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Ontario Premier Declares State of Emergency, ‘Consequences’ Coming for Freedom Convoy – Opinion

By Pluralist / February 11, 2022

Protesters of Freedom Convoy are holding firm in Ottawa as well as in other parts of Canada including Alberta at Coutts as well as the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor (Ontario).

Numerous Canadian provinces and territories have stated that they are dropping restrictions, mandates, or vaccine passports since protests began.

On Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that the province would be dropping the vaccine passports and all restrictions on businesses “very soon,” but he didn’t give a date.

According to some reports, he could give an exact date Monday. But until he gives a firm date, the truckers aren’t going to take anything he says seriously. He said they were now “working on a plan” to eliminate the vaccine passport system.

Someone is going to have to explain to me what “plan” they need beyond saying this is over. I mean maybe I think more simply than politicians, but it doesn’t seem that it takes anytime at all. Unless you’re actually stalling. Yes, “none of this has been easy,” as he says, while governments and politicians made it worse with their reactions.

Ford later made statements that implied that Ottawa’s Freedom Convoy would be subject to police investigation. He said it was no longer a protest but an “illegal occupation” and a “siege.” Ford declared a state of emergency in the province, saying “there will be consequences for these actions and they will be severe.”

He said that they were strengthening the power of the police “to restore law and order,” and that they had moved against the Freedom Convoy to have a judge freeze their money raised by GiveSendGo. GiveSendGo advised them to pound the sand.

Ford said that now he will be convening cabinet to “use legal authorities to urgently enact orders” that will protect international border crossings, as well as the 400-series highways, airports, bridges, ports, and railways, as well as ordinary roadways. Ford indicated that the maximum penalties and imprisonment for violating laws will be as high as $100,000, up to one-year imprisonment. Ford said that additional powers would be sought to remove the commercial and personal licenses from those who don’t comply. He said they would then try to move them in the legislature to make the orders “permanent in law.” They’ve also moved for an injunction to prevent protesters from blocking the Ambassador Bridge.

This was an effort to warn/threaten the protesters to leave, but it isn’t likely to make them leave. If they move in the police to remove them, it’s not going to end well, and Canadians are not going to be happy with people like Ford as a result. But notice what he’s saying: not only are they going to try to bring any laws or orders in place now to bear against the Convoy, but they’re also going to invent new “orders” just to punish these protesters because they want to stop them. They are attempting to prevent them from protesting any further, and the punishments they have in mind are too harsh.

See what the invocation of an emergency allows them to accomplish.

It “gives the government broad powers in an emergency to shut down institutions or businesses, control movement and travel, and seize any necessary goods or property to deal with the crisis.” And you wonder why people are protesting?

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Pluralist

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