The emergency declaration was designed to give officers more “flexibility” to respond to the hundreds and sometimes thousands of truckers and their supporters who are gathered in the streets to denounce coronavirus measures, Mayor Jim Watson said Sunday. And, he said, the declaration reflects the “serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents.”So far it seems no worse than you might see in any parking lot of a National Football League game in America on a Sunday afternoon in October, but clearly some right-wing Canadians have been taking notes. The whole thing seems surprising since Canadians seem down with vaccine mandates. This is from last August:
Fireworks were shot off, drivers blared their horns and streets remained blocked for the second weekend in a row, and Watson admitted Sunday that authorities were “outnumbered” and “losing this battle” against groups who were “calling the shots.”
Ottawa Police Service said in a statement Sunday it had launched over 60 criminal investigations amid the ongoing protests — including thefts, hate crimes and property damage. At least seven arrests had been made as of 9 p.m. Sunday local time in relation to property damage and other acts of “mischief,” police said. “Multiple vehicles and fuel have been seized,” the statement said.
Among the more than 500 tickets issued this weekend were notices of “excessive honking” and seat belt violations.
On Sunday morning, police said officers had issued more than 450 tickets since the day before, including to trucks with no insurance and obstructed license plates. Another 100 tickets were announced Sunday evening, including to people who were driving the wrong way or had alcohol readily available.
Police also said that it had issued a warning to the public that they could be subject to charges if they were found to be supplying demonstration trucks in the red zone with fuel.
According to a recent Ipsos poll, in light of the recent mandate that vaccination will be mandatory for air and train travel as well as for public servants, Canadians show that not only do they agree with these measures, but they would support imposing a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers and teachers as well. A strong majority agree with the recently announced mandatory vaccination for federal public servants (80%) and the requirement for proof of vaccination for flying on an airplane or taking a train international or inter-provincially (82%). Similar proportions support mandatory vaccination for healthcare workers (84%), for teachers (81%), or vaccine passports to enter restaurants, gyms, or other indoor spaces (72%).I saw that the protest has now spread to Toronto and Vancouver, at least. Perhaps there's something more going on here than a protest over just vaccines, that's it become about Trudeau's policies in general, I don't know. I hope my Canadian readers can provide some insight.
[And right in the middle of hockey season! Tsk tsk.]
8 comments:
Apparently truckers are 90% vaccinated. Canada as a whole is 80% vaccinated, and 50% boosted.
I have a lot of sympathy for the protesters. Do we really need mandates on a population that is already largely compliant? If the government is going to mandate medical interventions, they better clearly articulate the benefits.
But the Prime Minister has not articulated what is being accomplished by removing the border vaccine exemption for truckers. There are about 350,000 people employed by the trucking industry. ~35,000 unvaccinated. Not sure how many of those actually drive trucks. What would be the impact of continuing their exemption? My guess is that there is very little gained by removing the exemption.
Instead he's chosen to demonize the demonstrators as "tinfoil hats"
"Yes, the concerns expressed by a few people gathering in Ottawa right now are not new, not surprising, are heard, but are a continuation of what we’ve unfortunately seen in disinformation and misinformation online, conspiracy theorists about microchips, about god knows what else that goes with the tinfoil hats,"
Not impressed.
Yes, calling them "tinfoil hats" was dumb.
Maybe Trudeau is worried that if he makes an exception for the truckers he'll have to start doing it for everyone else and then the mandate becomes meaningless.
Maybe we don't need mandates at all. It's not clear to me what that buys us. How many cases will we avoid in Canada with these border restrictions?
The PM needs to make that case.
I'd be curious what that poll from last August would find if it was rerun now. A lot has changed since August. At some point we need to start talking about our exit strategy.
What's the end game here?
Looks like support for restrictions is trending down:
https://theconversation.com/majority-of-canadians-disagree-with-freedom-convoy-on-vaccine-mandates-and-lockdowns-176323
Seems support is down maybe 5 percentage points in the various categories, since August. But it's still very high:
"There is even broad-based support for a vaccine mandate for all non-exempt adults over the age of 18, with 70 per cent of Canadians indicating that they back the measure to some extent."
Also a lot of support for international travel (see chart).
I think, at least wait until good weather and people are no longer packed indoors. Although I know for Canada that's not until July :-)
It's certainly not great protesting weather right now. You are right that there is still broad support for mandates. It will be interesting to see how the protests impact sentiment. Especially as it may pertain to the Extinction Rebellion. My guess is that neither movement is winning hearts and minds.
Some insight on sentiment from TVO's "The Agenda":
Steve Paikin: I wonder whether you are picking up a distinction that the population makes in terms of, you know, kind of like the bad apples associated with this thing and the sort of genuine well-hearted people who are just trying to make a point. Does paulie pick up a distinction between those two groups?
Guest: yes. yes she does. Before the convoy came in there's actually a lot of sympathy for them as over 50% percent of people were sympathetic with the message of government overreach.
The mandates, mandating vaccines for for truckers, there's almost no support for that.
There was no support for that before this even started for mandating vaccines for truckers. I mean people really saw that as a as a political thing and not a um something that was necessary for public health. That was the public opinion that we saw. After they came in that evaporated to a large extent because of people started to see it as a trojan, like we're coming in to to fight for freedom and when we get here there's swastikas there's defecating on the monuments there's pulling down pride flags and and uh and all sorts of violent things assaulting people have been assaulted so so then that evaporate so then people started to think well maybe this whole thing is just a trojan.
Now it's coming back where people are back to feeling that the cause itself if people could stick to that there is a lot of sympathy for it.
We're seeing that 45% sympathy for the cause and only about well today it's 18% sympathy for for the the you know the actual occupiers themselves.
https://youtu.be/2ixV03QxZWA?t=289
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