COVID restrictions lifting in Canada

Even as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doubles down on COVID restrictions at the federal level, at least two provincial Prime Ministers already are undercutting him. Furthermore, morale in the Ottawa Police Force and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has suffered. Quite simply, Justin Trudeau is losing support for his COVID restrictions and actions against the Freedom Convoy.

Current state of COVID restrictions in Canada

At present, all federal-level COVID restrictions remain in force, including the ones that started all the trouble. Trudeau ordered a vaccine mandate for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canadian border. The Freedom Convoy organized in protest against that mandate. According to several reports truckers shut down the Ambassador Bridge across the Detroit River between Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. (At last report that bridge has fully reopened to traffic.)

While the Ambassador Bridge is now open, the Freedom Convoy has virtually shut down the capital city of Ottawa. This has created minimal tensions from Ottawa citizens. Some citizens have counter-protested, including one who ranted and raved and screamed at the top of his lungs.

But in stark contrast, many Canadian groups are keeping the truckers supplied with food and fuel, and often offered hot meals and hot showers.

Elsewhere, most provincial government have their own restrictions. But already two of them – Alberta and Saskatchewan – have announced that their COVID restrictions will end this month.

In the meantime, of course, GoFundMe now wears a black eye for their conduct. The alternative crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo is working well and has raised $7.4 million U.S. at the time of this writing.

Threats and other bad acts from Prime Minister Trudeau

The Prime Minister has acted in a manner not consistent with his running a democratic republic. Yesterday he cut off Internet service to and through Ottawa, to try to cut off the Freedom Convoy. This, and some heavier than usual Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) Attack activity, disrupted “transmission-sensitive” Internet usage throughout the United States. Your editor and a fellow administrator here at CNAV can attest directly to this disruption. CNAV apologizes to any reader who might have found our site slow to load.

Furthermore, Trudeau now threatens to prosecute American donors to the Freedom Convoy. The reports coming out of Canada suggest Trudeau will task his country’s intelligence services, and the Mounties, with these criminal investigations. “Foul play!” screams one official. “Angry, loud, intolerant crowd” he says to describe the truckers. How he intends to prosecute Americans in America, or gain the sympathy of his people, is far from clear.

The undercuts begin

But, as CNAV mentioned above, two provincial Prime Minsters already are moving to undercut Trudeau. Jason Kenney, Prime Minister of Alberta, said this to Radio Canada:

It is clear that we passed the peak of our current infections about three weeks ago and are now seeing the result as COVID-related hospital admissions are declining.

And:

It has always been the government’s approach to keep public health measures in place only so long as they are absolutely necessary to protect public health and our health-care system throughout the pandemic.

Last, he said this:

The threat of COVID-19 to public health no longer outweighs the hugely damaging impact of health restrictions on our society, on people’s mental health, on their emotional wellbeing, on our broader social health.

So now it is time to begin learning to live with COVID.

If that were all to his remarks, one could believe that those wanting their freedom, expressed a willingness to wager their lives on that freedom. To be specific, they wagered they would not drop like flies absent the restrictions. So Prime Minister Kenney took the wager. Smart move.

But that’s not all. Evidently Trudeau threatened to slap on an intra-provincial trucker vaccine mandate. Mr. Kenney effectively said, “Oh, yeah? Well, we’ll see about that!”

Prime Minister Scott Moe of Saskatchewan will have all mandates gone by the end of February. He will not renew masking or self-quarantine mandates past that time. Furthermore he will end vaccine passports on Valentine’s Day.

COVID restrictions and enforcement provoke resignations

But of course Prime Minister Trudeau has doubled down on restrictions. He has also tasked the Ottawa Police Force with some often brutal activity. In one case, a 78-year-old citizen honked his horn in solidarity with the Convoy. Ottawa Police officers knocked him down and arrested him. Whether that arrest was even lawful is not clear. A judge did order no use of air horns or train horns in Ottawa for ten days. Did that include the typical electric car horn? No one seems to know. Another citizen shot this cellphone video:

Separately, Ottawa police officers have arrested people for bringing food and water to the Convoy. In one incident they confiscated six cans of Diesel fuel and/or propane – out of 100 on hand.

But not all members of the police force, nor all Mounties, feel that way. We now learn that

A top-ranking Ottawa Police staff sergeant has resigned his position, likely over a disagreement with the city’s policing philosophy towards the Freedom Convoy.

Elsewhere, the Mountie who has been Justin Trudeau’s personal protector for eight years, now has resigned – from the detail and from the Mounties. He explained his reasons in this ten-minute video. In it he said Trudeau is violating people’s basic rights, and he won’t stand for it any longer.

And last:

A source inside the police department told the Telegraph that there have also been unusually high rates of officers taking stress leave, vacation days, and sick days, seen by many as an indicator that front-line officers are not happy with the directions they are receiving from their political leaders.

Earlier rumors had it that half the Ottawa Police Force had resigned. That hasn’t panned out, but this massive sick-out and stress-out shows that morale has sunk low enough. We can take away from this that some people do become policemen to have license to bully others. Others don’t. Now that the Mayor of Ottawa and Prime Minister Trudeau are using bullying as instruments of public policy, the non-bullies are balking.

This could tee up an actual violent clash with police. But will it? Or will so many police resign that those who don’t, cannot move effectively?

CNAV will continue to alert readers to developments as they unfold. Or in TV parlance: stay tuned.