Tag: canada

Canada Police to Send Names of Trucker Protesters to Financial Institutions

Canadian banks will receive the names of people involved in “Freedom Convoy” protests that have descended on the nation’s capital, a first step in a promised financial crackdown on demonstrators being instituted by the far-left government of Justin Trudeau.

Bloomberg reports the Canadian Bankers Association confirmed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has alerted banks to a list of names and made it available.

The institutions are reportedly still seeking clarity from law enforcement on how to handle the alleged protesters’ accounts, according to people familiar with the matter. But Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said some accounts have already been frozen, the news outlet reported.

Under the Emergencies Act invoked by this week by Trudeau, law enforcement officials have the ability to arrest people for obstruction of roadways and disruptive behaviour within a no-go exclusion zone. They also have the power to seize vehicles and freeze the same bank accounts.

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Tow-Truck Drivers Could Face Arrest For Refusing To Help Clear Canadian Freedom Convoy Trucks

Tow truck drivers may face arrest for refusing to help move trucks involved with Canada’s Freedom Convoy in Ottawa and border areas after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the nation’s Emergencies Act on Monday.

“Tow-truck operators, who have been reluctant to cooperate with the police, will also now be compelled to work with law enforcement agencies to clear Ottawa’s streets and the border crossings at Coutts, Alberta. If they don’t cooperate, they could face arrest,” The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The development comes as Trudeau doubled down against Freedom Convoy protesters on Monday, invoking emergency powers to stop those opposing his COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truck drivers.

“We’ll always defend the rights of Canadians to peaceful assembly and to freedom of expression. We’ll also do whatever is necessary to reinforce the principles, values, and institutions that keep all Canadians free – and that’s what we’re doing with the Emergencies Act,” Trudeau tweeted on Tuesday.

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DHS Official Defends Monitoring Trucker Protests, Linking Terrorism To Misinfo

Recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decisions to monitor trucker protests and link domestic terrorism to misinformation have prompted backlash from some conservatives and civil libertarians, but DHS Counterterrorism Coordinator John Cohen defended his department’s actions at a Feb. 15 online event.

The DHS’s Feb. 7 bulletin warned of a heightened terrorism threat because of “false and misleading narratives,” misinformation, and “conspiracy theories.”

“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors,” the bulletin said.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) reportedly accused the DHS of “policing” speech in a Feb. 15 letter, while Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) is probing the department over its methodology for crafting the bulletin, according to the Washington Times.

Cohen defended the bulletin at the Feb. 15 online event, hosted by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. He said the DHS now has “hard analysis” linking violence to narratives about government’s response to COVID-19, the 2020 election, immigration, and race.

“We have tied those narratives specifically to the overwhelming majority of domestic violent extremism incidents,” he said.

“These narratives have, in fact, inspired violence.”

According to Cohen, the threats of information are coming from all directions.

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Do You Like Freedom? Mainstream Press Warns This Likely Makes You Part of ‘Far-Right Groups’

In an article by Canada’s mainstream outlet, CBC, the writer interviewed multiple “experts” in an attempt to paint those who believe in freedom as far-right, white nationalist, racists. Seriously.

One of the experts interviewed in the article, Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says the way many protesters frame their calls for freedom renders the word meaningless — and what they’re really asking for is a shift in government policy that could potentially have a negative impact on others.

“When they’re yelling they care so much about their freedom, they’re taking freedoms away from other people who don’t have the same kind of agency and choice that they do,” he said.

But this is simply false. As the vaccine does not prevent transmission or infection, and only reduces severity, there is no “greater good” to be argued in the case of forcing others to take it.

Exactly why CBC decided to interview “anti-hate” experts in an article about truckers protesting for their “freedom” becomes entirely clear when truckers and other protesters who come from all races and politics are grouped into a single box — far-right.

It is the typical “us v. them” mentality and people are beginning to see through it.

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Hackers Just Leaked the Names of 92,000 ‘Freedom Convoy’ Donors

The Christian crowdfunding site that helped raise $8.7 million for the anti-vax “freedom convoy” in Canada was hacked on Sunday night, and the names and personal details of over 92,000 donors were leaked online.

The database of 92,845 donors is no longer available on the site, but VICE News was able to review a copy of the data.

While some of the donors did not provide their names—such as the person behind the current top donation of $215,000—the vast majority did provide them, including American software billionaire Thomas Siebel, who donated $90,000 to the “freedom convoy.”

While GiveSendGo does allow donors to make their donations public, many chose to use their company’s name or omit their names entirely, so the leaked database contains a lot of information that was never meant to be shared, data like donors’ full names, email addresses, and location.

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Canadian Media STILL Pushing Crackpot Theory That Truckers Are Russian Agents

As the Canadian freedom convoy rolls on and continues to influence other protesters around the globe, Canadian media continues to push outright disinformation by suggesting that the Russian government is behind the movement.

When the convoy first came to prominence at the end of January, state broadcaster the Canadian Broadcasting Company began spreading completely unfounded claims that “Russian actors” were present among the Canadian truckers holding up major cities including Ottawa and Toronto, as well as border crossings.

The tenuous reasoning behind the theory is that Canada has expressed support for Ukraine during the country’s ongoing tensions with Russia.

Rather than admit that working class truckers are sick of enforced restrictions and vaccine mandates threatening their livelihoods, CBC floated the crackpot idea that Vladimir Putin is secretly behind the protests.

CBC continues to push the conspiracy theory, with correspondent Harry Forestell filing the following report Friday giving airtime to ‘New Brunswick cybersecurity expert’ David Shipley, who is adamant that the Russians are behind everything.

Shipley proclaimed “Who would have reason right now to cause as much chaos in Canada as possible? Well, at the top of that list is Russia.”

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Trudeau To Unleash Never-Before-Used ‘Emergency Powers Act’ To Counter Protests As US-Canada Bridge Reopens

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has learned that Prime Minister Trudeau “will inform the provinces he will invoke the Emergencies Act to give the government extra powers to deal with the protests across the country. But in a meeting with the Liberal caucus, the PM said there were no plans to deploy the military.” 

The move follows a meeting Sunday of the federal cabinet and its Incident Response Group (IRG).

Trudeau tweeted late Sunday that the IRG discussed “further actions the government can take to help end the blockades and occupations.”

Earlier that day, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live that the federal government has discussed invoking special emergency powers to deal with ongoing protests in Ottawa.

Blair described the attitude around invoking the Emergencies Act as “appropriate caution” rather than “reticence.”

As CBC concludes, the law gives the federal government carte blanche to cope with a crisis, including the ability to enact emergency powers that allow it to prohibit travel within a specified area or remove personal property, while imposing fines or jail time on people contravening new orders.

This is basically the ability to unleash ‘selective’ martial law on Canadians.

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Police Arrest Ambassador Bridge Truckers In Dawn Raid After Thousands Flock To Demonstration In Ottawa

More than 12 hours after police in Windsor, Ontario arrived on scene to shut down “Freedom Convoy” protests at the Ambassador Bridge, it appears the crowds have finally disperesed in a predawn raid. 

As police arrested the last remaining demonstrators for a protest that has continued for nearly a week and created substantial disruption for commercial traffic across the US-Canada border crossing, the focus shifted to demonstrators who gathered on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill as protests continued for another weekend.

According to the Associated Press, which cited television footage, police arrested the dozen or so die-hard protesters who remained defiantly at the Bridge until the very end.

Television images showed police arresting the few protesters who remained just after dawn near the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario — the busiest border crossing to the U.S.

Only two pickup trucks and less than a dozen protesters blocked the road to the bridge before police moved in.

Police on Saturday had persuaded demonstrators to move their pickup trucks and others cars that they used at the entrance to the crossing that sees 25% of all trade between the two countries, though it remained closed.

Meanwhile, videos from Parliament Hill flooded social media as the police put the number of demonstrators at 4K – likely a conservative estimate. The protests, which have been going on since late January, have seen similar numbers during past weekends. All told, this is at least the third weekend that demonstrators have gathered.

The “anti-vaccine” and “anti-lockdown” – according to the AP – demonstrations in Canada continued to inspire similar movements abroad, from Paris to New Zealand, and beyond.

VIdeo from Parliament Hill showed thousands of people who came together to dance, sing, and engage in that new national pastime – mocking the CBC, which apparently blacked out coverage of the protests.

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“Slash The Tires, Arrest The Drivers”: Harvard Professor And CNN Analyst Calls For Violence Against Freedom Convoy

Harvard professor, CNN analyst and former Obama admin undersecretary of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem has called for violence and vandalism against Freedom Convoy protesters who have amassed on the bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Ontario.

“The Ambassador Bridge link constitutes 28% of annual trade movement between US and Canada,” tweeted Kayyem. “Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks.”

In addition to a monumentally stupid idea considering the logistics of moving trucks with no fuel and slashed tires, one has to wonder if Kayyem is saying the quiet part out loud when it comes to how Democrats respond to non-BLM protests.

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Ontario residents cheering on the freedom protests on Facebook get a visit from police

Police in Ontario have admitted to scanning Facebook Groups for those that support the Freedom Convoy protests, finding their addresses and turning up at their doorstep to provide “information” about peaceful protests.

A viral video from a woman has been shared around social media, showing an officer turning up on the doorstep after the woman was taking part in a freedom-focussed Facebook group.

“This is just some information about peaceful protests. That’s all it is,” the officer said on the doorstep after handing the woman a flier.

“Okay, so you saw something on my Facebook,” the woman asked the officer.

“No, on the Facebook group,” the officer replied.

“Okay. And decided to come to my personal residence to give me information about peaceful protests,” the woman asked.

“Yes,” was the officer’s response.

“Are you guys now monitoring people’s Facebook pages or Facebook groups to who comments as to what their… status updates are or what they’re doing or within the group?” the shocked woman asked.

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