Passage: 'It didn’t take tens of thousands of deaths to do it. It didn’t take an uneven federal pandemic response. It didn’t even take the most depraved conditions of human suffering within institutions in multiple provinces. It didn’t take floods in Quebec, Alberta or British Columbia, a heatwave in B.C., or the melting arctic, either.
'No. It took a few hundred occupiers in two locations to push Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act, marking the first time it has ever been used. And in so doing, he hands the trucker convoy what they want: undisputed proof that the state is using its heaviest hand to break their movement. If they’re all cleared tomorrow, they’ll roll across the country to get back home, itching to use this decision to rally more supporters to their cause.
'It must be said: use of the Emergencies Act isn’t necessary to deal with the convoys — city tow trucks and bylaw enforcement are enough. Even moving the camps off of major arteries and isolating them into adjacent parks or parking lots could have been an option. In Windsor, Ont., police could have removed the border blockade minutes after it started. Instead, it lasted for six days...
'...While it was clear that emergency powers could have saved lives if used to deal with the pandemic, invoking these powers to deal with protesters is an outrageous attack on our right to assemble, even if we absolutely oppose what the protest is about. And it’s especially grotesque when the crisis is entirely invented by: police hoping to parlay this crisis into even bigger budgets, Liberal politicians hoping that they can take the backlash to the convoy to the political bank, and premiers who are more than happy for the news of the day to play out in Trudeau’s backyard. '
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