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The federal response was largely due to the abject failure of the city & provincial governments to enforce their laws. The city and province had plenty of tools to get rid of the protesters: noise bylaws, parking bylaws, et cetera. They failed completely, so the Federal government was forced to intervene. The federal government did not have nuanced tools to deal with the truckers so used the blunt hammers they did have.


That's basically what happened. Between the three police forces, the jurisdiction was unclear. Parliamentary police and city police could not decide which laws to enforce as it depended on where the protestors were located. The province mostly polices highways and small townships that cannot afford their own police force. They quickly regained control of the highways to divert any additional incoming trucks but couldn't step in within city limits for trucks that were already there.


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Can you explain what these illegal orders were, within the purview of Sloly's role as police chief? Also, who is the second Ottawa police chief you're talking about? For that matter, who is the third one? Furthermore, on what grounds are you claiming that Sloly resigned over illegal orders, when most sources agree it was over failure to perform?


> Furthermore, on what grounds are you claiming that Sloly resigned over illegal orders, when most sources agree it was over failure to perform?

I don't know enough about the situation to have an opinion about much of this, but at least on this one I don't think you need grounds to disbelieve stated reasons for resignation. I've personally witnessed many people resigning and giving reasons like "to focus on my family" or "to focus on my health" or something when in reality they were parachuting out before getting fired or were resigning for other reasons but didn't want to burn a bridge by telling the truth. I wouldn't be surprised if being untruthful (or only partially truthful) in resignations is more the norm than is being honest, and when talking about politics that probably goes up even more.


>but at least on this one I don't think you need grounds to disbelieve stated reasons for resignation.

I don't even see a contradiction in the first place. Of course someone who perceives received orders as illegal, and feels strongly enough about it to consider resigning, would "fail to perform" those orders.


I stand corrected that it Sloly was the 2nd police chief during the protest, not sure how or when I warped that in my mind to thinking that he was the 2nd resignation.

My point still stands though and as you say: he was pressured to resign because he wouldn't do what the politicians were demanding of him - which is in line with your "failure to perform" claim.

The actions then done under the Emergencies Act to "clear" the Freedom Convoy from downtown were found to have been illegally invoked.

And you know crime in Ottawa went down during the Freedom Convoy too, right?

Have you put your shoes in the Freedom Convoy participants at all I wonder to balance your perspective? Do you care about the RCMP horses trampling and breaking bones of an elder disabled indigenous woman, who just moments before was basically preaching about love and peace?

I can find that video for you if you'd like, if you haven't seen it.

Otherwise it's not worth it to put anymore of my time to debate this one on one, when I'm responding to someone who tries to support their argument with "when most sources agree" without citing any sources, and where I can predict which sources you'll cite.


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Is this a runaround way to say you don't have any reliable sources to share with us? I'm sure if you linked them they would be very convincing.


> […] against the peaceful protestors.

At some point they stopped being protestors and became occupiers. There is no Charter right to occupy—as the pro-Palestinian folks also learned [1] (which was simply re-iterating previous precedent, see perhaps [2]).

[1] 2024 ONSC 3755

[2] 2011 ONSC 6862


At what point is that, legally?

Did they attack anybody? Obstruct anyone's access to a building they had a right to access?

Or does someone just need to declare that someone is an occupier?


It's quite clear what the limits are for protests in Ottawa. There are dozens to hundreds of protesters in Ottawa continuously. There are regularly protests of thousands of people. If you want to block the road, you get a parade permit which is easy to get. You can shout as long as you want, but if you use an amplifier the police will eventually take it away from you. You can carry obnoxious signs. Blocked roads because of protests are an annoying fact of life in Ottawa. But you shrug and move on, it's a cost of living/working in downtown Ottawa. I've never seen a protest block the road for more than 4 hours.


Yes, they harassed people, they cornered people, yes they restricted access to stores, buildings, and yes they used their truck horns to attack local residents by preventing them being able to sleep for days on end. Preventing people from sleeping via loud noise is literally considered a torture tactic.


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You've repeatedly been posting in the flamewar style to this thread. That's not ok, as you know (or ought to, having been here for a good 14 years), so please stop.

Edit: we've had to warn you about this countless times, and you've continued to break the site guidelines badly, including in other threads than this. I'm not going to ban you right now, just as I haven't banned a different flamewar commenter (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42615795), but the same things apply to you as I said to them: this is not ok, and if you don't want to be banned here we need you to fix this once and for all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html


It's fascinating how the same arguments can apply to the homeless, but how one sees the homeless vs. the truck protestors is likely to be polar opposites with one group free to stay as they aren't infringing on any rights, and the other group being a nuisance and having to go expeditiously. Which group is tolerated largely depends on your political alignment.


yes, they prevented people from sleeping — I never understand why people don't consider this attack, after a couple of days it's borderline torture


The Third Geneva Convention categorizes sleep deprivation as actual torture.


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In what world is it ok to subject people to sleep deprivation techniques because “ear plugs exist”? That’s basically saying “I am allowed to enact violence on you, because painkillers exist”.

In addition to how absurd that is, I don’t think this would pass any kind of “pub test”.


A truck horn on the road outside being compared to legitimate torture is absurd.


you have clearly never experienced sleep deprivation, any human will go from normal to psychotic in about 3 days


> At what point is that, legally?

Presumably when they started setting up residence by not moving their trucks, living in them, and 'importing' fuel supplies into the city:

* https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/protesters-say-the...

Or it could have been when they set up saunas and barber shops:

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/15/ottawa-truck-c...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(IANAL)


Preventing protestors from getting supplies like fuel to keep warm (etc) is an international crime.

They worked with local authorities to position trucks to allow adequate lanes and access to all of downtown.

Ottawa being the capital of Canada, it wasn't the first protest they've had - and so this was all standard practice/protocol for local authorities.




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