and freezing bank accounts of people whose only crime was donating money to the protesters
Slightly off topic, but is this a thing that was actually verified to have happened? The only case I had heard of was the “Brianne from Chilliwack” one that seemed not to pan out as real as far as I can tell.
(Asking because at the time there was quite a bit of discussion about whether the overreach was “trying to punish protestors directly” or “deliberately trying to create a chilling effect on any support for protests”)
Note that there is no reason to take statements by government officials at face value.
Even if you believe that the government intended only to freeze accounts of people actually at the protests, this is still a dangerous expansion of government power, considering that there were no court hearings, where people would have the ability to challenge the order. And it certainly had a chilling effect for anyone in future thinking of protesting government actions.
Crucially, there was no actual need for any of this, if the goal was simply to restore order. The Ottawa protest was cleared in the end by ordinary police actions, with no need for the Emergency Act, or freezing bank accounts. The Emergency Act was imposed the day after the most economically damaging protest (that blocked a heavily-used bridge between Canada and the US) was peacefully resolved. One has to suspect that the government was hoping that that protest would turn violent, justifying use of the Emergency Act, and when it didn’t, they decided to go ahead and invoke it anyway. The precedent is now set for invoking it pretty much any time the government wants, though of course not against violent protestors whose cause the government is ideologically sympathetic to, such as this violent pipeline protest concurrent with the Freedom Convoy: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/surveillance-images-released-as-mounties-investigate-attack-at-b-c-pipeline-work-site-1.5788158
Slightly off topic, but is this a thing that was actually verified to have happened? The only case I had heard of was the “Brianne from Chilliwack” one that seemed not to pan out as real as far as I can tell.
(Asking because at the time there was quite a bit of discussion about whether the overreach was “trying to punish protestors directly” or “deliberately trying to create a chilling effect on any support for protests”)
I can’t say with any certainty what exactly happened. Neither, it seems, can anyone else, to judge by https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/02/23/canada-begins-to-release-frozen-bank-accounts-of-freedom-convoy-protestors/?sh=2745dbcc6364
Note that there is no reason to take statements by government officials at face value.
Even if you believe that the government intended only to freeze accounts of people actually at the protests, this is still a dangerous expansion of government power, considering that there were no court hearings, where people would have the ability to challenge the order. And it certainly had a chilling effect for anyone in future thinking of protesting government actions.
Crucially, there was no actual need for any of this, if the goal was simply to restore order. The Ottawa protest was cleared in the end by ordinary police actions, with no need for the Emergency Act, or freezing bank accounts. The Emergency Act was imposed the day after the most economically damaging protest (that blocked a heavily-used bridge between Canada and the US) was peacefully resolved. One has to suspect that the government was hoping that that protest would turn violent, justifying use of the Emergency Act, and when it didn’t, they decided to go ahead and invoke it anyway. The precedent is now set for invoking it pretty much any time the government wants, though of course not against violent protestors whose cause the government is ideologically sympathetic to, such as this violent pipeline protest concurrent with the Freedom Convoy: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/surveillance-images-released-as-mounties-investigate-attack-at-b-c-pipeline-work-site-1.5788158