If people are really ungovernable, whose fault is it? Theirs, or the people supposed to be governing them?.It could be either. It is possible after all, to push normally sane people too far. Manufacture a petty regulation, and put people out of work by enforcing it would be one way to do it. That's what happened to the truckers, COVID-19 heroes of 2020, then reviled as 'racist, misogynistic' jerks with 'unacceptable views,' in 2022. But, nobody cared. So they decided to make a point..And they did. According to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, during their stay on Parliament Hill, Ottawa was 'ungovernable.' Earlier this week, that’s what he told the enquiry called to examine whether the federal government was justified in invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act..But purely as a matter of fact, it’s a hard case for Mendicino to make..Yes, Ottawa had a parking problem..And for a while it had a noise problem..But to see what ‘ungovernable’ looks like, flick through Youtube footage of the riots that swept across the U.S. during the summer of 2016. Police precincts abandoned by the police and burned to the ground, stores looted and then burned, rampaging mobs overturning and burning police cars… There were significant riots and demonstrations in hundreds of U.S. cities, resulting in nearly $2 billion in damages in the first two weeks alone. That is what ungovernable looks like..By contrast the Ottawa protest was well-ordered..As has been relentlessly reported and complained of by Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, there were wives and children present, there were barbecues, bouncy castles, hot tubs and a lot of litter bins lest they be accused of making the place untidy. The place was apparently well-kept, homeless people got into the habit of receiving free food from the barbecues and significantly, none of the scurrilous accusations levelled against the convoy proved to be true. That is, nobody associated with the convoy danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, tried to set an apartment block on fire or broke shop windows. (Although there was a case of the latter involving the Ottawa city police.).As for the noise, the airhorns stopped after the organizers received a cease-and-desist order. Obeying judicial orders: How ‘ungovernable’ is that?.So what we really had here was not an ungovernable situation. It was a protest that was more determined than usual… a case of a government that pushed ‘normally sane people too far.’ And they said, “Enough.”.Let's face it, there is also a class thing happening here. Mayor Jim Watson called them ‘nasty people.’ Before that, the prime minister had uttered the slurs quoted above regarding ‘unacceptable views.’.Unacceptable, that is, in the suave and entitled world of the Laurentian elite where people shower before they go to work, not after..You may think what you like about lockdowns, masks and vaccine mandates. You do you, I’ll do me. That’s not a bad formula for a governable society..But what's going on here is an explicit attempt by a government informed by the entitled mindset of those same Laurentian elites to make us better people in their own image, and to shame those it despises..This is not what governments are for..Prime Minister Stephen Harper had one overarching objective during his time in office — to provide Canadians with good government: Balanced budgets, lower taxes and the chance for everybody to live their own Canadian dream. He liked it if you voted for him of course, but he didn’t really care whether you agreed with him on non-essentials..As we know, that’s not how Prime Minister Trudeau sees things. It matters very much to him that Canadians respect his woke values, trust him on things that they couldn’t possibly understand like climate change, feminism, LGBT etc. issues, indigenous affairs and COVID-19 — and then do exactly as they are told. Good government. You know, budgets balance themselves. What matters is the look and the image..And that's how he came to push some independent-minded people who drove trucks just a bit too far..Even people who will never vote Conservative and, as they clutch their pearls, think the Convoy was just too outre for words, are now wondering whether it was really necessary to suspend civil liberties, invade peoples’ bank accounts and monitor their cellphones..Seriously, if it was still called the War Measures Act, could they have even thought they could have gotten away with it?.To ask the question is to suggest the answer: Of course not! The country was never in danger, only the prime minister’s self-esteem and his lingering hope that he could one day be the Dear Leader of a grateful and compliant nation of forelock-tugging peasants..Expect, therefore, further testimony to concentrate more on making the truckers look bad, and less on what it’s supposed to be about, the legality of what this Liberal government did..The Yanks have their curated — some say 'fixed' — January 6 enquiry: We have this. Same idea: Use the resources of the state to smear the political opposition... call them ungovernable, use the heavy hammer and hopefully win another election..Never has this country more needed people such as Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre.
