> I think Canadians have more faith in our institutions, particularly the courts, to remain apolitical.

Speak for yourself. Also consider that an estimated 9% of all Canadians live abroad (mostly in the US and Europe), including up to 25% of professionals in certain industries (doctors, for example, and I'm sure tech is up there too).

Lots of Canadians don't have faith in our institutions. Unfortunately, moving away is easier than changing the docile Canadian mentality and is a better individual choice.

Edit - and for comparison purposes around 1.7% of Americans live abroad.

> Speak for yourself. Also consider that an estimated 9% of all Canadians live abroad

I was speaking for myself, as I see it, as are you. Note that I was one of the 9% living abroad for ~3 years.

> the docile Canadian mentality

I rather disagree with this supposed generalization

> moving away is [..] a better individual choice

Yes, for those who are more professionally desirable (doctors, tech, other professionals as you mention), moving to the US in particular is the "better individual choice", in that you can earn a better living. I certainly could, but I prefer to live here with my fellow docile Canadians.

Are you suggesting that 9% of Canadians live abroad because they don't have faith in national institutions?

I'm one of that 9% and I can tell you that you couldn't be further from the truth.

Institutions means more than courts...

Most Canadians I imagine live abroad for economic reasons. But that in itself is a failure of our institutions; an economy is a reflection of the set of rules created by the government.

Anyhow, some examples:

- Police, it's obvious they can't do their jobs. Between inability to clear protests, all our cities being taken over by crackheads, it's failed.

- Courts: basically catch and release. Murder regularly gets plead down to manslaughter with pathetic sentences

- Municipalities: make starting a physical business damn near impossible. Tons of red tape and random fees, then you get taxed to hell because homeowners can't possibly pay for their share...

- Healthcare: it's a joke. Worst of any country in our income bracket yet Canadians inexplicably think it's not shit.

- Bank of Canada: literally went out and said they're propping up house prices

- Feds: literally said they are bringing in immigrants to reduce wage inflation ie. Prevent wage growth. Trudeau senior capped wage increases for awhile while in power...

Tons more examples of failed institutions in this country...

So tell me, why don't you live in Canada?

I want to live near extended family for a while and have another life experience. Living abroad doesn't mean it's better than Canada but that I want to experience something different for a while.

I'll be back ... None of the issues you listed stand out at all to someone born in Canada but who has lived in 5 countries (mix of very rich, middle income and poor). Ok, I admit the housing price situation bothers me.

To judge by IP addresses, at least, there are a lot of Canadians posting to HN on both sides of this argument. There are also a lot of users from other countries posting on both sides of the argument. The dividing line seems more ideological than national.

Thanks for the insight, Dan. I think that HN does over-represent (relative to population at large) the libertarian viewpoint, but my comments really stemmed from what I've seen of mainstream media coverage of the issue from the two sides of the border.

>I think Canadians have more faith in our institutions, particularly the courts, to remain apolitical.

But in this case they're freezing bank accounts without even going through the courts.

> But in this case they're freezing bank accounts without even going through the courts.

And the emergencies act is being challenged in court, which will determine if this is lawful.

Banks are private entities. They freeze accounts engaged in illegal activities regularly. The US does too - here's one random citation. [1]

[1] https://www.kqed.org/news/11899955/when-banks-turned-their-b...

>And the emergencies act is being challenged in court, which will determine if this is lawful.

The difference is that in liberal democracies, the executive branches has to convince a court before they can act. eg. getting a warrant before doing a search, or getting a conviction before imprisoning someone. The approach of "shoot first, you can sue us in court later" makes a mockery of this.

>Banks are private entities. They freeze accounts engaged in illegal activities regularly. The US does too - here's one random citation. [1]

They're both bad. This is just slightly worse because the government is directing businesses into targeting their political enemies.

In this case the executive didn't do any convincing, the legislature did. It's a parliamentary system - the executive is an extension of the legislature.

> The difference is that in liberal democracies, the executive branches has to convince a court before they can act. eg. getting a warrant before doing a search, or getting a conviction before imprisoning someone. The approach of "shoot first, you can sue us in court later" makes a mockery of this.

Uh no, not really. I'm going to presume you're comparing with the US. Do you forget that the US kidnapped, imprisoned and murdered random people, including American citizens without any judicial oversight? Not to mention sweeping surveillance with laughable pretense of judicial oversight ( FISA courts)?

Executive branches have lots of power, and that power is controlled via checks and balances, the judicial and legislative branches ( in many countries the executive branch' power comes from the legislative and is directly beholden to it ( where PMs are sitting MPs)).

>Uh no, not really. I'm going to presume you're comparing with the US. Do you forget that the US kidnapped, imprisoned and murdered random people, including American citizens without any judicial oversight? Not to mention sweeping surveillance with laughable pretense of judicial oversight ( FISA courts)?

And? That's just as bad. I'm saying canada's actions are bad because they go against how liberal democracies should work, not against how the US works in practice

>Executive branches have lots of power

That's exactly why I'm concerned.

>and that power is controlled via checks and balances, the judicial and legislative branches ( in many countries the executive branch' power comes from the legislative and is directly beholden to it ( where PMs are sitting MPs)).

And 9/11 in the US shows how easily the populace can be convinced to abandon those liberal democracy ideals given a threat.

The key here is that these people are not engaged in illegal activities or even accused of engaging in illegal activities before their accounts are frozen and before they have been given any chance to defend themselves. Rapists and murderers don’t even get treated this badly. They are treating them like terrorists.

> The key here is that these people are not engaged in illegal activities or even accused of engaging in illegal activities before their accounts are frozen

What stood out the most about these protests, vs most other large protests in recent Canadian history, is how many warnings the participants received. They were told time and time and time again by every party involved that their conduct was illegal - from the police as well as from municipal, provincial, and federal level. They were even given a court injunction against certain specific actions (horn honking), which was largely ignored after the first 24 hrs. They were engaged in illegal activities for weeks before this action was taken.

That has nothing to do with freezing accounts of donors, or blocking donations.

> That has nothing to do with freezing accounts of donors, or blocking donations.

Yes, it does. The donations were specifically to fund an activity that had been deemed illegal. Similar to the other things tracked by FINTRAC.

I have seen only one claim of a donor being targeted, and quite frankly, I didn't trust the source, but it is possible. The RCMP issued a statement [1] yesterday clarifying that the only information they had provided to banks was regarding organizers and trucks blocking the street (both groups were made explicitly aware that their behaviour was illegal and would have consequences).

[1] https://blockade.rcmp.ca/news-nouvelles/ncr-rcn211130-s-d-en...

But they are engaged in illegal activities, which you can find with a cursory Google search. And blocking borders and pipelines can arguably be classified as economic terrorism.

They are fully welcome to protest peacefully, on foot, in front of parliament like everyone else.

>But they are engaged in illegal activities, which you can find with a cursory Google search.

So were rapists and murderers, but even they have a right to a fair trial.

That has nothing to do with freezing accounts of donors, or blocking donations.

Donating money is illegal?

Yes, donating money can be illegal depending on what it is being donated to. Here[1]'s a list of financial transactions that would be tracked in Canada.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Transactions_and_Rep...

Banks freeze accounts under the effective duress and cover of the government, because freezing money is stealing money from someone, even if you (might) give it back one day. If they didn't have the cover of the government then they would be under a ton of liability.

Much like how taking someone's car, even if you plan to give it back one day, maybe, if you think they deserve it, is still theft.

Because banks do it under duress, it's really the government that is doing this, not the bank itself.

Where is towing tresspassing cars illegal?

A better analogy would be: you park your car illegally, and the city then goes into your home and takes all your possessions without due process.

One of those institutions is freezing bank accounts.

The courts now get to play a role. https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/kenney-to-launch-l...

Yeah, Kenney's lawsuit is mostly political grandstanding, but I welcome the use of the Act being challenged in court. All this makes our democracy stronger.

How does it "make our democracy stronger"?

A law was on the books for decades but hadn't been used. It has now been used (in a rather restrained way, considering what it could be used for). This use is now being challenged in court, which will likely clarify what restrictions the use of that law actually has. Eg, did it respect the charter appropriately? Was it appropriately justified?

Why does that make democracy stronger? It's just an elaboration of a particular interpretation of the rules by jurists that are probably already not uncomfortable with the state.

The outcome of those deliberations will be to some extent obscure and subject to yet further interpretation and arguments.

That doesn't in, and of itself, make democracy stronger.

I would argue that the use of this Act has already weakened democracy in Canada because it shows that the only response the political systems has to a very minor disruption is to use acts that everyone understood to be for much more extreme situations.

This has already deepened many people's cynicism about the idea of this form of government.

> I would argue that the use of this Act has already weakened democracy in Canada because it shows that the only response the political systems has to a very minor disruption is to use acts that everyone understood to be for much more extreme situations.

Certainly the act was used in response to weaknesses in the system - eg the Ottawa Police Service were unwilling to fine/ticket/otherwise deal with the illegal activity for weeks; crowdfunding sites weren't subject to FINTRAC; etc. Ideally this will lead to proper legislation regarding these weaknesses, removing the necessity of using the Emergencies Act to deal with a similar situation again.

Checks and balances, and legal certainty in either direction.

Legal certainty? It was supposed to be the answer to the problems for the War Measures Act; the Constitution of Transitional Measures Act; the Emergency Powers Act; the Public Order (Temporary Measures) Act and some others I have forgotten.

I would argue that laws only mean what they are interpreted to mean by a particular governmental body at a particular time.

And you can in addition have a coherent, clear and easily interpretable body of laws and measures which result in a society which lacks many of the features of what people like to imagine is a "democracy".

There's still a level of certainty that comes from "this law survived legal review by the courts" that I find some value in.

Fair enough. It's better than nothing, but probably not good enough. We'll be seeing more of this sort of problem as living standards decline under climate destruction and the buffers separating us from more direct conflict of interest thin out.

This made me lose confidence in our government and in our banking institutions.

I would like to protect our constitutional rights, but I feel that Canada is too far gone.

Our prime minister called the protesters racists, declare emergency act, froze bank accounts of people who donated.

I am thinking about moving out.

In fairness, the leaders of this protest are on video literally discussing topics that would be considered racist (ie: depopulation of the white race).

If I had access to my laptop I'd locate the video (self-filmed) where Pat King discusses this exact topic. Someone may be able to find this for us.

Edit: found with great difficulty on my phone - https://mobile.twitter.com/VestsCanada/status/11779958944085...

Why would that matter? Should I take away your rights if I disagree with your views?

Ultimately the true test for the existence of guaranteed rights is if those who you and the majority of people absolutely hate and despise have their rights guaranteed and protected in the same way and with the same vehemence as those of the average Joe.

A right lives and dies by our willingness to protect it for those who we hate.

Being sad/concerned that your culture is going away is not the same as racism against people.

If they were planning an attack on a group of people based on their race it would qualify, but that’s far from this.

You can be against immigration (to protect your culture, the gains of your country) without being against individual of any race.

I'm canadian. That's not true for me, nor many people I know. Canadians have "liberal elites" just like the US, and they tend to over represent on HN, but there is not some Canadian phenomenon about trust in institutions. We have apathy and only get politically involved when we absolutely have to, if I have to stereotype. But it's certainly not because we trust "institutions" especially. I've heard this only recently as a general talking point abou Democrats/liberals, but it seems like something that just got made up to justify current support of orthodoxy. It certainly wouldn't have been true on the George W Bush days for example.