#convoy2022

i know this isn’t quite on topic but in case anyone was wondering how the antivaxx “protest” was going in my city: today the police (relatively gently, with only riot shields and pepper spray) were able to finally clear the occupation. in response large areas of our parliament lawn, including the children’s playground, were deliberately torched, and the protesters hurled bricks dug up out of the paving at the heads of the police and anyone in the way.

the camp was overrun with COVID and full of conspiracy theorists and white nationalists. they used children as human shields. they’ve spent the last three weeks threatening, assaulting, and spitting on civilians who live in the area. just in case you see anything suggesting that these convoy protests are anything but riots carried out by the radicalised and malicious scum of the earth, remember these photos.

The ‘Freedom Convoy’ blockades at major border crossings across the country had to be removed quickly in order to avoid serious, long-term damage to Canada’s economy, finance department officials said Thursday.

The demonstration against COVID-19 public health measures in February saw major ports of entry in Ontario and Alberta blockaded, resulting in a daily trade loss of “around $56 million per day,” finance officials told the Public Order Emergency Commission in an interview, according to a summary.

Read more: Canada border officials warned of threat to ‘attack 2 schools’ amid convoy: memo

Every day the protests continued, the financial hit Canada’s economy took compounded, warned Michael Sabia, deputy minister of the department of finance.

The Conservative Party of Canada’s newly appointed director of communications has strong opinions about “globalists” and “the inception of a new world order.”

Sarah Fischer, a long-time party staffer and 2019 Conservative candidate under Andrew Scheer, announced her new job on Twitter Monday, pledging to work to “make Canada the freest country on earth.”

Within hours, numerous tweets from earlier this year showing the Conservative staffer expressing support for the convoy occupation of Ottawa, including one video of Fischer blowing a truck horn in front of the Rideau Centre.

Unnamed foreign “adversaries” may have leveraged the Canadian “freedom movement” protests to advance their own interests, a newly-disclosed intelligence report suggest.

According to previously secret assessments by the Ontario Provincial Police’s (OPP) intelligence branch, the “available information” on Feb. 19 suggested that foreign actors may have pushed support for the movement, which fueled the convoy blockades in Ottawa and across the country, “to protect or enhance their own strategic economic and political interests.”

The report provides no proof of foreign involvement, and does not indicate where the OPP’s intelligence came from.

Protesters, many with large trucks, occupied central Ottawa streets to rail against COVID-19 health measures and Justin Trudeau's Liberal government. The influx, including some participants who had roots in the far-right movement, prompted many businesses to shut their doors and aggravated residents with noise, diesel fumes and harassing behaviour.

On Feb. 14, the government invoked the Emergencies Act, which allowed for temporary measures including regulation and prohibition of public assemblies, the designation of secure places, direction to banks to freeze assets and a ban on support for participants.

Authorities towed away trucks, arrested more than 200 people and laid hundreds of charges.