“Everyone is in favor of free speech… but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” ― Winston Churchill
Canada continues its long running demonstration that health care is not the same as health insurance. That ceding control of your health care based on promises from government health ‘insurers’ is a sucker’s move.
It’s been awhile since I mentioned Canada’s health ‘care’ system as a cautionary tale, but with the US Democrat hegemony piling more money into Obamacare with the Inflation Resurgence Reduction Act, you might be interested in what awaits us if the Dem’s universal health care dreams continue.
A typical Canadian family of four will pay about $15,847 for public healthcare insurance this year, according to a study done by the Fraser Institute.
“Canadians pay a substantial amount of money for healthcare through a variety of taxes, even if we don’t pay directly for medical services,” said Fraser Institute director of health policy studies and study co-author Bacchus Barua in a Tuesday statement.
Long before the pandemic hit, the myth of “free” Canadian health care gave us one of the most expensive health-care systems, with some of the longest medical wait times in the developed world, with mediocre outcomes judged by international standards.
Speaking of pandemic: Canada maintains the most draconian conglomeration of CCP virus mandates anywhere outside of China or North Korea. You can look it up. The government can do this because they can say your health insurance doesn’t apply to your health care if you don’t do what you are told.
Some looking it up examples: Make sure you find some info about Tamara Lich.
Artur Pawlowski is another example of free speech suppression. The Powlowski charges have been overturned.
It was not enough that GoFundMe, at the direction of Canadian apparatchiks, attempted to redistribute 9 million dollars given to Canada’s Freedom Convoy.
No, somebody had to perpetrate a DDOS attack against GiveSendGo‘s replacement campaign. The new Freedom Convoy donation site GiveSendGo is working this morning. I was able to donate an hour ago.
This degree of cooperation between the state and corporations is a matter of some concern. In this case, it appears GoFundMe volunteered to act as an arm of the State, as evidenced by extra punishment GoFundMe planned to visit on the truckers and anyone supporting them:
1) Requiring application for a refund, counter to GoFundMe’s SOP.
2) Setting a short window in which to apply for the refund.
3) Their differential treatment of the 2020’s Seattle insurrectionists. More below.
Dr. Julie Ponesse* has a worthwhile interview with Jordan Peterson about the political and social aspects of the protest. I’ve queued it up to JBP’s contention that the Canadian State coercion of GoFundMe as an inflection point more dangerous “to our collective health than the pandemic”. I would frame that as “the health of our polity”, but you get the point.
GoFundMe started out with a hypocrisy problem since they had promoted participants in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone occupation of Seattle, as Elon Musk pointed out.
The Seattle “summer of love,” to quote Seattle’s mayor, was, in fact, an insurrection. Police were besieged, government buildings were torched, looting was rampant, and murder was committed while GoFundMe promoted the occupation – in line with mayor Durkan’s gauzy ‘flowers in their hair’ puffery. The Antifa/BLM occupiers claimed sovereign control of part of Durkan’s city. It was an insurrection by any reasonable definition.
The Freedom Convoy has done none of that, but the Ottawa police and some faceless Morlocks in the Liberal government were able to convince GoFundMe to not only spike the Freedom Convoy donations, but also to force those who contributed to file forms to get their money back.
“We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity,” GoFundMe wrote in a statement.
Donors have until Feb. 19 to ask for a refund, and the rest of the money the group raised would be allocated to “credible and established charities” chosen by Freedom Convoy organizers, the site said.
Well, you certainly had the evidence of your own eyes in Seattle.
And, right. Define credible and established for me. Ottawa Police Benevolent Association?
GoFundMe got shellacked for this attempted larceny, and are now following their standard practice: automatic refunds. But it’s far from over. You have to wonder how soon the name and address data GoFundMe collected will be forwarded to the Ottawa constabulary:
Ottawa Police have also warned that they will be collecting as much digital and financial information as they can from both the truckers and anybody who donates to support them. In a threatening statement, the police implied that supporters of the Freedom Convoy could face prosecution just for donating.
Enhanced intelligence operations and investigations: National, provincial and local intelligence agencies have increased efforts to identify and target protestors who are funding/supporting/enabling unlawful and harmful activity by protestors. /11
— Ottawa Police (@OttawaPolice) February 4, 2022
Investigative evidence-gathering teams are collecting financial, digital, vehicle registration, driver identification, insurance status, and other related evidence that will be used in criminal prosecutions. /12
— Ottawa Police (@OttawaPolice) February 4, 2022
Peterson has a point.
Footnote:
There’s a lot of raw video out there from Ottawa, but a good place to go for news on the Freedom Convoy is Rebel News’: Convoy Reports. The legacy media is doing all it can to vilify the protesters.
*Dr. Julie Ponesse is a professor of ethics who has taught at Ontario’s Huron University College for 20 years. She was placed on leave and banned from accessing her campus due to the vaccine mandate…
**The only surviving drafter and signatory 40 years after the 1982 Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted.
UPDATE: 12:15PM, Feb5
GoFundMe has shut down the Freedom Convoy account and threatened to give the money to charity. They indicated contributors would have to apply for refunds. They’ve backed down and will be issuing refunds automatically.
A night with the untouchables
Written by a civil servant in Ottawa who lives where the protest is happening. Worth the read.
Back to our regularly scheduled program…
You may be aware that thousands of truck drivers in Canada formed a convoy 45 miles long and drove 2,000 miles to protest Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s CCP virus pronunciamentos. Overpasses along their trek thronged with cheering supporters.
The convoy arrived in Canada’s capital last weekend, and Ottawans’ lives have since been disrupted by clogged streets (lanes are open for emergency vehicles), liberal use of air horns (stopping at six PM), and protestors marching around the Parliament buildings chanting “Freedom!” And occasionally taking time out to shovel snow in public spaces, or build a mobile soup kitchen to feed Ottawa’s homeless.
The truckers, and a growing majority of Canadians, think Canada’s CCP virus rules should follow the science. That is, the rolling imposition of limited martial law should cease.
They think the Trudeau hegemony has again misinterpreted Canada’s mission statement: “Peace, order, and good government”. The truckers are leading the debate, “Resolved: Canada does not have the good government required for peace and order.”
“Peace, order, and good government” is not so presumptuous a demand as “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” nor as prone to excess as “Liberté, egalité, fraternité.” The Freedom Convoy protest, befitting Canada’s image, is preponderantly polite. In no way comparable to the “stop-the-steal” riot on January 6th/20 in Washington, nor to the gilet jaune street fighting September 12/20 in Paris.
No injuries, no deaths, no riots in the last four days in the nation’s capital, even though we have a global cause, national protest.
By February 2nd there had been 3 arrests in an estimated 10,000 protestors.
The contrast with our Jan/6 riot and the Antifa/BLM planned insurrections is inconvenient for the laptop class and the Trudeau government. They need vicious oppressors. So Ottawa’s Globe and Mail, a government subsidized enterprise, finds a way to vilify the truckers: Calling the Ottawa protests ‘peaceful’ plays down non-violent dangers, critics say
“Police haven’t reported any physical violence at the ongoing Ottawa rally against vaccine mandates and other government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions, but critics warn that conflating the absence of bloodshed with “peaceful” protest downplays the dangers of the weekend demonstrations.”
Among the dangers the Bytown anointed have cited was one guy carrying the Stars and Bars. There’s video of him being shamed and driven away by the truckers. That’s a literal false flag.
Someone painted a swastika on a Canadian flag, leading to charges the truckers are Nazi sympathizers. The strikingly more obvious interpretation is that the painter was calling Trudeau a fascist wannabe.
A woman was seen, arms in air, shouting “Freedom!” while standing on the base of the National War Memorial. This action has been described as “desecration.”
It is a beautiful and evocative statue, deserving reverence and protection: Credit Robert at SDA
So far it has not been targeted for destruction by BLM or Antifa. But the subjects are imperialist white male warriors, so it’s only a matter of time. You do have to wonder whether the men depicted would feel disrespected sharing a plinth with someone shouting “Freedom!’ in the context of CCP virus tyranny.
They were soon to be exposed to the Spanish Flu pandemic. I imagine their reaction to mandates and lockdowns would be less compliant than Justin would prefer.
Someone hung a Maple Leaf flag upside down on the statue of Terry Fox. The left was apoplectic. This statue has been dressed up many times in the past without comment from the petty totalitarianate.
A CBC newsbimbo suggested that Russia was secretly organizing the protests.
Somehow these deplorable truck driving cretins must be driven from polite society, castigated, cancelled, shamed. Canada’s precedents for using nebulous complaints from far-left activists to punish speech are well known. Mark Steyn made some of them famous.
One of CNN’s iconic contributions to Newspeak was displaying the phrase ‘mostly peaceful’ over live images of burning buildings. Having described protests involving murder, looting, arson, and vandalism as ‘mostly peaceful’, what do you do when a you need a condemnatory description of protests that involve no class A felonies? Well, war is peace and freedom is slavery. Just follow your 1984, or the Globe and Mail stylebook.
‘Dangerous non-violence’ is justification for making Thoughtcrime up as you go along. Ideas are too dangerous to trust them to free citizens.
It’s disappointing, really. These truckers went to a lot of trouble to gently stir up some shit. Even with the distinct lack of felonies… couldn’t we at least call it ‘barely raucous?’
No. No agency must be granted to these unacceptables. The Prime Minister is channeling Hillary Clinton:
“The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa, or who are holding unacceptable views that they’re expressing, do not represent the views of Canadians…”
-Justin Trudeau
According to this Angus-Reid poll, Pansy McBlackface is claiming 54% of Canadians hold unacceptable views. Even Hillary only called half of Trump’s supporters deplorable, not more than half the whole population.
Not to be outdone, the leader of Trudeau’s partners, the New Democrats (think Bernie, AOC and Omar), played the race card:
“Conservative MPs have endorsed a convoy led by those that claim the superiority of the white bloodline and equate Islam to a disease.”
-Jagmeet Singh
Wow. Maybe he gets his world view from Whoopi Goldberg.
Finally, displaying the cluelessness for which he is justly famous, Ontario’s Premier:
“It’s time to let the people in Ottawa get back to their lives,” Premier Doug Ford says on fifth day of convoy demonstrations.”
-Doug Ford
Doug, you portly pontoon, it’s time to look up the word “irony.” THAT MESSAGE is WHOLLY OWNED by the protestors. YOU CAN”T POLITICALLY APPROPRIATE “Letting people get back to their lives.” The Freedom Convoy hasn’t even had their 2 weeks to flatten the curve.
