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...
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.
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)).
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.
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.
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...
They are fully welcome to protest peacefully, on foot, in front of parliament like everyone else.
So were rapists and murderers, but even they have a right to a fair trial.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Transactions_and_Rep...
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.
The courts now get to play a role. https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/kenney-to-launch-l...
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.
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.
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".
But in this case they're freezing bank accounts without even going through the courts.