“Criminalizing Dissent”

Mendicino willing to talk about changing CSIS’s legal authority after Emergencies Act hearings

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says he’s open to discussing changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s legal authority after the spy agency’s chief signalled during the Emergencies Act inquiry that his organization needs “critical” reform.

CSIS’s key mandate is to investigate activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of the country, and to report to the Government of Canada. But the definition in law of such threats under the Emergencies Act turned out to be a key point of contention during the inquiry.

Organizers of the original “Freedom Convoy” protest that paralyzed downtown Ottawa for three weeks in early 2022 say they’re bringing a new convoy to Winnipeg this winter.

In a Facebook post, Canada Unity shared a live video in which they proclaimed that a “world unity convoy” would be held in the Manitoba capital Feb. 17 to 20, 2023.

In the video, Canada Unity founder James Bauder said they chose Winnipeg because it’s the middle point of Canada.

OTTAWA — A lawyer for some organizers of this year’s so-called “Freedom Convoy” protest in Ottawa is being sued for defamation.

The public affairs firm Enterprise Canada said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that it had filed a lawsuit against Brendan Miller, alleging he falsely accused the company and one of its employees of being involved in the weeks-long event.

As security departments and agencies are making preparations for the arrival of another Freedom Convoy in Ottawa this winter, it is likely the vehicle-based protest won’t actually be visiting the capital, an organizer told The Epoch Times.

Social media personality Andy Lee says that the city chosen to hold the event and the convoy routes leading to it will be released on Christmas Day.

The massive convoy of demonstrators that rolled into Ottawa this past winter loudly heralded a new era in Canadian politics, with blaring horns and the rumble of hundreds of idling engines.

The weeks-long “Freedom Convoy” protests in Ottawa and the kindred demonstrations that appeared at provincial legislatures and international border crossings aimed to force governments to end COVID-19 public health restrictions and vaccine mandates.

The sound of blaring horns that echoed through this village 10 months ago has been replaced by the steady hum of semi-trailer trucks filing through the border crossing between Alberta and the United States.

There is an undercurrent in the community of 250 people, belied by a smiley face on its water tower that suggests an ongoing division dating back to three weeks in late January, when a convoy of truckers and their supporters shut the border in protest of COVID-19 restrictions.

There was hope that time and community events over the year would provide healing

Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.

The heavy perils we face today include centralized governments micromanaging society, the growing prospect of global war, the growing prospect of forced surrender, and the replacement of reasoned debate and free speech with state-sanctioned “narratives” and censorship: totalitarian governance seems not far behind. This is a new kind of war against civilians for control of their minds.

The torrents engulfing us appear to be potentially catastrophic. In a few short years, the world has endured the COVID-19 pandemic, forced government lockdowns, extreme economic volatility, commodity shortages, and the World Economic Forum’s attempts to exploit this cascade of crises as an excuse to usher in a structural “Great Reset” in which global food and energy consumption can be strictly regulated according to the “climate change” goals of an unelected cabal. Governments are relying increasingly on controlling public “narratives” and vilifying dissent.

A majority of Canadians now oppose the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in February to counteract the Freedom Convoy protests, according to a recent poll.

Mainstreet Research polled over 1,260 Canadians over the age of 18 between Dec. 6 and Dec. 8 on their political views. One question asked, “Has your mind changed on whether the prime minister was right/wrong to invoke the Act?”

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and its former chief had no choice but to allow thousands of trucks to flood the city’s downtown during the initial stages of last winter’s convoy protest in the capital, and feared stopping them risked making a bad situation worse.

That’s according to closing submissions published Tuesday by the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is probing the federal government’s decision on Feb. 14 to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the occupation of Ottawa and similar blockades elsewhere.

This whole exercise was just a pantomime of democracy. Nothing can or will come of it beyond a reinforced knowledge that Justin Trudeau is the worst PM Canada has ever known and our ruling class is equally despicable.