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The collapse of the COVID-19 crisis is interesting to watch. While some nations are removing their COVID-19 protocols completely, and even states like New York are removing mask mandates and booster shots, each of the groups is trying to cling to the emergency powers they were able to amass during the height of the crisis. Even President Biden told Congress that while everything is opening up, he’s still keeping the Emergency Declaration open in case he has to close it all down again– or to keep the money flowing.
History
During this time, we’ve watched as different countries go to extreme lengths to combat the disease, totally turning aside who they are in an attempt to get to COVID Zero. China was the first country to go after its people, which people expected as China is a communist regime. When Australia and New Zealand started prosecuting people walking outside, many looked on in wonder, but for Americans, it all got real when a group of truckers descended upon the capital of Canada in protest first because of the vaccination required to cross the US-Canada border, and then to protest all COVID-19 restrictions.
Looking For An Easy Way
Deciding that they preferred the power to entertain different restrictions, the government of Canada tried different attempts to see if they could just get the truckers to leave.
- Ignore them, and refuse to meet with them
- Have people with Nazi and Confederate flags show up in their midst, and try to brand them as racists
- Pay businesses to close and then claim they were closing businesses
- Arrest them for honking their air horns, blocking EMS from coming through
- Brand their presence as a seige and call their assembly illegal
- Coherce GoFundMe to not pay out, and then go after GiveSendGo when the funding moved
- Threaten the truckers, their kids, and their pets
When all of this didn’t work, the government pulled out an emergency law that’s never been acted upon to freeze the assets of anyone that even donated to their cause in Canada, break windows, compel tow trucks to pull the trucks out, and bring the people outside of the area and dump them off.
Yes, the border crossing blockade was a bridge too far (pun intended), but the group in Ottawa was well documented to be peaceful and that was a problem.
Canada’s January 6 was a Fail
While we may argue over what actually happened on January 6th in the states, we still saw Trump flags, the horn guy on the floor of the Senate, and one was killed. The people weren’t supposed to be in Capitol that day, and you had videos of people climbing walls and taking/breaking things in the building.
None of that happened in Ottawa. By all accounts, there was no homeless, there were bouncy castles for kids and a carnival-type atmosphere, truckers were cleaning the streets and celebrating. They policed their group and kept the high ground– such that the ones that come off looking badly to the world were the police and government of Canada, not the truckers.
There’s no video of trucker violence, no deaths, and the only person that they are talking about being injured was a lady in a mobility scooter that was pushed down by a mounted police horse. It doesn’t get much worse.
If the Canadian Parliament voted to keep the Emergency powers only because they didn’t want to call for an election– keep stability– instead of actually backing the powers, it shows just how unprincipled the Canadian government is and how much backlash should be had at the polls.
