I support freezing the bank accounts of domestic terrorists who are being funded from outside the country -- whether they are on the left or the right.
Freezing accounts is not the issue. Freezing accounts unilaterally, and before due process is the issue.
Can someone please tell me what they’re protesting? I still haven’t gotten a straight answer. The best I can tell they’re a mob of misanthropes who are just unhappy in life generally.
Trudeau pussied out from just clearing the bridge by force so decided to use a nuke instead. I was on Trudie's side and pretty much against the truckers up to this point. I'm not on the trucker's side now, but am very much against the .gov on this one. It's sad how the left can be baited so easily, walked right into what the righties claimed, that he was an authoritarian, and just proved them right w/this shit. It will likely cost libs parliament and Canada may end up w/alt-righters in it. I haven't followed super closely because "whitey aggrievement", but as far as I can tell it started as a workers' protest that got hijacked by anti-vaxxers and now anti-government/neo nazi types. I don't know how pervasive the latter is or if the media would just rather kill the 1st two by highlighting these elements. As far as I can tell, they've been fairly civil (no storming of capitol buildings) akin to tea partiers & occupy wall streeters. Since righties are usually more effective w/their protests however, they're costing the economy billions (mostly in the bridge protests). Cops are default righties so are refusing to do their jobs to retake these places as they sympathize. Because Canada's quirky, Trudeau can't quelsh the protests because the provinces can't call in the military unless the PM calls in an emergency's act. So Trudeau's stuck w/putting in an emergency act to clear the bridge/streets. Rather than take the optics hit (which looks like 80% canadians would support), he's taking a page from Xi Jinping's playbook instead.
You have a Canadian economy coming out of a Pandemic and then a Freedom Convoy shows up to cost the economy +100 million dollars per day plus causing 100s to lose their jobs. On top of that, several auto plants and agriculture plants had to shut down. You have citizens and business owners vowing to fight back against the protesters physically and legally (there are already lawsuits filed by citizens seeking millions in damages). You can not clear a bridge or anything else by force, especially with many of those idiots bringing their children to protest with them...a classic page out of the Islamic terrorist group playbook. On top of that, you confiscate enough weapons and ammunition from many protesters that were being gathered by the protesters for a small war along with the fact there were (still are) nearby staging areas under tents on private property with their own private armed security guards. The nuke option was appropriate and it would have allowed immediate use of the military had it been required without any hesitation / red tape. Simply, you'll rather have the political opposition pisst off about the nuke option instead of pisst off about shooting up the protesters (some with their children), especially with dozens of protesters stating they're solely there to take down the government, put in their own government officials, and stating on national TV they're going to cause great harm to Canadian citizens by being a "terrorist"... All while the government kept the promise they made back in January that they were going (have been) removing mandates and easing restrictions in the month of February and March. Last, of all, there's the issue of the U.S. economy also being impacted too with a lot of citizens from the U.S. side being involved with the Freedom Convoy. Thus, the nuke option gives the government many more options without needing to fire a shot but if they needed to...they can do so. I think it's funny that the political right that say its best to go down there to talk to the protesters and posed for many pictures with the protesters...the political right stop doing that bullshit when they were alerted with the facts about how well armed the protesters were becoming and that caches of weapons & ammunition were being confiscated... Simply, the political right didn't want to be seen as a bunch of asswipes supporting an insurrection on Democracy as they view the political right in the United States. P.S. The truckers left Québec just as fast as they appeared because they were in the area (National Assembly) of a lot of well-trained Canadian military and well-trained ex U.S. military soldiers living abroad in the area. It's a well-known area of Canadian/U.S. citizens not needing the help of the Police to shovel out the dirt. wrbtrader
For comparison I would like to direct you to how the U.S. freezes bank accounts of individuals and entities with the Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN) list. All the U.S. federal needs to do is place your name or your entity name on this list and you will be blocked from opening new accounts and have your current accounts frozen. There is no "due process" or courts involved - -the entire thing is quite unilateral -- and has been used regularly. Additionally there is the requirement for FACTA compliance which the U.S. does not only enforce within our country but requires other countries to enforce. Don't even get me started on how the U.S. freezes and unilaterally seizes the bank accounts of entire nations. Just take a look at the Biden administration freezing then seizing the Afghanistan bank accounts recently and distributing half of the $7 Billion to victims of 9/11. The narrative that the accounts were frozen unilaterally and there was no due process in Canada is nonsense. All the steps fully complied with Canadian law. Additionally there is a f@cking court order freezing the bank accounts. Citizens group wins court-ordered freeze of convoy protest accounts, cryptocurrency https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...f-freedom-convoy-accounts-cryptocurrency.html
I completely disagree. If you're doing civil disobedience, you expect the consequences of going to jail. I am NOT in favor of commerce being impacted, so Canada's gotta crack down, but you do it through the process that exists. You don't just circumvent the law and brand protesters "terrorists". If the unwashed do not clear out after being given prior warning, and they have their kids in the front lines, then it's on them for being terrible parents. Think of the precedent GWB is championing. Trump of the north rises to power and the next "occupy wallstreet" or "tea party" protest is deemed "terrorist" so people disperse and the protest is squelched w/o pushback. So your best example of how this shit's wrong in so many levels is to compare how we crack down on foreign nationals (not citizens) w/terrorist or nat sec concerns? The judicial process was completely bypassed in Canada, they just went through legislative branch instead of going through the judicial for this bullshit.
SDN and FACTA applies to people who live in the U.S. as well. They also apply to U.S. citizens. So your narrative is complete nonsense. The legislature passed the laws providing the federal executive branch in Canada to take emergency powers if needed and to freeze bank accounts. A court order froze the bank accounts. All three branches of the Canadian government were involved. But you just continue to spew nonsense about the "civil liberties", "due process" and "rights" of the "freedum truckers". Hint: If you wake up in the morning and find yourself supporting people terrorizing and abusing the entire population of a city then you are on the wrong side of history.