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0 pointsJamisonM4y ago0 comments

The Act does not in fact allow him to suspend civil rights, that is not what this law does, its predecessor did but it is no longer law. You can read about it in many places, its invokation has inspired a lot of explainers!

I am familiar with the protests in India but I did not see any that occupied the downtown of a major city for weeks on end or choked off the most important transport link in the country for over a week. I welcome more information on that front. My view is that if the parade on 26 January 2021 had remained in the city for weeks then it might be somewhat similar, but as it stands that is not my impression.

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dotnet004y ago

Ah looks like I misread the wikipedia article on the topic, you're right about him not being able to suspend civil rights. I'll correct that.

I didn't keep up with the farmer's protests too closely, but I do recall that at the time there were reports that the govt was having trouble distributing aid in the midst of a big wave of the delta variant in part due to the blocking of roads and trains by the protests (although of course it wouldn't be surprising if that was just blame shifting), going off of Wikipedia however, it does look like several routes to the capital were blocked for a while, along with some news outlets reporting up to ~$7B in economic loss due to associated supply chain disruptions: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators...

I personally just find it disappointing that Trudeau seemingly hasn't even tried to talk things out, so invoking this act feels pretty excessive considering how egregious the circumstances were in previous uses. Regardless of whether or not he's willing to compromise (or if the truckers can even be reasoned with), I feel that this act should have been a measure of absolute last resort.

JamisonMOP4y ago

I think that Trudeau and everyone except the bumbling mayor of Ottawa have correctly concluded that the protest leadership is unreliable and not to be negotiated with. The mayor of Ottawa did negotiate with them and was immediately betrayed.

The Act has never been invoked before, the predessessor was scrapped because it was considered excessive. Even under these powers the Feds cannot directly order police to do anything.. it is pretty weak in terms of action on the ground unless the military shows up.

The federal government has been begging the OPS and the province to act, IMO they have run out of options precisely because the folks that should be dealing with this want the federal government to "own" it and now they got their wish. There didn't seem to be many resorts left!