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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

The city or the province could have done that. They didn't. The Feds could only use federal reasons.

The mishandled response to the trucker protest should be blamed on the city and the province, not on Trudeau.

There is room for two failures. The province should have enforced the provincial law, and the feds should not have have taken action through the banking sector.

But this leads to the question if the province is not doing it's job, what do you do as the feds?

Not saying they did right, but curious.

My preference would be that the fed enforce the laws on the books themselves (if they have the power to do so), or pressure the province to do so (using the democratic leverage available).

They tried that for weeks and it didn’t work. So what did you want them to do.

Are there no federal police or laws that are applicable? Is there no federal funding that goes to the province that can be used as leverage?

Those would be my starting place.

There’s no federal police, the government can make their resources available but it’s up to the province to use them or not. And sure, you could use funding, but there’s no guarantee that that would have solved the problem. The province could have kept digging their heels in.

Arent there 30,000 Mounties capable of enforcing the law?

Sure, but like I said the federal government can’t deploy them, only the provinces. And the premier of Ontario is a drug addict nimby conservative that hates trudeau, so he refused to do anything about it.

Interesting, I'm somewhat shocked that the fed has no ability to direct and deploy the Mounties, but I wont argue with a Canadian. That said, I think the democratic solution is to act through ones representatives, impeach the premier, ect.

I also dont see why the emergency act, if declared, couldn't be used to enforce existing laws and remove the truckers.

I think my core point is that there are conventional and broadly accepted methods to take when people are breaking the law. People breaking the law does not provide a blank check to stop them by any means desired.

It’s a whole thing because Quebec threatened to secede in the 80s, so the federal government doesn’t intervene unless provinces ask for it. I’m not sure about the legal basis for it either though hahaha.

And like, I agree with you in general, I just don’t see the action as an abuse of power. The economic intervention was also accompanied by on the ground action, as you said should have happened. At the time there were lots of questions about foreign interference in funding the protest, that’s why their accounts were frozen.

> what do you do as the feds?

I don't know exactly how Federalism works in Canada but the answer is their jobs. If that doesn't entail stepping in to provincial business, they shouldn't do anything.

There doesn't always have to be something done.

This is very easy to say as someone who wasn’t affected by the situation. Most people supported the federal governments decision.

Provinces are absolutely responsible, policing is all on them.

Ultimately, the responsibility rests with the truckers, period.

Trudeau was the one who triggered the protests in the first place.

The liberal, moral, fast and peaceful solution to the trucker protests was simple: stop forcing people to take experimental drugs against their will. The vaccines didn't reduce transmission, and there is no rule against living life in a risky way (even if you believe the vaccines worked at all), so there was never any moral argument for the mandates. The truckers were right to protest, as Trudeau and the Canadian people were doing them a severe injustice.

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I'm an Ontario resident.

Every single vaccine or gathering mandate I experienced was either provincial (Conservatives) or municipal (also conservative for Toronto and georgetown where I live).that they barked up the completely wrong tree is the breathtakingly depressing stupidity behind the whole thing.

Don't believe me? Alberta Conservatives did not have same policies. Then they begged BC and Saskatchewan for ICU beds but that's besides the point - provinces and municipalities had freedom to enact different policies.

Also in Ontario. I am still very confused how none of this seems to have affected Doug Ford. This was the most mandated, school-closed, shut-things-down jurisdiction in North America at the time. And somehow Trudeau is apparently to blame for it all, and Ford is still... electable?

Meanwhile the feds only had jurisdiction over borders and airports. They acquired the vaccines, but it was the provinces that doled them out and set the policies for what would require them.

At the height of covid Ford even had outdoor ski hills shut down. Crazy times. Some of it made sense, some of it didn't. But I can tell you my neighbours with F Trudeau stickers were very angry about the vaccines, but still somehow are voting for Ford. Confusing.

Provincial governments were a mistake - the average Canadian fundamentally misunderstands the division of powers and responsibilities between federal and provincial governments, and this is remarkably useful for bad actors.

I personally think Chrétien was a terrible offender, since his balanced budgets in the 90’s were a result of pushing responsibilities on the provinces. The current wave of conservative provincial governments have similarly created their own problems (particularly with the international student explosion) while placing all of the blame of the federal government.

Agree on your second point for sure.

Harris/Klein + Chretien was a deadly combination, and more intimately connected than people will admit. Supposed ideological opponents, but the latter created the conditions for the former to thrive.

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