{"id":76104,"date":"2022-02-15T01:11:26","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T05:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=76104"},"modified":"2022-02-15T23:19:32","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T03:19:32","slug":"prime-minister-justin-trudeau-invokes-emergency-powers-to-shut-down-canadas-freedom-convoy-that-has-already-shaken-the-country-and-rallied-populists-of-the-right-in-other-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=76104","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invokes emergency powers to shut down Canada\u2019s \u201cfreedom convoy\u201d that has already shaken the Country and rallied populists of the right in other countries."},"content":{"rendered":"

CANADA\u2019S MAPLE-LEAF flag is ubiquitous\u2014draped over shoulders and unfurled from hockey sticks. The protesters who have converged on Ottawa, Canada\u2019s capital, to demand the end of covid-19 restrictions are brandishing it like stars-and-stripes-waving Americans. On weekdays their numbers dwindle to a thousand or so, though the clog of vehicles, from camper vans to 18-wheelers, parked outside Parliament makes the crowd seem bigger. On weekends they are joined by many more, often groups of neighbours who form small convoys and bring their children. That\u2019s when bouncy castles go up and dance parties appear. At the slightest excuse they burst into \u201cO Canada\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some spout conspiracy theories and wave \u201cFuck Trudeau\u201d signs, showing their contempt for the Liberal prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Early in the protests some demonstrators waved swastika images. At least one Confederate flag was seen.<\/p>\n

But there is more talk of love, freedom and unity. \u00c9ric Fontaine, a boat painter, has been coming every weekend with friends from a small town south of Montreal. \u201cWe are against discrimination\u2014every kind of discrimination, including against people who don\u2019t want to get vaccinated,\u201d he says. William Ameni, a Congolese-Canadian, hands out food and Bibles with other members of his church. He was surprised to learn that some of the protests\u2019 organisers were anti-immigrant. \u201cAs a minority personally I do not feel any hostility,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Now in its third week, the \u201cfreedom convoy\u201d, which began as a protest against vaccine mandates for lorry-drivers entering from America, seems to be mellowing. But the government is toughening its response. On February 14th Mr Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in the law\u2019s 34-year history. It gives the federal government powers to override other laws and seize authority from provincial and local governments. Days before, after Ontario\u2019s premier, Doug Ford, had declared a state of emergency, police cleared a blockade of the bridge linking Windsor, Ontario with Detroit, the conduit for a quarter of trade between Canada and the United States. After news broke of Mr Trudeau\u2019s plan to crack down, the truckers seemed unfazed. \u201cWe will hold the line,\u201d said Tamara Lich, a fundraiser and convoy spokeswoman, on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Whatever the future holds for the freedom convoy, it has already shaken Canada and rallied populists of the right in other countries. Donald Trump and Fox News anchors have exalted the protesters. Organisers have raised millions of dollars, a large proportion from American donors. Copy-cat convoys have been staged in France and Australia. Canada once seemed immune to the raucous populism that in 2016 helped bring about Mr Trump\u2019s election and Britain\u2019s vote for Brexit. Now it seems to have become a superspreader. More than half of Canadians regard the convoy as a \u201cfundamental attack\u201d on democracy, according to a poll by Ipsos.<\/p>\n

Although Canada\u2019s strict public-health policies triggered the protest, its origins lie in older grievances. They are most potent in Canada\u2019s western provinces, which have long felt alienated from the more populous and liberal centre, and change character depending on the stresses of the moment. France\u2019s gilet jaunes (yellow vest) protests in 2018 against high energy prices inspired a western Canadian movement in favour of oil pipelines and hostile to immigration. That gave rise to \u201cunited we roll\u201d, a lorry-led protest in 2019 against Mr Trudeau\u2019s environmental policies, which hurt Alberta\u2019s energy-based economy. The freedom convoy is its pandemic-themed successor. Ms Lich, who is described in the Canadian press as \u201cthe spark that lit the fire\u201d, was an activist for a party that advocates western Canadian secession as a last resort.<\/p>\n

Tom Quiggin, who says he provides \u201cprotective intelligence\u201d for the convoy, is the author of an anti-globalist novel called \u201cThe New Order of Fear\u201d. According to a tweet he posted, it depicts Mr Trudeau as \u201cdead in his bed, strangled with a pair of halal socks\u201d. Canada Unity, the closest the convoy has to a presiding organisation, initially called for the replacement of the government by a committee that would revoke the vaccine mandate. It has since withdrawn the demand. Stephanie Carvin, a scholar at Carleton University in Ottawa, believes the convoy is \u201can extremist movement at its heart\u201d. Nearly 60% of Canadians think it consists mainly of \u201canti-vaxxers and bigots intent on causing mayhem\u201d, according to Ipsos.<\/p>\n

But, like the Omicron variant, it may be mutating into a milder and perhaps more spreadable form. Canada Unity now \u201ccondemns all hate symbols\u201d and calls on Canadians to \u201cforget about their differences\u201d. That may widen the protest\u2019s appeal among the majority who now want covid restrictions to end. Despite their scepticism of the freedom convoy, 46% of Canadians think the protesters\u2019 \u201cfrustration is legitimate and worthy of our sympathy\u201d, according to Ipsos. That rises to 61% among those between the ages of 18 and 34 years old.<\/p>\n

That raises the fear that the convoy could act as a Trojan horse for the sort of Trumpian populism that polarises politics across the border. Richard Johnston, a political scientist, argues that, as in the United States, Canada\u2019s divides have been widening since the 1980s. People who identify with the Conservatives, the main opposition party, look a lot like Republicans; supporters of Mr Trudeau\u2019s Liberals resemble American Democrats. In opinion surveys, \u201cit\u2019s very hard to see the border,\u201d says Mr Johnston.<\/p>\n

When Mr Trudeau was first elected in 2015 he wanted to forestall a backlash against globalisation and immigration, then already occurring in other countries, by boosting the middle class \u201cand those working hard to join it\u201d. He had some success, especially in his first term. His government introduced a means-tested child benefit that reduced poverty and cut tax rates on the bottom of the income scale while raising them for the rich. Under Mr Trudeau Canada managed the pandemic better than many countries (thanks largely to provincial premiers, who make most of the public-health rules in their territories). Confirmed deaths from covid-19 are about a third of those in America in proportion to population.<\/p>\n

Yet many Canadians do not see Mr Trudeau as a healer. His government set a national floor for the price of carbon and banned oil tankers from loading on the west coast, especially enraging oil-dependent Albertans. It has raised immigration targets from around 270,000 in 2015 to 411,000, more than 1% of the population, this year (in part to make up for a pandemic drop). In his second term Mr Trudeau seemed to become more interested in identity than income, making protection of indigenous and gay people and other minorities his signature theme. He seems to agree with leftists who think that causing offence is a greater crime than suppressing speech.<\/p>\n

Expressing shock that racist symbols were displayed during the protest, his government plans to reintroduce an \u201canti-hate\u201d bill that could lead to the imprisonment of people who use racist speech. This could include a \u201cpeace bond\u201d clause which would allow individuals to take other people to court if they fear that they may be about to say something which falls under the definition of \u201chate propaganda\u201d, or commit an offence \u201cmotivated by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other similar factor\u201d. Lovers of free speech are aghast at the scope of this law.<\/p>\n

The pandemic has brought the sort of populist insurgency Mr Trudeau had hoped to forestall. Whether it moves beyond causing chaos to threatening institutions depends in part on how Canada\u2019s politicians react. For the Conservative Party the freedom convoy is both a threat and a temptation. The protesters \u201cdeserve respect\u201d, declared Candice Bergen, the party\u2019s interim leader, who has sported a \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d cap. Pierre Poilievre, the only declared candidate so far in the forthcoming party-leadership election, has said that the convoy represents \u201call those that our government and our media have insulted and left behind\u201d, a line that Mr Trump could have uttered.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives are glancing nervously over their right shoulders at Maxime Bernier, a former Conservative minister who has been handing out \u201cfreedom pancakes\u201d to the protesters. His People\u2019s Party of Canada, formed in 2018, advocates lower immigration and denies that climate change is dangerous. Although it got no seats in last year\u2019s election it won nearly 5% of the vote, and tripled its vote share.
\nBut Canada\u2019s immunity to Trumpism and its mutations has not collapsed. Protectionism and immigrant-bashing, Mr Trump\u2019s most distinctive causes, cannot win elections in Canada. Trade is the equivalent of 60% of Canada\u2019s GDP compared with 23% of America\u2019s. Elections are won and lost in greater Toronto and Vancouver\u2019s suburbs, which have racially diverse populations. The Conservatives\u2019 post-mortem on their loss last year blamed the party\u2019s earlier resort to tactics like barring new Canadians from wearing niqabs when taking the citizenship oath, which offended Muslims. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t a backlash\u201d against immigrants, says Mr Johnston. \u201cIt\u2019s lurking in the Conservative grassroots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those grassroots are more influential than they used to be but have not yet seized control. Unlike in the United States, regional parties are not subsidiaries of national ones. Mr Ford is aligned with the national Conservatives but he belongs to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. The federal Conservatives cannot control regional legislatures as America\u2019s politicians do. Independent commissions draw the boundaries of electoral districts, avoiding the gerrymandering that contributes to polarisation in the United States. The share of fundamentalist Christians in the electorate is much smaller, which gives politicians less scope to mobilise voters passionately opposed to social change.<\/p>\n

Few Canadians wish their politics were more like those of their southern neighbour. Two-thirds say their system of government is better, according to the Confederation of Tomorrow, an annual survey. Just 5% say the United States has a better system. In 1991, preferences were almost evenly divided. Polarised politics in America, culminating in Mr Trump\u2019s presidency, have widened the gap in perceptions of which system is better from two percentage points to 61, notes the survey. Mr Trump\u2019s endorsement of the freedom convoy may therefore encourage Canadians to reject the sort of politics it represents. The anti-vaxx uprising is \u201ca spasm\u201d, Mr Johnston thinks. \u201cIt\u2019s unsettling, it\u2019s embarrassing, but it\u2019s not existential.\u201d
\n
\nCourtesy:The Economist<\/em><\/p>\n

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CANADA\u2019S MAPLE-LEAF flag is ubiquitous\u2014draped over shoulders and unfurled from hockey sticks. The protesters who have converged on Ottawa, Canada\u2019s capital, to demand the end of covid-19 restrictions are brandishing it like stars-and-stripes-waving Americans. On weekdays their numbers dwindle to a thousand or so, though the clog of vehicles, from camper vans to 18-wheelers, parked …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invokes emergency powers to shut down Canada\u2019s \u201cfreedom convoy\u201d that has already shaken the Country and rallied populists of the right in other countries.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76105,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76104\/revisions\/76105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}