Zero countries in the West enacted anything resembling martial law. The only freedoms abridged were those of movement and assembly, and even then the penalty was being shut down or ticketed, rarely jail, never summary execution.
I'd agree with this characterisation.
> I'd agree with this characterisation.
I consider it an occupation of the capital. If re-establishing public order by forcing lawbreakers to leave is martial law, then so be it. It needed to happen.
There have been successful long-running protests in Ottawa in the past, including encampments outside the national legislature, without any hard response. Sticking dozens or hundreds of trucks belching diesel fuels and blaring horns in the central part of the national capital for a month, and preventing police from keeping order, goes beyond any normal protest.
This is independent of the claim that it didn't happen ("Zero countries in the West enacted anything resembling martial law"). We're just talking about whether martial law was imposed, not whether it was unjustified.
Rather than "freedom of movement and assembly", I'd argue that what we lost was "freedom of due process". Everyone was jailed, just in their own homes.
Your freedom of movement is always restricted around e.g. U.S. military installations. That isn't a contradition, it's an abridgement.
> what we lost was "freedom of due process". Everyone was jailed, just in their own homes
Not what jail means. Not what due process means. Plenty of people broke the restrictions, some might have gotten ticketed. For those who faced jail time, they had access to courts. That is due process. You don't get any of that under martial law.
There was no curfew, particularly no curfew enforced by the military with threat of violence... ah, except during actual riots in a few cities.
Businesses were forced to close alongside many non-essential government services.
Nobody was jailed, not even in their own homes.
Enforcement was through ordinary civil means, not by actual soldiers pointing guns at you, unaccountable to civilian law.
This isn't "close" to martial law.
No other freedoms were abridged. The consequence for breaking the rule were mostly fines. And those fines were subject to judicial review, which eventually found them unconstitutional [1].
Under martial law you don't get a court. You don't get a fine or to complain about it online. You get sent to jail or worse; someone checking IDs is going over the top.
Everyone else knew the difference between masks and literal martial law.
[1] https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/martial-law-isnt-imminent/