February 12th, 2022, 3:35 pm
The Canadian truck convoy protestors are a motley collection of just what one would expect to be involved in such a protest - racists, science-deniers, gun nuts, misogynists, all spectacularly misinformed f**k-wits. It is already known that foreign money has flowed in from very dangerous players in US and elsewhere, Putin could easily have a hand in this. The protesters are being used by much more dangerous people and they are of course blissfully unaware of it.
The major practical problem is, as always in Canada, one of jurisdiction. Unlike Washington DC, the Canadian capitol, Ottawa, does not have any special territorial status within Canada, so the federal government cannot intrude into provincial and municipal affairs without either being invited by the provinces or declaring the War Measures Act. Biden’s people embarrassed themselves earlier this week by plainly demonstrating they do not understand the constitutional differences in Canada – Trudeau can only act by declaring a life and death national emergency.
The Premier of the main province involved, Ontario, is facing an election in June, and was until a day or two ago simply too cowardly to act, wanting the feds to take the (unconstitutional) lead to the response so that the feds would take the flack for it. Things are in motion now given that the Ontario Premier has finally acted, and the end may now be in sight.