Trucker Protests in Ottawa and Elsewhere

[Chew]

 

 

[GoDeep81]

They don't have to block arteries. That's just an acute way to get attention. All they have to do is decide to quit driving/delivering goods. Country will be ****ed.

[Larry]

1 hour ago, Ball Security said:

Hard not to get behind automated trucks now.  **** the truck drivers.

I'm not having any trouble not going there. In fact, that idea did not even occur to me. 

[Simmsy]

4 hours ago, GoCommiesGo said:

 

I can't see the US being as coddling if it starts disrupting cities and the flow of trade. Hell, they park those things in DC and the residents may just set them on fire. 

 

Thank you, we have to embrace the great republic. 

What was your name before, comrade?

[GoCommiesGo]

4 minutes ago, Simmsy said:

What was your name before, comrade?

GoSkinsGo, I'm super creative, as you can see. 

[Simmsy]

49 minutes ago, GoCommiesGo said:

GoSkinsGo, I'm super creative, as you can see. 

I checked with our superiors, your name meets approval, you will not be executed. Carry on, comrade.

[TK]

Let em get to DC where there's a newly formed superhero team waiting to tell em where to go....

 

Commanders ASSEMBLE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Yohan]

Is Rubber Duck leading the way?

 

 

[China]

Premier Ford declares state of emergency in Ontario over protests, blockade

 

The Ontario government has invoked new emergency measures by declaring a state of emergency aimed at protesters and ending the blockade at a key border crossing in the province.

 

Ont. Premier Doug Ford announced the measures Friday, saying they will be used to levy stiffer fines and penalties on protesters, including a maximum penalty of $100,000 and up to a year imprisonment for non-compliance.

 

"Let me be clear, the government does not direct our police forces, but we do set the laws," Ford said during a press conference Friday morning. "Today, I am using my authority as Premier of Ontario to declare a state of emergency in our province."

 

Ford said the provincial government will provide additional authority to revoke the personal and commercial licences of anyone who doesn't comply with the new orders. The measures are temporary, but Ford said the government "has every intention" to bring new legislation forward to make them permanent.

 

"We are taking the steps necessary to support our police as they do what it takes to restore law and order," Ford said.

 

The initial state of emergency declaration will last for 42 hours, and cabinet will meet on Saturday to further amend it if needed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

14 minutes ago, Yohan said:

Is Rubber Duck leading the way?

 

 

 

Need the original version with video from the movie...

 

 

[TheGreatBuzz]

9 minutes ago, China said:

Premier Ford declares state of emergency in Ontario over protests, blockade

 

The Ontario government has invoked new emergency measures by declaring a state of emergency aimed at protesters and ending the blockade at a key border crossing in the province.

 

Ont. Premier Doug Ford announced the measures Friday, saying they will be used to levy stiffer fines and penalties on protesters, including a maximum penalty of $100,000 and up to a year imprisonment for non-compliance.

 

"Let me be clear, the government does not direct our police forces, but we do set the laws," Ford said during a press conference Friday morning. "Today, I am using my authority as Premier of Ontario to declare a state of emergency in our province."

 

Ford said the provincial government will provide additional authority to revoke the personal and commercial licences of anyone who doesn't comply with the new orders. The measures are temporary, but Ford said the government "has every intention" to bring new legislation forward to make them permanent.

 

"We are taking the steps necessary to support our police as they do what it takes to restore law and order," Ford said.

 

The initial state of emergency declaration will last for 42 hours, and cabinet will meet on Saturday to further amend it if needed.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Read the headline and thought it was a car dealership named Premier Ford that declared the state of emergency.

[China]

1 minute ago, The Almighty Buzz said:

Read the headline and thought it was a car dealership named Premier Ford that declared the state of emergency.

 

Yeah, but they're in Texas, not Ontario.

[Larry]

So, I bet Fox News is all over the threats posed by this caravan headed for the Super Bowl?  

[Destino]

It’s weird that we’ve gotten so soft that just arresting these people and impounding their trucks seems unthinkable.  Protesters can do absolutely anything short of outright murder and get away with it now.  They don’t even need numbers anymore, not like the truly massive movements we used to see swarm areas.  They were too big to capture in a single photo without being on an airplane circling over head.  Now just a few thousand can park their trucks indefinitely and it’s ok.  
 

There should be a minimum protester requirement to block a street.  50,000.  If you can’t get 50,000 people to show up stay on the sidewalk or go to jail.  

[CousinsCowgirl84]

5 hours ago, GoDeep81 said:

They don't have to block arteries. That's just an acute way to get attention. All they have to do is decide to quit driving/delivering goods. Country will be ****ed.

I feel like the truckers associations said most of the protesters aren’t even associated with the trucking industry but I’m not sure about that.

 

but of all the people affected by mask mandates it seems like truckers would be affected the least.  They are by themselves for most of their time.

[TradeTheBeal!]

 

[China]

Dispatch from the Ottawa Front: Sloly is telling you all he's in trouble. Who's listening?

 

The scale of Ottawa's defeat is a jarring and continuing indictment of the capacity of the Canadian state, and the state must reverse this situation, decisively.
 

The dateline above is a bit of a stretch. This is actually being written at, perhaps ironically, a truck stop just outside Ottawa. I am returning to Toronto after another day in the capital, and I stopped here to eat and gather my notes for what will eventually be two separate dispatches. The first ran on Tuesday, and this one will go out shortly after I return to Toronto, gather my notes, do some laundry and try to wrap up what I've seen over the past few days into something coherent. This one you’re reading now is also where I will recount the strangest, most concerning incident I experienced in Ottawa — one that explains why I think the police have been so reluctant to act. 

 

They know what they're up against, to be frank. Most of us don't. And at least one person is trying to tell us.

 

At the start of this week, I spent two days among the protesters in downtown Ottawa, wandering the lines of trucks on Wellington, on Kent, and the other roads all around Parliament Hill. I've tried to convey for readers what it's like to be there — at least, what it's been like for me to be there. This is a complicated protest and a complicated event. It has layers.

 

Are there good, frustrated people just trying to be heard in the crowd? Yes. Are there bad people in the crowd, including some who've waved hate symbols and harassed or attacked others? Yes. Are there people taking careful care of the roads, sweeping up trash and shovelling ice and snow off the sidewalk? Yes. Are there hard men milling about, keeping a wary eye on anyone who seems out of place? Yes. Is it a place where some people are having good-natured fun? Yes. Is it a place some other people would rightly be afraid to go? Yes. And so on.

 

But it's even more complicated than it looks. And Ottawa Police Services chief Peter Sloly wants you to know that.

 

The chief is very political. I say that with no disrespect. Becoming the chief of a major police force isn't something that happens because you catch the most bad guys. It happens because you're good at working your way up through the power structures of a very particular institution. Sloly talks like a politician. But if you listen closely, and if you follow along across his briefings, you start to see a theme. From the moment he first mentioned that there might not be a policing solution to this protest, and hinted that we need the armed forces, he's been signalling to the public that Ottawa, as a city, has lost control of itself. That's a blunt description, but as I noted in a Twitter thread after a pretty remarkably stark Ottawa Police Services Board meeting on the weekend, Sloly was clear: the city needs to be rescued. It has lost control, it is outnumbered, and it cannot fix this problem with the resources on hand. 

 

 

Rescued from what? The crowd around Parliament Hill is mostly — not entirely, but mostly — peaceful. I grant that; I've seen it with my own eyes. And a few minutes' walk from those sites, now that the horns have been largely silenced by a court order, the city feels quite normal. The idea that Ottawa needs rescuing may seem absurd, but it's not. The longer this goes on, the harder it will become to convince the protesters to leave, and the harder it will be to stop others from joining in.

 

It was clear well before I even arrived that this was something different. There was absolutely no visible police presence. Not a single uniformed officer or marked cruiser. (Note my careful phrasing there: I have no doubt this place is under watch. Just not overtly.) This site, for lack of a better term, has been fortified. There are many trucks parked in the parking lot, but some of them have been arranged to form outer walls. These walls have been augmented with wooden sawhorses and what looked to me to be stacked pallets of some kind. There was an entrance with a tent marked Reception (see photo, below). I wish I could give you a better description of the site, or tell you what was inside, but as soon as I began to approach it on foot, someone very quickly fell into step behind me. A series of others, four or five, met me before I made it to the reception tent. We chatted briefly, and I got the distinct impression that it would be way, way better for me to be somewhere else. I left.

 

 

Click on the link for the full story

[China]

More from that article:

 

Quote

My encounter at the site intrigued me. I made some calls. My sources on the ground are pretty good in the sense of federal politics, but not great in terms of the local governance. Still, each call I made went similarly: the police are very much aware of the site, and they are very worried about the presence of a hard-right-wing, organized faction that isn't there to protest mandates and vaccine passports, but to directly create conflict with the government. This hard-right element probably includes some non-Canadians, here for the party. The broader complaints of the protesters are a cover for the group seeking open conflict. Most of the convoy protesters aren’t part of this smaller, nastier group, nor linked to it in any overt way. Many of them will think any concern about it at all is just some MSM lamestream media conspiracy.

 

My government and security sources do not agree. What’s happening in Ottawa, they were clear, is two separate events happening in tandem: there is a broadly non-violent (to date) group of Canadians with assorted COVID-related gripes, ranging from the somewhat justified to totally frickin’ insane. But that larger group, which has knocked Ottawa and too many of our leaders into what my colleague Jen Gerson so perfectly described as “stun-****ed stasis,” is now providing a kind of (mostly) unwitting cover to a cadre of seasoned street brawlers whose primary goal is to further erode the legitimacy of the state — not just the city of Ottawa, or Ontario or Canada, but of democracies generally.

 

Some of them are ideologues, others just grifters, but they’re real, and they’re in Ottawa. 

 

[EmirOfShmo]

The US Embassy is right there where this is happening. The Royal Canadian Mint is also down the street. The amount of camera surveillance in that area is tremendous. Coming out of this unscathed isn't going to be an option, 

I stayed at that main intersection at the Westin Hotel or the Fairmont Hotel up the street. It wouldn't take much to clog the streets. 

[China]

Judge grants injunction aimed at ending Ambassador Bridge blockade in Windsor, Ont.

 

An Ontario Superior Court judge has granted an injunction aimed at ending a blockade by protesters at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor that has tied up cross-border traffic since Monday.

 

Chief Justice Geoffrey B. Morawetz handed down the ruling Friday. It came into effect at 7 p.m. ET, as a large crowd was still present at the bridge.

 

The document, which was provided late Friday by the City of Windsor, states that anyone having notice of the order is prohibited from "impeding or blocking access to the Ambassador Bridge and indirect or direct approaching roadways and access points" for 10 days.

 

The injunction authorizes police or "designated agents" to remove any vehicles, personal property, equipment, structures, or other objects that impede or block access to the bridge, and approaching roadways.

 

It allows for the arrest and removal of anyone the police have "reasonable and probable grounds to believe is contravening, or has contravened, any provision" of the order, although they can be released if they agree to obey the order.

 

People are free to engage in peaceful protests that don't impede or block access to the bridge or approaching roadways, the order states. 

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TK]

3 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

but of all the people affected by mask mandates it seems like truckers would be affected the least.  They are by themselves for most of their time.

You're missing a lot here. They can be in a different city daily or even multiple cities in a day. Including crossing state lines. They may or may not have to help unload. Ever been in a truck stop? It's not just for refueling, They can buy a shower & do laundry there as well. It's an occupation that makes for a perfect Covid carrier/spreader. You get an outbreak in a truck stop & it can be carried all over the country.

[PleaseBlitz]

13 minutes ago, TK said:

You're missing a lot here. They can be in a different city daily or even multiple cities in a day. Including crossing state lines. They may or may not have to help unload. Ever been in a truck stop? It's not just for refueling, They can buy a shower & do laundry there as well. It's an occupation that makes for a perfect Covid carrier/spreader. You get an outbreak in a truck stop & it can be carried all over the country.

Let’s see how this plays out.  😬

 

@tshile@mistertim

[mistertim]

9 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Let’s see how this plays out.  😬

 

@tshile@mistertim

 

Why on earth are you asking me? I'm just a glorified IT bro.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

29 minutes ago, TK said:

You're missing a lot here. They can be in a different city daily or even multiple cities in a day. Including crossing state lines. They may or may not have to help unload. Ever been in a truck stop? It's not just for refueling, They can buy a shower & do laundry there as well. It's an occupation that makes for a perfect Covid carrier/spreader. You get an outbreak in a truck stop & it can be carried all over the country.

I’m not saying they can’t be super spreaders. But some people have to wear masks for their entire day at work. All they have to do is wear it for a few times a day when they are around other people. Doesn’t seem like a huge burden they need to protest over.

Edited February 12, 2022 by CousinsCowgirl84

[Larry]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I’m not saying they can’t be super spreaders. But some people have to wear masks for their entire day at work. All they have to do is wear it for a few times a day when they are around other people. Doesn’t seem like a huge burden they need to protest over.

Sounds like they're "rugged manly men" who turn into outraged snowflakes when asked to perform trivial tasks, for the public good.