peace

Thursday June 30, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 30, 2022

Ottawa braced for Canada Day protest by ‘freedom convoy’ supporters

Members of anti-vax convoy have vowed to maintain a presence over the summer initially mingling with the annual celebrations

April 30, 2022

Residents of downtown Ottawa are bracing for a Canada Day unlike any other, after “freedom convoy” protesters vowed to return to Parliament Hill on 1 July, and maintain a presence over the remainder of the summer.

Every Canada Day, people congregate on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to watch musical performances and fireworks on the anniversary of Canadian confederation. This year, it will probably be difficult for police to distinguish between celebrators and convoy members – which is what protesters are banking on.

In late January, groups opposed to vaccine and mask mandates drove tractor-trailers and other large vehicles into Ottawa’s downtown core and set up camp. The ensuing three-week occupation of the capital city was a traumatic experience for many locals, who faced harassment, incessant noise and other unwelcome encounters, said Ariel Troster, a candidate for city council in Ottawa’s Somerset ward.

“Many people were driven from their homes, many were subjected to harassment, there were at least two cases where people defecated on people’s front steps. There were reports of apartment buildings where convoy people took over the laundry room and wouldn’t leave,” said Troster. “Not to mention the symbols of hatred, which were quite visible not just on the Hill but in the neighbourhoods.”

February 8, 2022

Group communications on Telegram, YouTube videos and other channels show convoy sympathisers believe in white replacement theory and other conspiracies. QAnon activists and propaganda were often seen at the wintertime occupation.

It ultimately cost the city $36m in policing costs and has resulted in a proposed class action lawsuit against protest organisers.

Now that Canada has dropped most mandates, the convoyers appear to be demanding Justin Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister. They have been gaining traction with Conservative politicians, recently having held a meeting with their “allies” in parliament.

The Ottawa police service (OPS) has pledged to foil any new attempt to occupy the city. The force is under immense pressure to get Canada Day right after its many failures to police the previous occupation.

June 30, 2021

At a police services board meeting on Monday, the interim OPS chief, Steve Bell, said a heightened police presence and road barricades limiting the number of vehicles permitted downtown may not be able to keep convoyers arriving on foot away, but it will prevent people from setting up camp.

“Canada Day’s a very important day to Canadians. It’s a day where we celebrate our country and all the good things in it. But people, when they come, they need to be lawful. And they need to be respectful of our community,” Bell said. (The Guardian) 

 

Wednesday February 23, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 23, 2022

Was funding for Canada’s vaccine protests linked to Putin’s plans for Ukraine?

Joe Biden’s administration had two different and seemingly disparate international crises on its hands Friday when Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, strode to the podium in the White House briefing room.

January 22, 2022

Sullivan’s message was chilling: If Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to invade Ukraine, he said, it could happen before the end of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, which are scheduled to wrap up this coming Sunday.

At the same time, the White House had grown worried enough about the COVID-19 protests blocking vital commercial trade corridors at the Canada-U.S. border that it urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take a harder line.

Experts in both countries are wondering if the two situations have more in common than an initial glance might suggest.

Bessma Momani, a political-science professor at the University of Waterloo and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said she sees earmarks of Russia’s foreign interference techniques in the social-media maelstrom surrounding the protests in Canada.

“The Russian strategy has always been about divide, right? Sow dissent from within,” Momani said in an interview Monday.

February 11, 2022

The goal, she said, is to feed and foster the narrative — already well on its way in the U.S., but less so in Canada — that western-style democracies are prone to instability, insecurity and social upheaval.

“They picked up on this idea of culture wars and identity politics being yet another demonstration that democracy doesn’t work. And so it really is part of their strategy.”

Online news startup Grid reported last week that a single, stolen account was responsible for administering four of the most prominent Facebook groups at the centre of organizing and promoting the protests, which have entered their third week.

And NBC News has reported that the protests, originally branded as a “trucker convoy” comprising drivers angry at being forced to get vaccinated against COVID-19, were being promoted by fake accounts connected to so-called “content mills” in Bangladesh, Romania, Vietnam and elsewhere.

July 23, 2020

Momani said she suspects Canada’s global reputation as a stable liberal democracy in proximity to the U.S. has made it a tempting target for Russian hackers. She added the ensuing pandemonium has also provided Putin with a welcome distraction as he continues to amass troops, equipment and weapons near the Ukrainian border.

“If they were not patient zero behind this, they certainly helped add oxygen because the timing was appropriate for them,” she said.

“It’s going to be hard to pinpoint it, to completely say it’s all Russian intervention, but I have absolutely no doubt that they have their hand in this in some way.”

January 30, 2020

John Weaver, a professor of intelligence analysis at the York College of Pennsylvania, said it’s difficult to determine with any precision if Russia has been involved in sparking the social unrest on display in Canada.

But the fact that Canada is a prominent U.S. ally and trading partner, a G7 nation, a NATO member and part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network would make it a perfectly viable target, Weaver said.

“I believe it’s highly probable that they have some skin in this fight, but the degree to which that they do, I just don’t know,” he said. (National Observer) 

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to enter the Russian-controlled areas of southeast Ukraine following a decision to recognize the territories as independent states.

The decision to dispatch his troops to perform “peacekeeping duties” will be viewed in Ukraine and by other western allies as an occupation of the region and likely trigger tough sanctions and a Ukrainian military response. (The Guardian) 

 

Saturday February 19, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 19, 2022

Majority have lost faith in Canada’s ability to keep peace and order in wake of trucker protests: poll

February 10, 2022

After weeks of protests snarling downtown Ottawa and blockading border crossings, nearly two-thirds of Canadians have lost faith in the ability of the country to maintain peace, order and good government and 53 per cent have lost faith in the enforcement of the law, according to a new poll.

The Maru Public Opinion poll, done from Feb. 15 to Feb. 16, found that 71 per cent of Canadians would vote for a “strong-willed person” who will enforce law and order, regardless of what political party they’re from.

This view is strongest in Quebec (86 per cent) and in British Columbia (74 per cent). In Ontario and Alberta — both provinces with conservative premiers — this number drops to 66 per cent, followed by 63 per cent in Atlantic Canada and 62 per cent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

“Whether people know it or not, our daily politics and our ability to do things in this country is founded on the principle of peace, order and good government,” said John Wright, executive vice president of Maru Public Opinion. “That speaks to the door that opens to some form of populism that exists in other countries.”

Saturday February 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 29, 2020

Blockades have exposed the contradictions of Justin Trudeau’s ambitious reconciliation agenda 

The on-again-off-again rail blockades in support of a handful of Indigenous hereditary chiefs have demonstrated how easy it is to bring Canada to a halt. They have also underscored the contradictions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ambitious reconciliation agenda.

June 3, 2015

Trudeau came to power five years ago vowing to make reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people his No. 1 priority. And to some degree, he delivered.

Under his Liberal government, more (but not all) First Nation reserves gained access to potable water. A commission of inquiry was set up to look into why so many Indigenous women and girls went missing or were murdered in recent years.

But the centre point of the reconciliation agenda was political. The Trudeau Liberals vowed to establish respectful nation-to-nation relationships with Indigenous peoples, one that would eventually redefine their legal relationship to the Crown.

July 13, 2017

Among other things, the Liberals promised to write the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which in its present form is an unenforceable statement of general principles, into Canadian law.

However, exactly what was meant by a nation-to-nation relationship was left unclear. Did the Liberals mean nation in a vague cultural sense, in the way that Quebec is viewed as a nation inside Canada? Or did they mean something more substantive?

More to the point, with whom would the federal government have this political relationship? Elected band councils? Hereditary chiefs? Or both?

July 23, 2019

In much of Canada, this question is moot. But in British Columbia, Southern Ontario and Quebec — where traditional clan-based governments remain strong — it is not.

In B.C., there is a second wrinkle. Unlike the rest of Canada, few treaties have been signed with First Nations in that province. To whom then, does the land not covered by treaties belong?

Many First Nation leaders, including the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en, argue that since this land has never been ceded, it belongs to them.

If that were true, the argument goes, then the hereditary chiefs alone have the right to decide who enters this land and who, if anyone, polices it.

For the governing Liberals, committed as they are to respectful nation-to-nation relationships, this is a hard argument to counter.

But if the Wet’suwet’en have the right to keep outsiders from their traditional lands, then surely so do other First Nations — including the Mohawks of Tyendinaga near Belleville, Ont.

February 13, 2020

That, at least, was the logic behind the decision of some Mohawks and their allies to block the CN Rail main line for days on end, an action that threw much of the country into an economic tailspin.

The Liberal government tried to resolve that blockade by sending Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller to Tyendinaga to engage in a respectful, nation-to-nation political relationship.

That took nine hours and accomplished nothing.

Eventually, with Ottawa’s implicit blessing, the Ontario Provincial Police went in and arrested protestors. That, in turn, provoked more rail blockades. (Toronto Star) 

 

Saturday February 2, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 2, 2019

No victory for U.S. as it leaves Afghanistan

The long and pointless Afghan War may finally be coming to an end. If so, this will be a relief for the U.S. and its coalition allies operating there. It certainly won’t be a victory.

June 21, 2013

The broad strokes of a deal in principle between the United States and Taliban insurgents were released this week. They are not likely to bring much solace to the families of soldiers — including Canadians — who fought and died in the 17-year-old conflict.

There is no mention of ensuring that girls can go to school, which at one point was given by Canada’s government as the rationale for this war.

There is no mention of defeating the “scumbags” as Canada’s then top general Rick Hillier described the Taliban. Indeed, it seems likely that the Taliban will be guaranteed a major political role in the country.

There is no mention of bringing democracy and development to Afghanistan — another of the Canadian government’s ostensible reasons for the war.

 

March 11, 2009

The essence of the deal, as described to the New York Times by chief U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad, is simple and familiar.

The Taliban will ensure that terrorists don’t use Afghanistan as a base to attack the West. The Americans, along with the 38 allied nations still operating there, will withdraw their troops.

Ironically, the agreement in principle bears a marked resemblance to the offer that Afghanistan’s then Taliban government made to the U.S. in 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Don’t invade, the Taliban said then. And in return we will expel terror mastermind Osama bin Laden to a third country. (Continued: Toronto Star)