home, I'm firmly on the "bring in the tanks" side of things. I'm not even against it for what happened in Ottawa and that should've been handled very differently from day one. Everyone seemed to know what was coming, except the Ottawa police?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Yamer

I clarified in an edit. In your hypothetical I would call that a protest.

If the same person was yelling "Sean Chu must resign and be replaced by Bobby Joe NOW because reasons through a process I made up in my head" I would not.

I see absolutely no difference between the two, in terms of what constitutes political protest.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I see absolutely no difference between the two, in terms of what constitutes political protest.

And I do, though those are my personal definitions informing my opinion.

I'm comfortable thinking that way, just as I'm comfortable if people attribute it differently.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by peter12

There is a growing understanding in most business and political circles that the federal government is not capable of utilizing Canada's full state capacity anymore. Whether that is from burn-out, disillusionment, growing institutional incompetence or a combination of all of them remains to be seen.

People have to stop acting like defending this government is some sort of patriotic endeavour. Our country is growing increasingly incapable of sorting out complex issues, particularly when they overlap with provincial jurisdiction.

There is a fundamental issue of state capacity in this country - from not being able to build any kind of major industrial project on a meaningful timeline to procuring equipment for the armed forces to providing chemotherapy to cancer patients.

This is something that people of all ideological stripes should consider a priority to fix.

Then I learned that putting in minimal effort to understand how problems come to be is defending the government like some sort of “patriotic endeavour.”

I thought it was just thinking before reacting. My bad.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

These aren't mutually exclusive terms. Protests very often take the form of sedition from a pendantic definition stand point. I walked by a guy yesterday outside the leg with a sign shouting for Kenney to resign. Totally crazy- potentially seditious if he was around 5 months ago.

Here's what canada's criminal code says about sedition:

Seditious words

59 (1) Seditious words are words that express a seditious intention.

Marginal note:Seditious libel

(2) A seditious libel is a libel that expresses a seditious intention.

Marginal note:Seditious conspiracy

(3) A seditious conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to carry out a seditious intention.

Marginal note:Seditious intention

(4) Without limiting the generality of the meaning of the expression seditious intention, every one shall be presumed to have a seditious intention who

(a) teaches or advocates, or

(b) publishes or circulates any writing that advocates,

the use, without the authority of law, of force as a means of accomplishing a governmental change within Canada.

So really, they would have had to have created a structure or conspiracy for them to actually acquire power in order to be criminally seditious. As CHL pointed out, they failed abjectly to do that in Ottawa IMO- sitting on your ass honking your horn all day is not going to get you political power. Now, the Coutts protestors who did have a plan to attack the RCMP and acquire power by force at the border- that sounds like a good case of sedition. But protestors can be seditious.

Maybe it's borderline, but I would consider the creation and circulation of the MOU to meet those standards, at least according to those nebulous definitions. They had a plan, as silly as it was. After a brief "news conference" and someone whispering in their ear that it was, indeed, silly they did abandon it.

I believe there were people in Ottawa with intentions truer to a protest, but I also believe there were people there interested in forgoing democracy to install their own preferred, un-elected leadership. There are shades of grey throughout this whole thing that justifies my inability to universally apply the term 'protest' to the convoy.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Did they actually advocate for the use of force? Maybe they did and I missed it because I was actively avoiding paying attention to any of their crazed demands at the time.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Suppose someone wanted to stand outside Calgary city hall holding a sign that says "Sean Chu must resign", and accosting everyone who enters the building repeatedly yelling, "Sean Chu must resign" at them. Would that not be protected political expression to you? I mean they're trying to get a democratically elected government official removed from their post. I don't see the difference in principle.

Those are no way the same thing. No one would have cared if they stood on the lawn of parliament and held signs and yelled for Trudeau to step down.

Fact is, they all could have been arrested/fined for a number of things each and every single day. That didn't happen. I wonder what would happen if some friends and I blocked traffic on 9th avenue in Calgary, set up a stage and brought bands out to protest the governor of South Dakota (makes as much sense as protesting Trudeau over "mandates"). We'd be arrested within the hour.

It's hilarious seeing people defend this. If a bunch of trucks pulled into their cul-de-sac, threw a month long party, harassed everyone, made noise so loud that they and their children couldn't sleep, and ruined their businesses they wouldn't be defending anything of this. It's silly.

Originally Posted by Slava

So, the regular things associated with a protest.

Don't get me wrong; if this is in front of my business or home, I'm firmly on the "bring in the tanks" side of things. I'm not even against it for what happened in Ottawa and that should've been handled very differently from day one. Everyone seemed to know what was coming, except the Ottawa police?

By all accounts Ottawa police knew exactly what was coming. I understand giving them some time, but the fact that it went on for weeks with what appears to be no plan by Ottawa police or the province is too much as far as I'm concerned. For that reason I have no real issue with the EA. Add to that the border convoys and it needed to be taken care of.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Did they actually advocate for the use of force? Maybe they did and I missed it because I was actively avoiding paying attention to any of their crazed demands at the time.

I believe the plan was to go to the Senate and have the senate overthrow Trudeau. They just missed the irony of going to an unelected body to overthrow a democratically elected one. That, and I'm not sure they had a plan how to convince the Senate to do that. I think they just assumed everyone was on their team. Actually I think they didn't think a lot of things all the way through.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Did they actually advocate for the use of force? Maybe they did and I missed it because I was actively avoiding paying attention to any of their crazed demands at the time.

I dont know, I think Qatar is really setting the stage.

All billy-clubs and tear gas.

Why bother with free speech when you could have open oppression?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Slava

What's the difference between a protest and "illegal occupation"? Were the civil rights activists in the US engaged in an "illegal occupation" when they were involved in a sit-in?

I'm not a big fan of the end goals of the convoy, but that's a protest. And yeah, civil disobedience and non-violent protest is frustrating, inconvenient and angering for other people...that's the entire point.

Civil disobedience is by definition illegal. That's what makes it disobedience. It's also not necessary for a protest to include civil disobedience.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by AFireInside

Those are no way the same thing. No one would have cared if they stood on the lawn of parliament and held signs and yelled for Trudeau to step down.

They're both attempts to remove a democratically elected person from a government role simply by demanding they no longer occupy that position, rather than by attempting to remove them by force. So if you think that demanding someone be removed from their elected position makes something not a protest anymore, then that would apply to both. Which was what Yamer was saying. I still don't understand why he thinks there's a difference between demanding someone step down and demanding they step down in favour of a specific person.

Fact is, they all could have been arrested/fined for a number of things each and every single day. That didn't happen. I wonder what would happen if some friends and I blocked traffic on 9th avenue in Calgary, set up a stage and brought bands out to protest the governor of South Dakota (makes as much sense as protesting Trudeau over "mandates"). We'd be arrested within the hour.

Hey, I didn't say they shouldn't have all been arrested. In fact I repeatedly said that you can be thrown in jail for protesting even if your protest is constitutionally protected. I don't necessarily have a problem with these people being jailed, in theory (probably some of them are more deserving of incarceration than others). I have a problem with the hand-waving way that some people are trying to mental-gymnastic their way into saying that what they were doing wasn't really political protest, or wasn't really the sort of thing that the Charter is meant to deal with, because they don't like the content or form that the protest took.

It's hilarious seeing people defend this. If a bunch of trucks pulled into their cul-de-sac, threw a month long party, harassed everyone, made noise so loud that they and their children couldn't sleep, and ruined their businesses they wouldn't be defending anything of this. It's silly.

I would want those people removed by the police. Hell, I wanted Idle No More removed by the police when they blocked a bunch of bridges, and that was WAY less disruptive than the convoy people were. Same should have happened here. But don't try to undermine constitutional protections or circumscribe peoples' basic legal freedoms.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I believe the plan was to go to the Senate and have the senate overthrow Trudeau. They just missed the irony of going to an unelected body to overthrow a democratically elected one. That, and I'm not sure they had a plan how to convince the Senate to do that.

Again, doesn't make any sense but doesn't seem to involve the use of force. Unless they expected the Senate to somehow use force in removing Trudeau...

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

-snip-

Again, doesn't make any sense but doesn't seem to involve the use of force. Unless they expected the Senate to somehow use force in removing Trudeau...

I think the use of force part was not related to the MOU, but to other protestors showing up with effigies of Trudeau in a noose, comments like "Trudeau better watch out or he'll catch a bullet" (may be phrased differently) and things like that.

[Geraldsh]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Suppose someone wanted to stand outside Calgary city hall holding a sign that says "Sean Chu must resign", and accosting everyone who enters the building repeatedly yelling, "Sean Chu must resign" at them. Would that not be protected political expression to you? I mean they're trying to get a democratically elected government official removed from their post. I don't see the difference in principle.

Again, unless the explosions are actually happening / threatening to happen and have the potential to hurt people, none of these would fall within what was being referenced as far as "threats of violence or acts of violence" by the SCC in Irwin Toy. All the rest of it you can do to your heart's content and still be engaged in protected expression. To reiterate: being engaged in protected expression does not mean you cannot be arrested.

People really need to have a better understanding of how far their civil rights actually go in this country.

The act of accosting everyone is what puts it beyond the pale of a peaceful protest, a pedantic but important distinction.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I didn't mean like assaulting them, just being annoying.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Did they actually advocate for the use of force? Maybe they did and I missed it because I was actively avoiding paying attention to any of their crazed demands at the time.

Oh dear, we're going to have to get semantic about 'force', aren't we?

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

They're both attempts to remove a democratically elected person from a government role simply by demanding they no longer occupy that position, rather than by attempting to remove them by force. So if you think that demanding someone be removed from their elected position makes something not a protest anymore, then that would apply to both. Which was what Yamer was saying. I still don't understand why he thinks there's a difference between demanding someone step down and demanding they step down in favour of a specific person.

One allows for democracy and the other does not. In this specific case the demand is entirely divorced from reality and governance, let alone our democratic system.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

They're both attempts to remove a democratically elected person from a government role simply by demanding they no longer occupy that position, rather than by attempting to remove them by force. So if you think that demanding someone be removed from their elected position makes something not a protest anymore, then that would apply to both. Which was what Yamer was saying. I still don't understand why he thinks there's a difference between demanding someone step down and demanding they step down in favour of a specific person.

It's tricky territory for me. I have no issue with protests generally, even ones that break laws etc. I think they are important. I also think if their plan is to overthrow a democratically elected government that it's a bit different than a protest.

Simply saying someone should step down isn't the same thing as holding a city hostage, demanding that they step down and be replaced with candidates of your choosing. Their M.O.U. was to literally change how our government operates, completely ignoring democracy. They did this while disguising it as a trucker mandate protest, which was nonsense. These same people tried this prior to the pandemic with the yellow vest protests. I don't think anyone had too much of an issue with those protests, this became a different thing and they tricked a lot of people into joining under false pretenses.

If their M.O.U. was just to protest mandates that's a different thing.

The province did nothing, the police did nothing, and it had gone on long enough, they gave them plenty of time. If after a couple weeks the remaining few hundred wanted to stay and protest around parliament go right ahead.

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Hey, I didn't say they shouldn't have all been arrested. In fact I repeatedly said that you can be thrown in jail for protesting even if your protest is constitutionally protected. I don't necessarily have a problem with these people being jailed, in theory (probably some of them are more deserving of incarceration than others). I have a problem with the hand-waving way that some people are trying to mental-gymnastic their way into saying that what they were doing wasn't really political protest, or wasn't really the sort of thing that the Charter is meant to deal with, because they don't like the content or form that the protest took.

I would want those people removed by the police. Hell, I wanted Idle No More removed by the police when they blocked a bunch of bridges, and that was WAY less disruptive than the convoy people were. Same should have happened here. But don't try to undermine constitutional protections or circumscribe peoples' basic legal freedoms.

Again, doesn't make any sense but doesn't seem to involve the use of force. Unless they expected the Senate to somehow use force in removing Trudeau...

I don't think their constitutional protections or basic legal freedoms were undermined. Every single one of them could have been arrested and that didn't happen, and very few are actually in any trouble whatsoever. If one person blocks traffic downtown to protest something they don't like, they get arrested within the hour.

Did you read their M.O.U.?

The MOU called on the Governor General and the Senate of Canada to form a new government with the protesters themselves. Sounds like force to me.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I believe the plan was to go to the Senate and have the senate overthrow Trudeau. They just missed the irony of going to an unelected body to overthrow a democratically elected one. That, and I'm not sure they had a plan how to convince the Senate to do that. I think they just assumed everyone was on their team. Actually I think they didn't think a lot of things all the way through.

I never felt there were any real leaders in the group, and those that tried to be, certainly seemed to lack basic leadership skills. it just seemed like an angry mob, frustrated by the pandemic restrictions, and unable to effectively articulate what it was they were really protesting against.