QV
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Justin Trudeau wanting a legacy like Pierre's "just watch me" ... do you think that is out of the realm of possibility with this guy?
Freedom Convoy protests [Split from All things 2019-nCoV]
- Thread starter Quirky
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Justin Trudeau wanting a legacy like Pierre's "just watch me" ... do you think that is out of the realm of possibility with this guy?
Brad Sallows
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Why is it that politicians fail to do any number of manifestly necessary or even merely useful things?
A disadvantage of "democracy" is that it's difficult for people with high aptitudes to make careers out of becoming highly-competent politicians, so most gravitate to other endeavours (fortunately) and we endure relatively mediocre politicians. France developed a partial solution, but its political culture has always tended toward centralization and a centuries-long shift from aristocracy to something approaching technocracy.
A disadvantage of "democracy" is that it's difficult for people with high aptitudes to make careers out of becoming highly-competent politicians, so most gravitate to other endeavours (fortunately) and we endure relatively mediocre politicians. France developed a partial solution, but its political culture has always tended toward centralization and a centuries-long shift from aristocracy to something approaching technocracy.
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I read James Garner said the only work he felt qualified to do was be an actor, or a politician.
"And I sure as ## wasn't going to become a politician. "
Because policing in Ottawa is very political, and the Police Services Board hired Sloly as police chief, scoring themselves a palatable (uniformed) politician. Unfortunately for them, in January and February, the city of Ottawa needed a cop.
It was, in the first instance, the municipality’s situation to resolve or to bungle, and Sloly did the latter.
I still maintain that - assuming a failure to prevent them parking their trucks in the first place - the request for assistance from OPP and RCMP (the latter of which has a couple thousand sworn police officers in the city of Ottawa, including a public order unit) should have gone in ASAP. Rather than waiting for the start of a weekend three weeks in when the protest was at full strength, police could have made the necessary declarations and given the necessary warnings on the first Monday, and used surprise and moved to eject the crowd and remove the vehicles at first light on the Tuesday or Wednesday.
Instead they were allowed to dig in like ticks and the whole thing took much longer, and necessitated calling in backup from literally all over the country. It should not be necessary for public order units from Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary to help clear out the downtown streets of Ottawa.
What WILL be interesting will be the convoy leaders testifying under oath. If they frig around they could perjure themselves.
I guess next time their is a G7/8 or any other summit there is no necessity of calling back up from all over the country. That is good to know will save us all a few bucks.
What is funny is those who testified already for the other inquiries recently who have perjured themselves, found to of destroying evidence, misleading the public etc. Not much has happened.
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You mean like “the police asked us to enact the EA!” types?
Very different in scope and scale. A planned major event known to last for some time and which will need a long and sustainable security and public order presence will necessitate different approaches from an emergent public order situation like a protest that blows up beyond what was expected. A planned major event like G8 has known and public participation by domestic and international public officials, and Internationally Protected Persons. It has specific known sites (often several) that will require securing. To run that for a week or two while also providing continuity of normal
policing services takes planning and lots of bodies.
The manner in which one secures such things proactively to try to prevent or minimize public order disruptions is different from how one responds to something that brews up. Now, as I said, this could have been largely mitigated or prevented through zero tolerance to them Peking in the first place- I’m speaking in the context of “oh crap, it’s Monday and they’re still here”. Within a day a drive of Ottawa there are a number of police public order units and a ton of police who can throw on a uniform and do cop stuff. A good enough plan executed rapidly would have saved weeks of aggravation looking for a best case solution that could not be achieved.
What has been published so far on that is that there was a proposal, with very limited (if any) buy in, to move a modest portion of the protest vehicles out of a few residential streets down @dimsum ’s way. That would simply compress them a bit further into the area a couple blocks north- Wellington Street, where they were logjammed already. I’ve seen nothing that suggests there was any deal or arrangement either pending or plausible that would have seen the downtown core cleared of the vehicles. We still would have had to go in and clear them out. A bunch of the protesters made it VERY clear “we’re not moving”, and a good number of them didn’t until forced. So, I find this “almost a deal” narrative utterly unconvincing.
QV
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I don’t doubt that G2G. But under oath testimony may enlighten the inquiry about what was know and when.
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NSIA
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Daughter of a former VCDS.
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It was kind of comical how many self proclaimed 'leaders of the convoy' there was at any given time. When the city announced they were negoting to move (with about 3 different groups) there was probably about a half dozen others that immediately disputed that.
Plus the locals didn't want anyone blocking their streets, as it's already crowded and difficult to navigate at the best of times, so it was a weird plan. At the same time locals started counter protesting in fairly large numbers, and doing things like blocking the trucks in and forcing them to hand over any flags and other paraphanelia before letting them go anywhere Fortunately all stayed civil, but only would have taken an idiot on either side to kick things off.
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daftandbarmy
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Mm hm. There were definitely a modest number of figures with considerable influence over certain core constituent groups within the convoy- within certain broadly accepted arcs. I’m not convinced those self-appointed and partially-accepted leadership figures would have had the social capital within the movement to actually get them to leave once they were dug in. Quite bluntly there were a bunch of people there with no backup plan, although also within much of a conception of what success would look like. Once the convoy dug itself in, I think the reliance on the leadership figures who got them there diminished.
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