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Comment by hpkuarg | Hacker News Reader

Emergency powers that suspend fundamental civil liberties without judicial oversight are, in a democracy, only justifiable in times of an existential crisis of the nation. One can hardly see how the trucker protests qualify as such.

Very disappointing to see.

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You will undoubtedly be told to not believe your lying eyes. You will hear people describing protesters who didn't so much as throw a pebble at police or anyone else called terrorists, white supremacists, insurrectionists, etc. This is a calculated effort to change the meaning of words (again) in service of eliminating the basis of law in the West: individual freedom.

Emergency powers passed by a simple majority is also ridiculous. How come it’s not 2/3 or 3/4. So if you have a majority in parliament feel free to just declare emergencies at your leisure?

Agreed, a simple majority for emergency powers is ridiculous. I'd go with at least a 4/5 threshold myself. More than that, any invocation of emergency powers should force a public confidence vote for every elected official when the (strictly limited & non-extensible) duration of the emergency powers expires, where any incumbent who can't achieve at least a simple majority of support following their handling of the emergency is barred from political office for life. That ought to make them think twice about whether declaring an emergency is really worthwhile.

There is too much partisanship for the last part. So many people would salivate at the chance of banning their enemies for life.

> One can hardly see how the trucker protests qualify as such

There are multiple facets to the protests.

- Blocking the bridge that was responsible for a sizeable percentage of trade between US and Canada goes far beyond a protest and any government would be well within their right to classify this as an emergency.

- You had US-based, armed, ultra-right wing militia elements who weren't trying to protest at all but rather sow discord. These were the types wanting to overthrow the government. Which meant that police weren't able to control the situation and there were legitimate concerns about it getting out of hand.

Wasn't the ambassador bridge cleared before the emergency was declared?

To your second point.. I've watched mainstream media in Canada and watched livestreams coming out of Ottawa, and have no heard of this _at all_. Is there actual evidence of this?

They left it up to local enforcement to clear the protest.

When they were deemed unable to is when the emergency decree went into effect.

And the Canadian government stated that some portion of the protests were either part of or linked to US militia groups:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/16/ottawa-blockad...

>You had US-based, armed, ultra-right wing militia elements who weren't trying to protest at all but rather sow discord

Reputable source or it didn't happen.

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