There's something funny about police activity against convoy protests around Canada. I only know of three examples, but maybe there are more.

Here it is. Nominally, police are fighting the "siege", the "blockade", the "occupation" of somewhere or other by crowds of people. Let's not discuss the severity of their bouncy castle & jerry-can dance crimes any further. The interesting angle here is that these protesters are or are planning to impede or block traffic somewhere. That is what constitutes a legal "emergency". So what do police do?

They set up roadblocks outside the target areas. Well outside.

In the case of Ottawa, roadblocks are in place a block outside the main protest row on Parliament Hill at Wellington St. Okay, understandable. But also: roadblocks are in place in two nearby bridges, six major arterial roads, plus a highway three kilometers away. There are no protesters occupying anything out there.

In the case of Toronto, the police went berserk and shut down hundreds of blocks of normal traffic, just on the off chance truckers might want to come visit the Queen's Park circle. They also closed hospital row (University Ave.) many blocks south, though truckers were never going to go there. And they closed about six blocks on either east or west of the whole area. And two major highways many miles away, just in case rumoured supporters would use them to drive toward downtown. For DAYS.

In the case of Windsor, one or two intersections south of the Ambassador bridge were occupied by protesters, but they've been moved south early on the 12th (yesterday), so the intersection at Huronchurch & College is open. Trucks could navigate east/west around the remaining "standoff". But - you guessed it - police are keeping the truck traffic blocked. And now they installed concrete barriers across Huronchurch Rd.!

In each of these cases, the actions by the police are making traffic impact worse. Yeah maybe they have some good reasons. Or maybe it is a case of "oh dear, the mild situation gave us just no choice but to impose harsher punishment on population than necessary. That'll really impress them about how serious the situation was all along.". Hey, reminds one of covid public health measures, and an old movie.



Posted Sun Feb 13 15:36:55 2022