“China eats weird animals disease”

The protesters who used semis, farm equipment, campers, and other vehicles to block access to and from the U.S.-Canada border at Coutts, Alta., wound down their demonstration Monday night, with the last holdouts planning to leave the area Tuesday morning.

… “I feel a little defeated,” Isaac Peters said while sitting around the fires Monday night. The mood of the protest changed Monday after RCMP said it arrested 12 people after finding a weapons stash. The Mounties said this cluster joined the protest in its early days but were separate from the larger group. The situation prompted RCMP to suit up in tactical gear, Mr. Peters said, and openly carry large firearms.

From the perspective of freedom-loving citizens in this country, the trucker convoys and blockades protesting mask and vaccine mandates are a stirring spectacle of patriotism, civic responsibility, and true grit. They represent the offset to heavy-handed and arrogant government that is using everything in its power to suppress their efforts: threats, fines, police coercion, theft of property, and the manifestly illegal sequestering of funds donated to the truckers by private individuals. A conflict of this nature is often framed as the state versus the nation, the authorities versus the people. Whether it applies to the current situation, as we will see, is problematic.

An American tech billionaire, two NASA employees and Canadian civil servants are among a leaked list of nearly 100,000 Freedom Convoy donors, according to information released by hackers responsible for taking down the group’s crowdfunding site.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to invoke the never-used Emergencies Act to give his government enhanced authority in response to the anti-vaccine mandate protests and blockades gripping Canada.

If enacted, the law will grant Mr Trudeau’s government extraordinary powers for 30 days – including the power to prohibit public assembly, travel and the use of specific property.

The speculation comes amid weeks of disruptive – and expensive – demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau consulted Canada’s premiers Monday about triggering the federal Emergencies Act to deal with blockades jamming border crossings and the nation’s capital, but faced push back from some First Ministers who were concerned about invoking sweeping powers.

Mr. Trudeau briefed the premiers about the options Ottawa is considering, including the never-used Emergencies Act. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney strongly objected as did Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe and Quebec Premier François Legault, according to two provincial sources.

… One of the sources said Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey were supportive but other premiers wanted to ensure that any response was proportional and worried about emboldening angry protesters.

All Junior needs is Dougie for Ontario alone to be hit.