A good day for Canadians.
In 2019 I was sued for libel by a director of @antihateca. He claimed @BarbaraRKay & I linked CAHN to "violent antifa.” Judgment released today: Claim dismissed. Judge: (1) CAHN *does* assist antifa; (2) CAHN director has used courts to stifle detractors (tho failed in this case) pic.twitter.com/2mVpwG6k6w
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) November 10, 2022
Kathy is smiling.
The deputy solicitor general for Ontario says he was told by the federal deputy minister of public safety that the Freedom Convoy protest of last winter in Ottawa had made politicians vulnerable.
The handwritten notes from Mario Di Tommaso, Ontario’s deputy solicitor general, were entered as evidence at the Emergencies Act inquiry on Nov. 9.
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the ongoing public inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act has not withered his support for the “peaceful and law-abiding protesters.”
Poilievre made the comments Wednesday during a rare media availability in a supermarket in Vancouver, B.C., where he was asked about a range of subjects from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act to the testimony heard at the inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act to shut down the Freedom Convoy last winter.
Emergencies Act should be ‘once-in-a-generation’ kind of tool: Freeland
Canada’s invocation of the Emergencies Act should be a “once-in-a-generation” move, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters on Wednesday.
… “What Canada faced at just the beginning of this year, actually, was a very serious challenge and threat to our national security and our economic security,” Freeland said.
What horseshit. The Convoy was never a “National Security Threat” and the border blockades had a marginal effect on commerce.
OPP saw no evidence Freedom Convoy posed direct threat to national security: intelligence officer
The economic nightmare that wasn’t? Border blockades had little effect on trade, data reveals
Legal Memo Advised Ottawa Police to Be Aware of Indigenous Protesters During Convoy
They warned that the protest “raises issues related to freedom of expression and lawful assembly, and therefore may have Charter implications.”
“In addition,” stated the memo, “there may be demonstrators who are Indigenous, there may be heightened concerns surrounding any active enforcement measures and recognizing the uniqueness of Indigenous occupations.”
Just make sure no one is a Christian.
A report authored by a police consultant and distributed by the former Ottawa Police Service (OPS) chief says the Freedom Convoy protests were a “movement by right wing Christians” who wished to attract followers.
“It’s a movement by right wing Christians who used mandates as a pretense to gain a following and privileged access as ‘protesters,’” wrote Erin Kelly, CEO of the contracted market research firm Advanced Symbolics Inc., in an email to Ottawa Police officials on Feb. 6, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
OPS chief at the time, Peter Sloly, urged in a subsequent email that the consultant’s report be widely distributed among OPS officials, saying that it provides “really important insights.”
You can just see the thought process here… Hmmm gotta justify my invoice… I know!! Demonize Christians!! The Trudeau government loves that!!
The intelligence chief for the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) told his superior he had concerns about information requests on social movements his unit was receiving from political leaders and other actors during the time of the Freedom Convoy last winter.
The OPP Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau (POIB) “is increasingly receiving requests for information, intelligence, open source scrapes, background checks etc on a wide array of societal actors,” POIB head Superintendent Pat Morris wrote in an email to OPP Deputy Commissioner Chuck Cox on Feb. 2.
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was frustrated with Freedom Convoy protests in Windsor and Ottawa during a call with Ontario Premier Doug Ford during last winter’s protest, saying police needed to “do their job” and that they should not need more legal tools to clear protesters.
The Rouleau Commission has now heard sworn testimony that the Freedom Convoy was not foreign funded and did not constitute a threat to democracy and that the Emergencies Act was not needed or asked for by any police force. That reflects very poorly on the prime minister. The act’s invocation was the worst peacetime assault on civil liberties since Pierre Trudeau’s use of the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis 52 years ago — when a Quebec cabinet minister was assassinated and a British trade commissioner held hostage.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he felt Ottawa police and the mayor mismanaged the Freedom Convoy protest and reopening the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., was the priority, according to a readout of a call the two politicians shared in February.
As part of evidence presented at the inquiry into the Emergencies Act on Tuesday, the readout shows Ford said “police are a little shy” and “if I could direct the police, I would” as he told Trudeau the Ontario government was looking for ways to give officers more tools to clear the bridge blockade
Was the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa a violent event? Was it violent enough to justify the use of the Emergencies Act?
And what is required to justify bringing down that huge hammer?
OPP Supt. Dana Earley says she briefly considered putting off an operation to clear a blockade of protesters at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont. fearing it might make the ongoing occupation in downtown Ottawa worse.
Earley is testifying before the commission investigating the federal government’s decision to use the Emergencies Act last winter to remove demonstrators who were protesting COVID-19 restrictions by blockading streets in Ottawa and multiple border crossings.
“It is not an ‘extremist’ movement,” Morris wrote in a separate memo to Cox. “It is not comprised of Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremists (IMVE’s). The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts — although events do attract unpredictable and extreme elements. The absolute lack of criminal activity across Canada and the minimal violent crime throughout the event illustrate this.
“But now the public discourse is dominated by political figures and the media — and the commentary is providing a very different picture than what law enforcement collectively gathered. It is painting a different picture — it speaks to extremism, it offers parallels to terrorism, it speaks of sedition.”
I wish they would name the officials demanding the background checks.
The Ottawa cop who twice donated to the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” which occupied swaths of the capital for three weeks last winter and prompted the country’s first use of its Emergencies Act, has been docked a week’s pay and ordered to undergo a restorative justice process with residents affected by the protest.
Const. Kristina Neilson faced dismissal after professional misconduct charges were brought against her in September under the Police Services Act, but she ended up receiving a lesser penalty after pleading guilty to discreditable conduct.
OTTAWA — Canada’s spy agency warned the federal government invoking the Emergencies Act could further radicalize Canadians engaged in convoy protests, and push some towards violence.
The information is contained in an undated report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that was presented at the Emergencies Act inquiry on Monday. It surfaced during Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens’s testimony about the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge last winter, part of several protests against pandemic restrictions.
