People No Longer Know What The Laws Are – What Is Legal Protest?

What started out as a positive and anticipatory movement that seemed to have widespread support from Canadians coast to coast, is now a condemned and criminal operation. Is there anyone who can explain to us how it happened to turn criminal? When did it happen? What did they do that was illegal and criminal?

As a person with no experience in attending or organizing protests, it is next to impossible to understand what the laws are surrounding the protest. Why did they get so much condemnation and punishment? Other protests have been much more violent, where people clearly defied trespassing and Criminal Code laws, yet many of those political activists did not get punished much at all.

Each day raises more and more questions. If people suddenly had bank accounts frozen for sending money to the organization, it means that not only are the protesters targeted, but also those who saw it as a worthy cause and donated money. How could anyone know they were donating to something illegal?

As far as border blockades, no doubt laws do apply, and get enforced. But the protest in Ottawa did not have much clarity with regards to what was legal and what was not legal. The horn honking became an issue, and a ten day injunction was ordered. When it came to the judges orders, apparently she did not find any other charges to enforce, other than a reprieve from the horn honking. So what happened?

After the injunction was issued, for the most part, they did stop honking. The leaders told them to stop honking. They were not counselling people to commit mischief, if honking is considered to be mischief.

I do not understand it. At some point it became illegal. Yet there was no definition other than mischief, which in spite of sounding like a minor charge, can be a very serious charge. Then there is counselling to commit mischief, which is highly subjective. What does it actually mean? I heard people singing Oh Canada a lot while watching live feeds of the protest each day.

There was some rebellion expressed by the protesters, like when hundreds of jerry cans were purchased after police started seizing fuel. Some of the protesters did a jerry can march, but really it was just minor theatre. The fuel was needed to keep the trucks warm, so people wanted to make sure they would not freeze. Was that mischief?

Another term frequently used by the truckers was to “hold the line”. Would a slogan be considered to be counselling to commit mischief? I suppose as time went on, the fact they planned to stay for the long haul was causing important people to become aggravated. The intent was articulated. They were staying until they were acknowledged and heard. It became an annoyance to the PM, the Mayor of Ottawa, and many others.

It seems the sequence of events sums up like this: The protesters were denied a voice, and were vilified at the onset. They dug in, and became annoying. The annoyance was translated into mischief. The mischief became criminal. Key organizers were arrested without bail. It’s almost like something you might read about in history books.

Now Canadians are under the War Measures Act, and once again, we don’t fully understand what that means. We have been getting all the mandates dictated to us through the media. Every day there are more covid updates telling us what we can and cannot do. Otherwise how would we know?

But one of the raw realities this entire scenario has brought home to us, is the unreliability of MSM to present unbiased news. There is a fundamental mistrust of the media, as well as the police. It appears the division between government authority, and the common person has become increasingly divisive.

Canadians are known for being peaceful and law-abiding. But how can we be law-abiding if the laws are changing constantly, and we do not know what they are from one week to the next? What are the laws under the War Measures Act? What does it mean to the average citizen?

Can people donate to charities? What if those charities do not support mandates or QR codes? Could the charitable donations be seized, and bank accounts of all those who make donations frozen? Theoretically this could apply to all churches, and any charity considered to express right wing views. Even though some people do not fully understand political terminology, they could inadvertently support something they thought was legal, yet it could be deemed illegal a week later.

We already know doctors and health care providers cannot speak out against the mandates. We know we must follow a one-sided science that is not open to being questioned or challenged. As the mistrust for the health care system increases, the mistrust for the police has increased since the crackdown in Ottawa.

During the whole ordeal, where so many people were traumatized by the police actions, we watched many eloquent speeches in the House of Commons. But what did we learn? We learned how broken and divided the political spectrum has become. We learned how insignificant we are as Canadian people. We have lost our political innocence.

At the end of the long and tiring ordeal, where many of the systemic fissures and cracks were exposed – we still don’t know what the laws are. How are people supposed to stay out of trouble if they do not know what the laws are?

The original and foundational laws are gone. We now have covid mandates based on covid science, and covid politics. But still – we do not know what the laws are, so please fill us in.

Have we entered the time where certain thoughts and beliefs are not acceptable? Tell us what they are, and what the punishment is for having them. Consider that eight billion people have around 80,000 thoughts per day each – that is an infinite number of thoughts to track. Most people have a hard enough time keeping track of their own thoughts.

We cannot possibly understand what drives other people’s belief systems. We seem to be entering an era of delusion and fantasy, versus truth and reality.

We do have many differences, but it does seem that the innate sense of autonomy and free will is an inherent belief among people in all countries of the world.

People are monitored by Internet usage, social media, QR codes, and cell phone tracking. But even so, how boring.

Maybe I am missing something, but from what I have seen, there is a genuine and heartfelt appeal behind all of this freedom movement. There is a desire to return to the stable foundational laws that we are familiar with. There is an appeal to the government to follow the Constitutional laws and Charter of Rights.

“Cornerstones of democracy include freedom of assembly, association and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.”