Perhaps bad phrasing, it is an emotional issue having lived through it.

I like to think that I don't live in a country ruled by a King but rather in a community of citizens who have collectively agreed on a way of doing things. This includes the right to express dissent against other citizens to whom we have delegated certain decision-making responsibilities. A permit isn't about seeking permission; it's about ensuring an orderly process so that things don't devolve into chaos and bouncy castles.

At the time, I think we were also in stage 2 lockdown(which should have been enough to stop it), so the people bearing the brunt of these actions, whatever you want to label it as, were not the ones making those decisions. Our elected officials don't live inside Parliament Hill.

> A permit isn't about seeking permission

Then they need to be renamed.

In Canada, we have the inherent right to assemble as granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; therefore, I don’t need permission, which is discretionary.

Permits in this context represent authorization that establishes procedures for exercising this right on property administered by government, which ensure things like public safety without infringing on any rights or freedoms of the protestors or other citizens.

The inherent tension has always been "How much of an asshole does my freedom to protest allow me to be?"

Because protesting has always been about, to some degree, inconveniencing others to achieve your political aims.

>In Canada, we have the inherent right to assemble as granted by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;

Playing devil's advocate here: what if it wasn't mentioned in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? What if the CRF didn't exist to start with?

(my point being that when things are very bad, certain things need to be done regardless of what a formal law states, you cannot let tyranny call the shots)

A permit is literally about seeking permission to do something from an authority - the absence of which, makes the activity illegal.

>I like to think that I don't live in a country ruled by a King

Canada is ruled by the British king/queen, even if only symbolically.

>A permit isn't about seeking permission

A permit is permission in granted form. Perhaps you meant something else, it's a poor choice of words.

> I like to think that I don't live in a country ruled by a King but rather in a community of citizens who have collectively agreed on a way of doing things

That is what a protest is. The collective agrees, not their rulers.

> A permit isn't about seeking permission; it's about ensuring an orderly process so that things don't devolve into chaos and bouncy castles.

I don't agree here, and even if that were so, there's a stark difference between the original intention and the ultimate use of permission as a tool.

I don't agree with your last point. In a democracy, we have elections at a cadence. If you disagree with protest permits, you are welcome to stand up in the next election, or vote for a representative who will.

We can elections yearly or monthly but man .. how unproductive that would be. The lowered cost of tech may indeed improve participatory democracy.

I see the system working in all of this btw. I support Trudeau but am okay if the liberals get voted out.

Except they weren’t protesting or inconveniencing the government or the oligarchs, just their fellow citizens.

Which seems to have inconvenienced the government enough they had an outsized reaction, yes?

You don't need a permit to protest in Ottawa, on foot, unamplified in a location where you do not block others. You do need a permit to block the streets with your protest. Those are readily and regularly granted -- if the city didn't grant them the courts will force them to. Once you get that permit, you'll get a police escort to block the street for you.

I took part in one political protest in my life. The leaders spent most of their efforts screaming at us “stay out of the road and don’t block the sidewalk!”

We were encouraged to bring our kids, and criticized by the opposition for doing so. Our kids had a great time and learned the value political participation.

The protest was 100% successful at it achieving its one, narrow aim.