Canada's Panicked Government Engages in Undemocratic TheftApparently the rule of law doesn’t matter if Justin Trudeau doesn’t like your peaceful protest.
By J.D. Tuccille
February 18, 2022
Emergency powers, threats to freeze the finances of peaceful protesters, and smearing critics as terrorists—it has to be China, right? But no, it's our neighbor to the north, under a leader with a bad case of China-envy. For all the world to see, a panicky Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is throwing a tantrum over protests against restrictive pandemic policy that warns us how quickly an established democracy can lose its mind. It's an advertisement for the value of cryptocurrency and other means of escaping the reach of the financial police state.
Part of Canada's problem is that the country has rarely seen large numbers of people take to the streets in opposition to government actions. As a consequence, officials and some members of the public are wigging out over what would cause people elsewhere to shrug.
"By the standards of mass protests around the world, the 'Freedom Convoy' snarling Downtown Ottawa ranks as a nuisance," The New York Times editorial board pointed out last week. "The number of protesters, about 8,000 at their peak, is modest; there have been no serious injuries or altercations, the truckers stopped blaring their horns after residents got a temporary court injunction against them."
But that's not how the country's government sees it. After first going into hiding while issuing snarky communiques about the "unacceptable views" of Freedom Convoy protesters opposed to vaccine mandates and lockdowns, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time ever against those he not long ago characterized as a "small fringe minority."
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"Bitcoin's fundamental value proposition is seizure resistance," entrepreneur and venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan succinctly observed. "As important in Canada as it is in Venezuela."
Srinivasan's comparison of Canada to totalitarian Venezuela may be more apt than Canadians like. Trudeau got into trouble in 2013 for praising the ability of China's "basic dictatorship" to act quickly, as he now can under the Emergencies Act. He may have inherited the sentiment from his father, Pierre Trudeau, who not only invoked the War Measures Act, but openly admired thugs such as Fidel Castro.
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That doesn't mean Canada is likely to slide into explicit authoritarianism anytime soon. The Freedom Convoy evidences a taste for liberty, and even the many Canadians unhappy with the protest are unlikely to easily surrender elections and the right to criticize officialdom. But the current government's excesses suggest that a liberal society is a fragile thing. Those hoping to exercise their liberty in the years to come might want to get more comfortable with keeping assets beyond the state's reach and using cash, crypto, and other means of exchange that officials can't control.
Source:
https://reason.com/2022/02/18/canadas-panicked-government-engages-in-undemocratic-theft/
