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Have you read the document? Do you have a frame of reference by which to judge the document? Say, have you read IG reports in the US following potential scandals? This report is an utter whitewash, by any reasonable standard. I mean, the amount of times they hold on to
as if the COVID restrictions weren't causing multiples of that. The pains they go through to say, "We're not a court; it's not really our job to say whether it's legal or not." The frankly ridiculous straining to try to claim "concerns" of "serious violence" (the latter being what the test required; the former being the barest shred of what they had).
A pure heckler's veto. Egads, this document is enough to make me tear my remaining hair out! Wait... that would be serious violence! EMERGENCY! Your bank account is now frozen.
Not pre-crime. Not stochastic terrorism. The fact that we can mouth the words "stochastic terrorism" and then decry the fact that we can't identify pre-crime is sufficient to declare "serious violence" and an emergency in Canada.
Make no mistake, random ass-comments on the internet are a sufficient "threat of serious violence" in Canada to suspend civil liberties even further than they had already gone just because of COVID. Of course, this is only the case if such a thing is in the interest of The Party; it will not be suitable for any opposition. One day, you may find yourself opposing The Party on some issue. You might think that it's minor, that reasonable minds might disagree. You might even join a little happy protest; you and your people have a long history of gaining political victories by mostly peaceful protest. But they will find every single disconnected shred of stochastic possible danger in the entire panopticon, and not a single one of your rights will be vindicated, given the 'emergency' that you present.
These aren't analogous. Saying that 'the government has a legitimate interest in taking X action because of the problems caused by Y event' does not imply that the government can't take any action that might cause a problem similar to that one. The court was allowing a government action to go ahead, not attempting to prevent it as it would have been had it taken issue with Covid restrictions'.
I mean, it's not even actually legally important, because the test was about "serious violence", not about some level of economic damage. It's just that this particular report jumps back to this measure of economic damage multiple times as if it's some form of evidence of "violence". It's a total red herring in the report that just detracts from its credibility.
I don't think I claimed this. Instead, it's just peak hypocrisy. Government does action A, which causes damage B. People protest A, and their protest causes damage epsilon*B, with epsilon<1. Now, suddenly, anything that causes damage on the level of epsilon*B is an emergency suitable to suspend civil liberties. By that reasoning, action A, itself, should have created an emergency that was suitable to suspend the civil liberties of the politicians, for they had caused far greater damage.
I mean, not really. This isn't a court. They aren't allowing an action to go ahead. The action was already done and over. This is just an ass-covering commission to say, "If we stretch suuuuuuuuper hard and bend every test in a way that is maximally favorable to the government, allowing things like heckler's vetos and stochastic pre-crime, mayyyyyyyybe that stuff the government did in the past miiiiiight have been okay."
What? You seem to be implying that the exact same strictures should exist on government action and on private action. As I said, that the government took an action that caused B doesn't imply ordinary citizens can also cause B with impunity.
To be clear, I am not. Especially not as a legal matter. As a public perception matter, their justification shows immense hypocrisy.
Completely separate from that is the legal matter of "serious violence", which is horribly ill-supported in this document, to the crazy extent of stochastic pre-crime.
Well you said that hypocrisy arises from the fact that the courts accepted economic damage as a (secondary) justification for allowing the government to break up the protests, but allowed lockdowns to go ahead despite the economic damage they caused; this is only hypocrisy if one thinks that the government taking action to prevent economic damage is an analogous case to taking an action to remedy another ill which unfortunately entailed economic damage, which is silly.
I think I explained poorly. Consider the statement, "Agent A takes Action B to remedy Ill C, potentially also causing Effect D."
In one case, A = Government, B = Lockdown, C = COVID, D = Economic Damage.
In a second case, A = Protesters, B = Protest, C = Economic Damage, D = Lesser Economic Damage.
In a third case, A = Government, B = Declaration of Emergency, C = Lesser Economic Damage, D = Degradation of Civil Liberties.
The side effect of the second case is absolutely de minimis compared to the side effects of the first and third, yet the minimal side effect coming out of the second case is meant to justify a vastly worse thing in the third case. The requirement is that the former/latter cases must be acknowledged as Righteous and Good, while the middle case must be condemned as Hitler and Satan and Racist and....
One can reasonable agree/disagree between the first two based on the relative understanding of the situation, particularly the severity of COVID. But to take the required stances on the first two and then claim that the latter is Righteous and Good is hypocrisy. If such small amounts of economic damage are that important to declare an emergency and suspend civil liberties, then perhaps much worse economic damage is a sufficient impetus to make a little bit of protesting not Hitler and Satan and Racist and....
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