Andrew Lawton: Freedom Convoy were negotiating just before Emergencies Act was declared
theline.substack.com
BOOK EXCERPT: Not only did police not call for the invocation of the Emergencies Act; talks between organizers and police were beginning to bear fruit just as the crackdown began.
Talks bearing fruit? All talks were about how to continue the protest, which had already been allowed to go on too long. There were no talks about ending the protest with the organizers. The protest closed down 2-3 interprovincial bridges for a period of 3 weeks, which was more than a minor inconvenience. The talks would not have changed that. Regardless if you agree with the protesters (I don't), they have a right to legal protest. Parking vehicles in streets for weeks on end is not legal, and should not have been allowed. The majority of the protesters may have been peaceful people, but the actions of blaring horns all hours of the day was too much, and could rightly be defined as a provocation to invite non-peaceful recourse. They got what they asked for and they needed to go. Whether the emergency act was necessary, I can't say, but talks to keep them in the city should never have even begun.
Really appreciate that someone took the time to lay out what happened. As an inhabitant of Ottawa during that time, all I can say is that Canadians managed themselves very well on the ground even if the leadership of all levels of government and the convoy were in disarray. When I took my pride flag down to Wellington street without any trouble, I knew it was a peaceful protest.
When you realize Andrew Lawton writes for True North - it is understandable why he presents this softened picture. If everything was indeed so civil, why were people charged and jailed under Canadian law?
I was amazed at how the corporate media chose to cover this story as compared to independent media. It proved to me that mainstream media were no longer interested in conveying a story to Canadian's but were more interested in making up a story to aid the very politicians that are paying their wages. The corporate media used to cover stories to expose the corruption of the politicians to keep them honest and hold them accountable. Today they propogate for those same politicians and make up stories to cover for their blatant over reach and corrupt endevours.
The policital elite that have been voted into Parliament now work to harm the very people they are suppose to be serving. Its also apparent to me that not only has the Governing body become removed and corrupted by ideology but so too have our institutions we once relied on and trusted. I see no way forward to keep Canada a country under these circumstances. I believe that ship was set adrift before the convoy arrived in Ottawa. What happened with the invokation of the Emergencies Act and then the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry or trial in a lower court has even taken place, is our Institutions can no longer be trusted. Regardless if you agree with the actions of the protesters, politicians, or the police, and the justice system, the divide is deep and the feasure irripairable and many have lost all trust in the institutions we all believed in and that is what made us a nation. Its what made this a country. It is no longer.
I read some of the other excerpts from this book printed in the National Post over the past week. It's far more favorable to the protesters than anything I'd seen elsewhere in the media, including what felt like fairly balanced coverage in The Line.
One thing that comes through in these excerpts is the fact that these protests really didn't have any leadership. Lots of people claimed to speak for the protesters, there were certainly people who could be described as organizers, but there was no authority and little central organization. It also seems more like the protesters had coalesced around certain broad themes which had never been translated into specific goals. Ultimately, this means negotiation was never going to work - nobody was quite sure what the protesters wanted, and there was nobody with whom to conduct effective negotiations.
This lack of coherence on the side of the protesters was met with confusion and an absence of leadership on the government side as well. After acting like a deer in headlights for weeks, they finally snapped into action and cleared the protests as they could've weeks earlier, no Emergencies Act required.
Does the book get into the Jan and Feb-2020 blockades that were allegedly in protest of Coastal GasLink and why law enforcement doesn't treat that series of events identically to what happened two years later in Ottawa and at several border crossings?
I work downtown Ottawa and was subjected to these so-called freedom protesters enjoying their bouncy castles and hot tubs while bellowing “freedom” at the top of their lungs and honking air horns. What a pathetic, annoying, middle-finger-in-your face spectacle it was to the residents of Ottawa. I feel that my hometown was hijacked by a very sorry bunch of discontented yahoos who really didn’t have a clue what having no freedom means or how a democracy works. The idea that they are planning to return here on July 1 to disrupt Canada Day celebrations is upsetting to say the least.
I hope the chapter on the breaking up of the protest gives fair treatment to the police officers and their leadership. This was without doubt the gentlest mass police operation I have ever seen. Part of that may be the realization that the real arm-bending was being done with insurance companies, provincial licence bureaus, and of course the towing companies. In the face of massive peer pressure from across Canada, the Ottawa Police and OPP sympathizers chose to lie low until the thing ended, even though they had contributed to the chaos over the entire protest.
"Andrew Lawton is a broadcaster and columnist, currently serving as a fellow at True North and writing a weekly column for Loonie Politics.
Most recently, he hosted The Andrew Lawton Show on 980 CFPL in London, and wrote a national column for Global News. His written work has been published across the world, including in the Washington Post, the National Post, the Toronto Sun, the Edmonton Sun, and Global News. Andrew has appeared as a commentator on CBC, CTV, TVO, CTS, and on BBC World.
Andrew ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election."
Police failed to do their job properly. Instead of telling them to do their job local leaders decided to have federal leaders deal with it after it went on way to long. OPS should have had way more firings, along with inquiry about why the Ottawa municipal and Ontario leaders didn't take proper action.
Fluff. The convoy should never have been allowed to reach downtown Ottawa. It created an unpleasant few weeks for the entire country. The concept of fighting for all Canadian's freedoms was simply wrong. Most of us despised the entire charade. This is a free and civilized country.
So what I am understanding is that the Convoy "leadership" really didn't have control over the protest. They opened Pandora's box and then couldn't close it. All the talks in the world were not going to solve this mess. Trudeau did the right thing. Protest all you want but don't camp out for weeks and infringe on the rights of the citizens of Ottawa.
This account tells me there was very little representative negotiations going on by anyone on the convoy side. Its leaders seem to be people who appointed themselves leaders, opportunists who elbowed their way to the head of the parade.
“We don’t control them,” Wilson said. “We don’t even know who they are. No one signed up. It’s not a curling bonspiel, it’s not a golf tournament. We can’t say ‘Oh no, sorry, this is your tee time sir. You can’t tee off from here now.’”
That I now think these convoy ‘leaders’ were phoney, doesn’t justify the government’s use of the Emergency Act.
I’m glad this book excerpt is here, but it doesn’t convince me about any realistic attempts to negotiate.
Talks bearing fruit? All talks were about how to continue the protest, which had already been allowed to go on too long. There were no talks about ending the protest with the organizers. The protest closed down 2-3 interprovincial bridges for a period of 3 weeks, which was more than a minor inconvenience. The talks would not have changed that. Regardless if you agree with the protesters (I don't), they have a right to legal protest. Parking vehicles in streets for weeks on end is not legal, and should not have been allowed. The majority of the protesters may have been peaceful people, but the actions of blaring horns all hours of the day was too much, and could rightly be defined as a provocation to invite non-peaceful recourse. They got what they asked for and they needed to go. Whether the emergency act was necessary, I can't say, but talks to keep them in the city should never have even begun.
Really appreciate that someone took the time to lay out what happened. As an inhabitant of Ottawa during that time, all I can say is that Canadians managed themselves very well on the ground even if the leadership of all levels of government and the convoy were in disarray. When I took my pride flag down to Wellington street without any trouble, I knew it was a peaceful protest.
When you realize Andrew Lawton writes for True North - it is understandable why he presents this softened picture. If everything was indeed so civil, why were people charged and jailed under Canadian law?
I was amazed at how the corporate media chose to cover this story as compared to independent media. It proved to me that mainstream media were no longer interested in conveying a story to Canadian's but were more interested in making up a story to aid the very politicians that are paying their wages. The corporate media used to cover stories to expose the corruption of the politicians to keep them honest and hold them accountable. Today they propogate for those same politicians and make up stories to cover for their blatant over reach and corrupt endevours.
The policital elite that have been voted into Parliament now work to harm the very people they are suppose to be serving. Its also apparent to me that not only has the Governing body become removed and corrupted by ideology but so too have our institutions we once relied on and trusted. I see no way forward to keep Canada a country under these circumstances. I believe that ship was set adrift before the convoy arrived in Ottawa. What happened with the invokation of the Emergencies Act and then the public statement from a Supreme Court Justice announcing the leaders guilty even before any inquiry or trial in a lower court has even taken place, is our Institutions can no longer be trusted. Regardless if you agree with the actions of the protesters, politicians, or the police, and the justice system, the divide is deep and the feasure irripairable and many have lost all trust in the institutions we all believed in and that is what made us a nation. Its what made this a country. It is no longer.
I read some of the other excerpts from this book printed in the National Post over the past week. It's far more favorable to the protesters than anything I'd seen elsewhere in the media, including what felt like fairly balanced coverage in The Line.
One thing that comes through in these excerpts is the fact that these protests really didn't have any leadership. Lots of people claimed to speak for the protesters, there were certainly people who could be described as organizers, but there was no authority and little central organization. It also seems more like the protesters had coalesced around certain broad themes which had never been translated into specific goals. Ultimately, this means negotiation was never going to work - nobody was quite sure what the protesters wanted, and there was nobody with whom to conduct effective negotiations.
This lack of coherence on the side of the protesters was met with confusion and an absence of leadership on the government side as well. After acting like a deer in headlights for weeks, they finally snapped into action and cleared the protests as they could've weeks earlier, no Emergencies Act required.
Does the book get into the Jan and Feb-2020 blockades that were allegedly in protest of Coastal GasLink and why law enforcement doesn't treat that series of events identically to what happened two years later in Ottawa and at several border crossings?
I work downtown Ottawa and was subjected to these so-called freedom protesters enjoying their bouncy castles and hot tubs while bellowing “freedom” at the top of their lungs and honking air horns. What a pathetic, annoying, middle-finger-in-your face spectacle it was to the residents of Ottawa. I feel that my hometown was hijacked by a very sorry bunch of discontented yahoos who really didn’t have a clue what having no freedom means or how a democracy works. The idea that they are planning to return here on July 1 to disrupt Canada Day celebrations is upsetting to say the least.
I hope the chapter on the breaking up of the protest gives fair treatment to the police officers and their leadership. This was without doubt the gentlest mass police operation I have ever seen. Part of that may be the realization that the real arm-bending was being done with insurance companies, provincial licence bureaus, and of course the towing companies. In the face of massive peer pressure from across Canada, the Ottawa Police and OPP sympathizers chose to lie low until the thing ended, even though they had contributed to the chaos over the entire protest.
"Andrew Lawton is a broadcaster and columnist, currently serving as a fellow at True North and writing a weekly column for Loonie Politics.
Most recently, he hosted The Andrew Lawton Show on 980 CFPL in London, and wrote a national column for Global News. His written work has been published across the world, including in the Washington Post, the National Post, the Toronto Sun, the Edmonton Sun, and Global News. Andrew has appeared as a commentator on CBC, CTV, TVO, CTS, and on BBC World.
Andrew ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in Ontario’s 2018 provincial election."
-- https://canadastrongandfree.network/speakers/andrew-lawton/
"True North is a Canadian digital media platform with a conservative editorial position."
-- https://tnc.news/
So the description as simply a "journalist" seems to be less than fulsome regarding partisan affiliations. Which speaks to...
So if this is the view from the inside, we have a right if not an obligation to ask, inside what?
So is this journalism or a sales pitch? Selling the story...
Is THIS the Andrew Lawton who is the author of this book? https://pressprogress.ca/here-are-pc-candidate-andrew-lawtons-worst-moments-so-far/
Not sure about the author but this was an okay excerpt.
Police failed to do their job properly. Instead of telling them to do their job local leaders decided to have federal leaders deal with it after it went on way to long. OPS should have had way more firings, along with inquiry about why the Ottawa municipal and Ontario leaders didn't take proper action.
Fluff. The convoy should never have been allowed to reach downtown Ottawa. It created an unpleasant few weeks for the entire country. The concept of fighting for all Canadian's freedoms was simply wrong. Most of us despised the entire charade. This is a free and civilized country.
So what I am understanding is that the Convoy "leadership" really didn't have control over the protest. They opened Pandora's box and then couldn't close it. All the talks in the world were not going to solve this mess. Trudeau did the right thing. Protest all you want but don't camp out for weeks and infringe on the rights of the citizens of Ottawa.
Mr Lawton writes for True North. It’s always worth knowing where people are coming from.
This account tells me there was very little representative negotiations going on by anyone on the convoy side. Its leaders seem to be people who appointed themselves leaders, opportunists who elbowed their way to the head of the parade.
“We don’t control them,” Wilson said. “We don’t even know who they are. No one signed up. It’s not a curling bonspiel, it’s not a golf tournament. We can’t say ‘Oh no, sorry, this is your tee time sir. You can’t tee off from here now.’”
That I now think these convoy ‘leaders’ were phoney, doesn’t justify the government’s use of the Emergency Act.
I’m glad this book excerpt is here, but it doesn’t convince me about any realistic attempts to negotiate.