Links - 15th February 2026 (2 - Left Wing Economics: The UK)

CJ on X - "For at least 30 years Britain has been actively prioritising the redistribution of resources from those who don’t need (nominally functional), to those who do (nominally dysfunctional).   This extends well beyond economics and into law and order too where numerous needs-based mitigations exist to prevent the state from acting in the interests of others and engaging in what would previously have been considered basic operational functionality.  The result has been the creation of a leviathan state that exists to meet the statutory obligations it has set itself toward the dysfunction of the bottom quintile of society.  The money required to fund this is assumed to exist because the need exists, and if the money doesn’t exist then it up to someone else to hand it over through whatever redistributive mechanisms the state has at it’s disposal."

Labour’s non-dom gamble backfired – now it wants them back - "“The people with the broadest shoulders have the longest legs and they are using them,” says Leslie MacLeod-Miller, the chairman of Foreign Investors for Britain.  The exodus has obviously alarmed the Government amid warnings that the tax raid could backfire and end up losing money for the Exchequer.  Andrew Griffith, the shadow business and trade secretary, claims: “Labour have presided over the biggest exodus of investors and wealth creators since the 1970s and it is ordinary British taxpayers who will end up having to pay more.” Last month Reeves ordered officials to carry out a review into the impact of the abolition of non-dom status.  Officials are now listening to ideas such as the introduction of an investor visa or extension of the tax exemption on earnings from abroad in an attempt to stem the flow of rich people moving abroad and win back the wealthy... The pledge to abolish non-dom status was a key part of Labour’s manifesto before the 2024 general election and the Government is already under heavy fire for its succession of about-turns, which are now in double digits."

Lukas Ekwueme on X - "The UK is regulating itself into irrelevance. The plan was to build 531 km of high-speed rail. Before laying track, contractors had to:
- Complete a 350-page “social value” assessment
- Guarantee 30% female representation
- Guarantee 20% ethnic-minority representation
The outcome was predictable.
- Original timeline: 2010-2026
- After years of delays and overruns, ~50% of the project was cancelled
- Remaining construction now stretches beyond 2033
- Cost: ~£70B for just 40% of the route (~£311M per km)
Meanwhile, China:
- Built ~50,000 km of high-speed rail in 17 years
- Averaging ~3,000 km per year
- At a cost of ~£14M per km China builds high-speed rail ~200x faster and ~22x cheaper.
Now apply the same regulatory mindset to the energy transition.... and the scale of waste becomes obvious."
Time to proclaim that capitalism has failed and that more regulation is needed

‘Red tape lunacy means it’ll cost me £16k to replace two windows’ - "Chris Howell, an accountant who lives in a ground-floor apartment in Westminster, was expecting to spend about £2,500 to install standard PVC double-glazed windows to replace two rotting frames. But planning restrictions and building safety regulations, which categorise the building as “higher-risk”, have meant the price has ballooned. Mr Howell says he now faces an exorbitant cost and believes he is being “punished” for following the rules. He said: “If someone smashed my windows tomorrow, I could replace them straight away because it’d be an emergency. “But because I’m trying to follow the rules, I’m trapped in months of paperwork and thousands of pounds in fees. The system punishes people for doing the right thing. “All I want to do is replace my old windows. It’s not like I’m trying to do anything crazy, like dig a super-basement.” Mr Howell must apply for planning permission to change his windows under Westminster council rules – with a £528 fee for the application. Based on other cases in the area, Mr Howell expects that the council will reject cheaper PVC replacements and require aluminium frames instead, which could double the cost of the project from £2,500 to £5,000. Consultants quoted between £5,000 and £12,000 to prepare the application, which also attracts a £288 submission fee and hourly charges of £144 for the regulator’s time. Any work on the block of flats – which is eight storeys high – must also be approved by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR). But when Mr Howell contacted three approved glazing bodies, each said that they would not sign off work on high-risk buildings. This left him with the sole option of applying directly to the BSR, resulting in further consultancy fees. Government figures show that about 70 per cent of applications to the BSR are rejected, with some homeowners waiting up to nine months only to be told their planned renovations are unacceptable. Mr Howell could face prosecution and up to two years in prison if he carried out work without approval, under the Building Safety Act. Sam Richards, chief executive of pro-growth campaign group Britain Remade, said: “It is simply extraordinary that a repair as straightforward as replacing rotting wooden windows required a planning application, multiple consultants, specialist firms and a national regulator."
Time for more regulation to protect people. Anyone suggesting any regulation is bad is an evil right winger who wants people to die because all health and safety regulations are good

Mike Jones on X - "We all need to be clear about what kind of person Zack Polanski is. He has publicly claimed that shoplifting can be justified, even saying he would do it himself if he were poor. This tells us three things.   First, since the vast majority of poor people do NOT shoplift, Zack has effectively admitted that his moral compass is completely out of step with the struggling Britons who still cling to a sense of decency and fair play in everyday transactions.   Secondly, it reveals his rather jaundiced view of Britain’s poor - as though they are somehow predisposed to crime whenever hardship strikes.   And thirdly, it shows he has no interest in supporting businesses, protecting their staff, or upholding basic order for law-abiding citizens.   A totally revolting man."

‘I’m not hiring untrained 18-year-olds any more – their pay is too high’ - "Rachel Reeves promised young people that they would no longer be paid less because of their age. Now, many won’t be paid at all... More than 100,000 jobs have been lost in hospitality since the Budget, according to analysis by UK Hospitality. Reeves’s first Budget meant 2025 was the most expensive year on record for businesses employing those on minimum wage, a Centre for Policy Studies report found. Britain is struggling with higher numbers of 16 to 24-year-olds who are “Neets” – not in education, employment or training – with 948,000 people falling into this category in the three months to June. The Government announced plans to offer graduates who claim benefits work experience in bars and on building sites, as Labour grapples with skyrocketing youth unemployment.  Beale called the scheme “nonsense”, telling The Telegraph: “My message is, butt out. What hospitality wants is to be left alone.”  Kunkler also hit out at the scheme, adding: “I don’t understand how the Government is saying they’re going to get 200,000 people at that age in work. How can you get them into work when there are no jobs?”"

Profit is a dirty word for some ministers, says Labour-backing Iceland boss - "  Some Labour ministers are too anti-business and believe profit is a dirty word, a new peer appointed by Sir Keir Starmer has warned.  Richard Walker, the executive chairman of Iceland, admitted he has been taken aback by the lack of business knowledge displayed by some of the MPs he has encountered during his time running the grocer.  Mr Walker said there was a “lack of understanding and knowledge of business generally within the Government that they need more help with”.  He added: “Some of them think profit is a dirty word, when actually profit is what lets you invest, employ people and pay tax.”... many politicians had consistently failed to acknowledge how difficult it was to run a company on tight margins.  Beyond frustrations with individual ministers, he also criticised a broader lack of clarity across the Government, which he said pulled businesses in different directions."

Profitability in Britain falls to lowest level since 1982 under Labour - "Surging employment costs under Labour have punched the biggest hole in corporate profits in more than four decades.  Profit margins at non-financial firms this year fell to their lowest level since 1982, according to analysis by the Bank of America (BoA). Profits across the entire economy are now at their weakest level since before the financial crisis."

Labour’s spending juggernaut is crushing the economy - "Another £800m will be spent on re-joining the Erasmus scheme that allows students to study across Europe.  Money has been found for the spiffy new livery for Great British Railways.  Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has even found some extra cash for vegan “fish free” supplements made from algae on the site of the former Grangemouth chemicals plant – which unfortunately couldn’t survive the crippling energy costs he imposed on it.  With every week that passes, the Government embarks on yet more extravagant spending. There is just one catch. As yet another terrifying set of public borrowing figures made clear, Labour’s spending juggernaut is crushing the economy – and leaving it far weaker with every week that passes... We can all see where the money is going. Despite all the talk of a “black hole” inherited from the last government, there is always extra cash available for this government’s favoured projects.  The Erasmus scheme is going to cost hundreds of millions while public sector salaries are now rising at 7.6pc a year, compared with less than 4pc for the hard-pressed private sector – and with 62,000 extra people added to the Government’s payroll last month alone. There is even money for Miliband’s madcap schemes. While, for the sake of politeness, none of us would wish to underestimate his skills as a venture capitalist, it is hard to feel confident that vegan food supplements will ever replace petrochemicals as a major industry or replace all the jobs lost at the old Grangemouth plant... There are three big problems. To start with, it squeezes out private spending. Every pound that is spent by the state means that there is one less pound available to be spent in the private sector.  Sure, as Keynes pointed out a long time ago, there may well be exceptional circumstances where government spending boosts output. But that definitely does not apply to Britain in 2025, where there are scarce resources and increasing numbers of people who are not willing to work at any realistic wage.  Extra government spending just means that there are fewer resources left for the private sector.  Next, escalating public sector wages makes it impossible for private companies to compete in a competitive labour market.  It is hard to believe that many pubs or restaurants will be able to offer their staff 7pc-plus pay rises this year once they have seen their rates bill for the coming year on top of the extra NI they are already expected to pay.  Likewise, it is hard to see how care homes will compete with rising NHS salaries or construction companies can compete with what is on offer from the local council.  If they can’t get the people, then ultimately there will be no choice but to close those businesses down.  Finally, confidence starts to ebb away. Every time the Government starts boasting about how they are giving away lots of free stuff, then any rational person makes a quick calculation in their head. Their taxes will have to go up to pay for it all. A year and a half, and two horror Budgets into the Starmer administration, and the pattern has already been set.  Taxes go up by around £30bn to £40bn a year just to pay for the relentless rise in welfare spending, public sector pay and all the virtue-signalling schemes the ministers roll out to keep the backbenchers and the trade unions happy... There was nothing especially shocking about the latest borrowing data. What was sobering was the way that spending has gone up and up – and despite taxes hitting an all-time high, the Treasury still can’t balance the books.  Sure, the Government can just about keep the show on the road and keep the gilts market quiet by raising taxes. But it has killed off any hope of growth.  Even worse, with every week that passes the private sector economy gets hollowed out and it is left in an even more fragile state."

Urgent action needed to halt exodus of firms leaving UK, says CBI

UK suffers only deal-making slump in Europe as Labour hammers confidence - "Britain was the only European country to record a decline in dealmaking this year, as higher taxes under Labour hammered business confidence."

Free TV licences for the benefits class will be the end of Labour and the BBC - "In the depths of the Second World War, economist William Beveridge drew up radical plans to tackle poverty. Among his recommendations, set out in the historic Beveridge Report, were a universal system of social insurance and the creation of a national health service.  To the best of my knowledge, however, he did not add: “Oh, and one other thing. To banish Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness once and for all, the unemployed must be entitled to spend all day watching Homes Under the Hammer free of charge.”  That, however, is the proposal apparently being considered by our current Government, as it weighs up potential reforms of the BBC licence fee. Obviously no Labour administration would abolish the licence fee altogether – that would be like Stalin abolishing Pravda. But ministers are at least thinking about changes to the funding system. And one idea is to exempt benefits claimants from paying the licence fee at all... Good luck dreaming up a slogan to sell that policy. “Pay more, so that others can pay nothing. Work harder, so that others don’t have to work at all.”  Obviously the whole suggestion is ridiculous. Which is why, I suspect, the Government will end up going for it. After all, it’s Starmer’s Labour in microcosm. Yet another way to make the productive fund freebies for the unproductive. Just like raising taxes on businesses while abolishing the two-child benefits cap. Labour politicians endlessly tell us that their approach is motivated by “compassion”. But in reality it’s cynical self-interest. The party is deliberately cultivating an ever-growing culture of dependency, because it’s confident that, come election time, it can count on the dependents’ votes... Of course, you can see why such a concept might appeal to party strategists, given the perpetually soaring number of claimants. Just this week, it was revealed that more than 300,000 young people – twice as many as five years ago – are now claiming out-of-work benefits with no requirement to look for a job. And so a new generation of loyal Labour voters is born... Such outrage, I suspect, would spell the death of Starmer’s Labour – and indeed its glorified broadcasting arm. Last month, a parliamentary committee calculated that the BBC is losing more than £1bn a year of potential revenue from households either evading the licence fee or deciding they don’t need one.  The brazen injustice of the “reform” above, I feel sure, would prompt millions more to follow suit. And then who’d be left to pay?"

Britain’s ‘benefits queen’ claimed £60k a year for her 15 children. Now she disagrees with handouts - "Cheryl Drew, 43, is a woman who has gone by many names – few of them flattering. For a decade, she has been best known in the red tops as a “benefits queen”, “dole queen”, a “baby machine” and even Britain’s “most shameless Mum”.  Formerly known as Cheryl Prudham, Drew is a mother of 15 who, until relatively recently, was reportedly claiming up to £60,000 a year in benefits.  Now, she has completely reinvented herself, resurfacing in the press as a tax-paying entrepreneur who disagrees with Labour’s decision to axe the two-child benefit cap which comes into effect from April next year. She was reported in The Sun as saying that “handouts don’t always help”.  “I can’t believe what Rachel Reeves has done,” Drew said, accusing the Chancellor of encouraging parents to rely on taxpayers’ money rather than supporting themselves. “She’s going backwards, not moving mums forwards.”... Drew has now re-emerged as an entrepreneur, with a small but successful business empire that spans a number of beauty salons in her new home of Rhyl and in Llandudno, North Wales. She owns a 10-bedroom house, where 12 of her younger children live. Her benefits bill is £0, and she reportedly pays for her 18-month-old daughter’s nursery place privately. All six of her children who are of school-leaving age have jobs. What’s behind this dramatic reinvention? Sources who spoke to The Sun suggested that, ironically, it was actually down to the Conservative government’s decision to bring in the benefits cap in 2017. The move limited parents to claiming child tax credit or Universal Credit to the first two children in the family only. Under the current Labour government, this measure is set for the chopping block.  Around the same time, Drew split from her former husband and truly had to stand on her own two feet. She reportedly said that the benefits cap was “the making of [her]”. A source quoted by The Sun said: “Suddenly she had all those kids to feed and decreasing money to do it. She rolled up her sleeves and grafted hard for what she’s got.” Drew is currently said to be happily married to her business partner, Mark Drew. The pair are thought to be supporting their super-sized family independently. Proof, perhaps, that despite the widespread despair felt in Britain over an ever inflating welfare bill, dependence need not be a lifelong condition after all."

Nick, 30 on X - "The NHS spends more on medical negligence cases for maternity than the actual budget for maternity. If this was a private company it would have been sued out of existence. But because it’s the state religion, it carries on with no consequence. Insane."

Peter Hague on X - "Money is an abstraction of work. Everyone who decides they are deserve money from “the government” is in every single case taking it out of the hide of someone doing productive work, who does not deserve to be forced to work free to feed your sense of entitlement."
James Clark 📈📉¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on X - "Imagine you lived on a street where all the people on the even numbers side of the street worked, but everyone on the other side of the street either couldn't work, no longer worked or refused to work. That's Britain right now. In this example, only 30% of the houses on the even numbers side of the street are actually paying in more than they take out.  And everyone else on both sides of the street resents them and demands they pay more."
Thread by @mr_james_c on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I seem to have upset people by pointing out that if the 70m people in the UK, only 32m pay income tax. Of those 32m, only about 9m are net contributors to tax.  So in our hypothetical street, just over 13% of houses put in more than they take out... and other households resent them.
The point of these posts is this:
- overall the UK is not taxed very heavily
- but a vast majority of tax is paid but a relatively small group
- that relatively small group is constantly told they must pay more because that's "fair"
- if the UK wants services and infrastructure that works then it has 2 choices: 1) tax everyone more, especially lower earners, or; 2) cut spending in ways that reduce dependency on the state.
My preference is the latter, we should means test state pensions, we should move public sector workers into DC pensions, there's a large and rapidly growing people claiming all kinds of benefits who really don't need it. All this money is taken from other taxpayers.  All the about would increase the number of net contributors. Someone has tried to attach a Community Note to my post but the note confuses "households" with individual payers. Which is incorrect.  To be clear, my post is about individual taxpayers. I used the metaphor of a street of houses because it makes it easier to picture than abstracted numbers."

Keir Starmer lied to my face over tax raid, says drinks tycoon - "Hotel operator Steve Perez has claimed Sir Keir Starmer lied to his face over taxes.  The businessman, who runs a string of upmarket hotels and restaurants in the East Midlands, criticised the Prime Minister over the Government’s stealth raid on the hospitality sector.  Mr Perez accused Sir Keir of a betrayal. He said the Prime Minister assured him before last year’s election that he had “nothing to fear from Labour”.  In particular, Mr Perez claimed Sir Keir had pledged to reform business rates if Labour came to power, acknowledging at the time that the property tax system was damaging the hospitality sector.  However, Mr Perez – who also runs Global Brands, the drinks company behind Hooch and Franklin & Sons – said this was a lie.  Instead, he said hospitality businesses have received the “opposite of support” from Labour, which has abandoned the “very sector that keeps Britain’s high streets alive”."

Amazingly, a lot of people think this Labour Government isn't Left-wing enough - "the party is losing support to the hard-left Greens and the Unite trade union is threatening to sever links and cut off its donations. What more do the Left want?   Just 18 months after winning a landslide election victory the latest opinion poll put Labour on 14pc, an extraordinary collapse in support. The socialist agenda pursued by Sir Keir seems not to have worked. More of the same will surely see a further slump."

Never, ever trust the Tories - "The Tories might think they are on an easy winner by attacking Reeves and Starmer for breaking their election pledges. Do they seriously imagine that the British public has forgotten 14 years of Conservative governments trashing promises, raising taxes, piling up national debt and saying one thing and doing the opposite?  Listen to Kemi Badenoch slamming Labour’s plans to raise welfare spending by another £9bn as “a Budget for Benefits Street” based on “hiking taxes to pay for welfare”. Nice try, Kemi. But the fact is the welfare spending surged under the Conservatives, rising from £211bn in 2013/14 to £297bn in 2023/4, according to estimates.  In refusing to tackle the unaffordable burden of Britain’s bloated welfare state – including handing billions in benefits to foreign nationals – Labour is only carrying on where the Conservatives left off. Little wonder that, by the time the Tories were kicked out last year, interest payments on the Britain’s huge national debt had already reached £100 billion a year – around twice what we spend on defence. Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, also hammered Reeves’s Budget as “a huge tax grab” and a “clear breach” of Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise taxes on working people. Given Reeves stuck another £26bn on tax, he might have a fair point, were it not for the small matter of the previous Conservative governments loading the British people down with the highest tax burden since the 1940s.  As for Labour overtaxing businesses, Badenoch assured us only last month that “we want lower taxes on businesses. We want more businesses”. Then why, businesses might ask, did the last Tory government raise the main rate of corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent in April 2023? Higher taxation has inevitably meant less money for companies to invest in jobs and growth.  The truth is that, under Conservative governments from 2010 to 2024, over a quarter of a million companies went into insolvency in England and Wales. So much for the “we want more businesses” Tory Party. Then there is the big issue of energy prices, with Badenoch announcing a “Cheap Power Plan” to cut bills for British families. This, we should remember, is the same Conservative Party which, when in power, increased the energy price cap and presided over record household bills.  Most importantly, it was the Tories who introduced the crazy net zero targets which have left Britain with some of the highest energy prices in the world and driven small and family businesses and farms to the wall. Ed Miliband covering the British countryside with solar panels is only a continuation of the net zero zealotry of Boris “make Britain the Saudi Arabia of wind” Johnson. When it comes to probity, Stride has said that Reeves’s “downbeat briefings were all a smokescreen” and has asked the Financial Conduct Authority to probe “possible market abuse” over the pre-Budget briefings and leaks.  This might be more convincing if the Conservatives hadn’t faced similar accusations over Liz Truss’s 2022 mini-budget, when Labour asked the FCA to investigate whether leaks had enabled the markets to short the pound."
Of course, left wingers hate them viciously just because they're supposed to be right wing

Housing Discrimination Against British People in the UK / Muslim Migration and Japan

"r/LegalAdviceUK
Housing discrimination based on nationality?
'Okay, will update you if theres any possibilty.'
'Thank you so much'
'Are you British?'
'Yes I am'
'Okay. That's also an issue, to be honest, he is only looking for non-British people. So if ill have any other option, I'll let you know about that'"
Based in England and wondering if they’re allowed to do this? Advert was on right move and no where does it state it’s reserved for migrants, refugees or any kind of positive discrimination situation.
The message is from the agent who’s communicating with the landlord to me and they said it’s not discriminatory and that’s just “personal requirement” from the landlord but everyone else around me is saying it is.
I’m just very confused and wondering if this is worth reporting and if so to who do I report this to?"

Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 @TRobinsonNewEra: "Then they came for Japan... ..Japan says NO!"
evan loves worf @esjesjesj: "This is so funny. When Japanese people says no to immigrants they’re talking about Chinese and Korean people. They aren’t on your side. They don’t want you either."
Pizzazz @MapleParadox_: "I don't want them to accept mass migration from my country either. I'd rather both Japan and the US preserve our distinct and separate heritages."

Comment: "Leftists once again demonstrating they have no theory of mind for non leftists. No, I don’t think Japan should tolerate mass migration of white people either… the same reason Europe should not tolerate mass migration of non Europeans."

Links - 15th February 2026 (1 - Freedom Convoy)

Rebel News on X - "EXCLUSIVE: Privy Council caught deleting Freedom Convoy docs tied to illegal Emergencies Act invocation.  The prime minister's personal bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office claim documents related to former RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki's communications and federal government messages to Big Tech companies during the Freedom Convoy were “transitory.”  Only in Ottawa could freezing bank accounts, jailing peaceful protesters, and illegally invoking a wartime law be dismissed as a “transitory” event — but here we are. While Canadians are still fighting in court, the federal bureaucracy quietly deleted key records tied to the 2022 Freedom Convoy. And they admitted it to us in writing.  You’re not going to believe the latest excuse coming out of Ottawa.  The Privy Council Office — the prime minister’s own central bureaucracy — now claims that the documents tied to the Emergencies Act were “transitory.”  That’s their explanation for why records tied to the first-ever use of that wartime law against Canadian citizens have… conveniently disappeared. Deleted.  Did you know that? The federal bureaucracy is literally wiping convoy records while criminal and civil cases are still winding their way through the courts. And they admitted this in writing — to us — while we were in the middle of appealing the redactions on those same documents. You can’t make this up.  The document we were appealing was submitted as evidence to the Public Order Emergency Commission. It isn’t a stray email or an admin memo; it’s a ministerial update containing a situation report from then–RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki."
Eva Chipiuk, BSc, LLB, LLM on X - "Another day, another display of government contempt for its own citizens as they lie to you, strip your rights, arrest you, prosecute you, gaslight you, steal from you, silence you, delete the records that would hold them accountable, and then laugh, because they designed the rules so they can do all of this and get away with it.  And that is why nothing will change on its own.   Regardless of who is in charge, we need strong laws on transparency and accountability to restore the balance between public servants, institutions, and the people they are meant to serve. As long as they can hide their actions and avoid being held accountable for those actions, the system will remain exactly as it is.  So the real question is: how much longer are we willing to accept a system that serves itself instead of the people it was built for?"

Federal government loses Emergencies Act appeal, court says use during convoy protest was unreasonable - "The Liberal government unreasonably invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points nearly four years ago, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Friday.  The court dismissed the government's appeal of a 2024 ruling which deemed former prime minister Justin Trudeau's decision to use the legislation unlawful and infringed on protesters' Charter rights.  "As disturbing and disruptive the blockades and the convoy protests in Ottawa could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security," wrote the three judges on the appeal court. The Federal Court was initially asked to review the government's deeply divisive proclamation of a public order emergency by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the Canadian Constitution Foundation and other groups.  In that 2024 decision, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley, since retired, said the government's decision lacked justification, transparency and intelligibility... "There was no evidence that the lives, health or safety of the people living in Ottawa were endangered (as annoying, stressful and concerning as the protests were)," reads the court's decision... Mosley also found the economic orders infringed on protesters' freedom of expression "as they were overbroad in their application to persons who wished to protest but were not engaged in activities likely to lead to a breach of the peace."  Friday's court of appeal decision found that there was a "lack of rigour" in identifying people whose bank accounts were frozen, saying financial institutions were expected to rely on information from news or social media reports... The Federal Court of Appeal justices were not convinced by the government's argument that a less stringent definition of "threats to the security of Canada" could be inferred when invoking the act.  They also didn't accept Ottawa's reasoning that rendering critical infrastructure unusable amounts to serious violence.  "This expansive interpretation … could stifle all kinds of protests and demonstrations that blockade pipelines, nuclear plants, railway lines and other kinds of infrastructure to advance a cause," the decision noted."

Feds spent millions defending Trudeau's Freedom Convoy crackdown — and lost - "A generational civil liberties victory has been upheld. On Jan. 16, the Federal Court of Appeal held that the Trudeau government illegally invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022 in response to the Freedom Convoy.  The unanimous judgment, which upheld the lower court’s decision in 2024, is meticulous, devastating, and leaves little room for doubt. Future governments facing political turmoil have been put on clear notice: they cannot casually reach for emergency powers to solve a domestic protest.  The case was brought by the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, along with several individuals directly affected by the emergency measures. The court accepted the CCF’s argument that the Emergencies Act was never meant to be easy to use. The act was deliberately crafted as a response to the abuses of the War Measures Act, infamously deployed by Pierre Trudeau during the October Crisis in 1970. Parliament replaced that law with one designed to restrain executive power, not expand it...  To invoke the act lawfully, cabinet had to reasonably believe that Canada faced a “threat to the security of Canada” — a term Parliament deliberately imported from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act and associated with serious violence. The government attempted to dilute that meaning, arguing that economic disruption and protest activity could qualify.  The court flatly rejected that argument. “To claim that the threshold for declaring a public order emergency … could be lower than the threshold for using the surveillance powers … under the CSIS Act would make little sense,” it wrote. “If anything, it should be the reverse.” Emergency powers, the judges made clear, demand more justification, not less — particularly when they authorize “a vast array of draconian powers without any prior authorization.”  Even more damaging was the court’s assessment of the evidence. Aside from the situation in Coutts, where a weapons cache was discovered but resolved using ordinary law before the Emergencies Act was invoked, there was no credible proof of serious violence: “When properly understood as requiring bodily harm, the evidence is quite simply lacking.” CSIS itself had assessed that there was no threat to national security, and the government invoked emergency powers before a requested alternative threat assessment was completed. The court’s conclusion was blunt: “As disturbing and disruptive as the blockades and protests could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security.”  The government also failed the Emergencies Act’s “last resort” requirement. Emergency powers may be used only when existing laws are insufficient. Yet the protests were ultimately cleared using the Criminal Code — the very tools already available at the time. The RCMP commissioner at the time had even advised the government that police had not exhausted their existing powers... Equally damning was the government’s disregard for provincial opposition. Most provinces warned that invoking the Emergencies Act would be unnecessary and divisive. Cabinet failed to meaningfully engage with that opposition.  “In a federation,” the court wrote, “provinces should be left to determine for themselves how best to deal with a critical situation, especially when it largely calls for the application of the Criminal Code by police forces.” The judges emphasized that if the situation does not exceed capacity or authority of the provinces, “they should be left to their own devices.”  The regulations enacted after the declaration fared no better under constitutional scrutiny.  The court ruled that the sweeping ban on assemblies violated freedom of expression by criminalizing mere attendance at protests, including peaceful expression on Parliament Hill. Individuals could face up to five years in prison “not because of anything they were doing,” but because someone else nearby might breach the peace. That, the judges held, was grossly overbroad and unconstitutional.  Perhaps most chilling was the ruling on the financial measures. Banks were compelled to share Canadians’ private financial information with police without a warrant, without notice, and without recourse. Financial institutions were effectively deputized as agents of the state and told to “leverage the news” and social media to identify suspects.  The court found that this ad hoc system “lacked procedural safeguards” and allowed privacy to be invaded based on “potentially unfounded, subjective beliefs.” It violated the Charter’s protection against unreasonable search and could not be justified.  This decision now stands as binding precedent. It places real legal constraints on future governments and ensures that the Emergencies Act cannot be repurposed as a political convenience. It restores the act to what Parliament intended: a narrow, exceptional tool, not a blunt instrument against dissent.  The government spent millions defending the indefensible. It lost completely. And in doing so, it handed Canadians one of the most important civil liberties rulings in a generation. That is worth celebrating."
Damn Poilievre wasting money on an unnecessary by-election, which is money that could have been used for healthcare!
Like father (either one), like son
Of course, left wingers claim that the federal government was forced to act because Ontario didn't. Too bad the court disagreed

Christine Van Geyn: Feds spent millions defending Trudeau's Freedom Convoy crackdown — and lost : r/canada - "Mark Carney - Those who are still helping to extend this occupation must be identified and punished to the full force of the law. Drawing the line means choking off the money that financed this occupation. But by now anyone sending money to the convoy should be in no doubt: You are funding sedition."
"I have never been more supportive of Mark Carney than after reading that quote"
"It's fine he was for an illegal act and freezing bank accounts without any due process?  Isn't that what everyone is upset with Trump over "due process"?"

Tamara Lich 🇨🇦 on X - "During the Canadian Freedom Convoy, @antihateca falsely claimed that a vile, anti-semetic flyer was being distributed by us on the streets of Ottawa, with no evidence or investigation. (Flyer in comments👇🏼) In fact, the photo had been taken two weeks earlier in Florida.   By the way, you’re paying them. 💰"

CCFR/CCDAF on X - "Ontario Crown prosecutors just dropped all gun charges laid against Inderjit Singh Gosal (Brampton), the leader of Sikhs for Justice in Canada. Gosal, charged by the @OPP, was found carrying a loaded, illegal handgun, he claimed was for self-protection."
Tamara Lich 🇨🇦 on X - "How nice of the Ontario Crown prosecutors!  It really is just that easy.  They decide who and which cases to prosecute/persecute.    I can’t tell you how many times crown prosecutors and justices have tried to liken my mischief charge to firearms charges and implying I would be sentenced as such (10 years in prison).    In Canada, mischief is treated as a worse offence than illegal, loaded firearms I guess.  🤷‍♀️  Further proof we are a country ruled by feelings instead of by the rule of law.   @ChrisBarber1975  @18houseHouse  @DavidKrayden  @ezralevant"

Stevland Ambrose | Facebook - "Today I came across something that deepened a feeling I’ve held for a long time: redemption. I just discovered 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗷𝗮𝗰𝗸—the RCMP’s internal after-action review of the 2022 Freedom Convoy. Though it was quietly published in 2024, I hadn’t heard of it until now. And like so many revelations over the past two years, it only strengthens what my intuition was screaming back then. When the Convoy began, I didn’t know how it would unfold. I couldn’t predict whether it would stay peaceful, whether something would go wrong, or whether I’d later regret speaking up. But I saw the propaganda for what it was: 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝗰𝗼𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗽𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱. Claims of white supremacy, vandalism, arson, terror plots—all delivered with theatrical certainty and zero scrutiny. I took a risk in defending the Convoy while the events were still unfolding. I didn’t have access to the full picture. But I trusted my instincts. And in the end, I never felt the need to backpedal. Because nothing ever happened that justified the hysteria. The protest remained peaceful. It remained grounded. And it was 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭. That’s not my opinion. That’s the ruling of 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗠𝗰𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘁, issued 𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 the Convoy itself. Despite how many times Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh, and others declared it an “illegal occupation,” 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻’𝘁. And the evidence just kept mounting. Through the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), we learned:
• CSIS had told the government in advance that there was no evidence of foreign influence or terrorism funding.
• FINTRAC had found no spike in suspicious transactions linked to Convoy fundraising.
• OPP intelligence officers had stated plainly: no credible threat of extremist violence.
Then, in 2024, Justice Mosley of the Federal Court ruled that invoking the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional, unreasonable, and illegal. And now, Project Natterjack reveals that federal officials pressured RCMP intelligence analysts to frame the protest as “ideologically motivated violent extremism”—even though that designation didn’t fit. Analysts were flooded with hourly briefing demands, rushed into producing assessments, and in some cases, reports were misattributed or distorted to fit political expectations. Even more disturbingly, RCMP officers on the ground suspected that the now-infamous swastika photo was staged—possibly orchestrated for media optics. Yet no one in law enforcement or mainstream media appeared interested in verifying who the flag-bearer was or why they vanished, despite the photo being used in Parliament to justify invoking emergency powers. That absence of curiosity was the point. And the persecution continues. Convoy organizers like 𝗧𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗮 𝗟𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗲𝗿 remain entangled in a legal war of attrition. But even more chilling is the case of 𝗧𝗼𝗻𝘆 𝗢𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁, two men arrested at the 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘁𝘀, 𝗔𝗹𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁—not Ottawa—yet cited by the government as central justification for the Emergencies Act. They were acquitted by a jury of conspiracy to commit murder, yet sentenced to 6.5 years on lesser charges and recently denied parole, despite:
• Being model prisoners with no violent history,
• Scoring 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘮 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 for recidivism,
• Holding steady jobs and reintegration plans,
• And showing no threat to public safety.
Why were they denied parole? Because of their 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳𝘀. Parole officers and board members explicitly cited their Christian convictions, opposition to mandates, and skepticism of government as evidence of ongoing “risk.” They were penalized for appealing their convictions, for expressing anti-authoritarian views, and even for referencing the fact that exculpatory data had been wiped from their phones. This is not justice. It’s not public safety. It’s not rehabilitation. This is punishment for dissent. This is wrongthink enforcement. And yet… many Canadians don’t care. Because by the time the truth emerged, the damage was already done. A flood of propaganda had convinced millions that the Convoy was hateful, violent, and dangerous. So when the government abused its power, 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱. When it broke the law, they shrugged. And when the courts and intelligence agencies later confirmed that the threat was grossly overstated—or entirely fictional—most Canadians simply moved on. But the public’s indifference is not an accident. It’s the lingering effect of the very lies used to justify the crackdown in the first place. We were told the Convoy was a threat, so the government used exceptional powers to crush it. And now, because people still believe the Convoy was a threat, they don’t care that those powers were used 𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆. It’s not just unjust—it’s deeply human, in the worst way. We are a species that struggles to say: “Maybe I was wrong.” We double down. We rationalize. We trust the punishment because we never questioned the accusation.
𝘐 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵, 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘵𝘺𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘺, 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘴. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘺𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘥 — 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘤𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 — 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦. —Janice Fiamango (retired prof, Univ of Ottawa)
This report is one more piece of the puzzle."

Bill C-8 | openparliament.ca - "Kevin Lamoureux Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons: Mr. Speaker, it is always interesting to hear Conservatives make extreme, outlandish claims. The member opposite tries to say that the Liberal Party is going to take away the Internet, take away cellphones and deny people the opportunity to do their banking. The Conservatives have come up with a whole conspiracy theory on how big government is going to take everything away, when the legislation is all about protecting Canadians and protecting the economy. Does the member see any merit in having cybersecurity legislation that would ensure that the interests of Canadians are being served? This includes our economy and economic transactions that take place every day by the thousands. Does he not see the merit in protecting that?
Matt Strauss Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON : Mr. Speaker, I wish this were a conspiracy. I wish the Liberals had the shame to keep it secret. It is open and it is in the bill. Multiple civil society groups have written letters asking them to change this. They are sounding the alarm.  The member said I think it is a conspiracy that the Liberals might freeze bank accounts. They already did that; the federal court said it was a violation of charter rights, and they have no response to that. I am asking them to apologize. They should stand up; they have a lot to say. Now would be a terrific time to apologize for violating our charter rights in the last Parliament."

Canada Proud on X - "The Liberals have, in fact, frozen bank accounts during the convoy and actually did wipe news off of Facebook and Instagram with The Online News Act. But you're a "conspiracy theorist" if you notice."

Think Freedom | Facebook - "It still amazes me how many leftists labeled the convoy protest as “violent,” largely because it disrupted the daily routines of government workers and irritated them with nonstop horn honking. Noise, inconvenience, and civil disobedience were treated as proof of violence. Yet those same voices will watch left-wing protests marked by arson, smashed storefronts, burned police cars, and millions in property damage—and still describe them as “mostly peaceful.” That double standard becomes impossible to ignore when you actually look at what happened during the convoy. For weeks, thousands of people gathered in the nation’s capital without widespread rioting, without organized vandalism, and without the chaos typically associated with violent unrest. Families brought children. People handed out food. Strangers shoveled snow together. Bouncy castles appeared in the streets. If violence were truly the intent, the evidence would be undeniable—but it wasn’t there. When you actually look at what happened during the convoy, the claim of violence falls apart even further. For weeks, thousands of people gathered in the nation’s capital without widespread rioting, organized vandalism, or mass assaults. The crowd was remarkably diverse—men and women, young and old, immigrants and multi-generation Canadians, people of different ethnic backgrounds, religions, and political views. Families brought children. Small business owners stood beside union workers. Indigenous flags, Canadian flags, and even pride flags were visible among the crowd. People shared food, helped strangers, shoveled snow together, and looked out for one another. Bouncy castles appeared in the streets. If violence had truly been the goal, the evidence would have been obvious—but instead, what emerged was a protest defined far more by community and cooperation than by aggression. The primary “crime” cited again and again was that the protest was disruptive—loud, inconvenient, and politically uncomfortable. But disruption has always been a defining feature of protest. If inconvenience alone qualifies as violence, then nearly every major protest movement in history would meet that definition. By any objective standard commonly applied elsewhere, the convoy fits far more accurately under the label “mostly peaceful” than many protests that received that phrase from sympathetic media outlets. The difference wasn’t behavior—it was ideology. When a protest aligns with approved political narratives, violence is minimized, rationalized, or ignored. When it challenges state authority or dominant political views, even peaceful resistance is reframed as dangerous extremism. In reality, the convoy exposed how flexible language becomes when politics are involved. What we witnessed wasn’t an outbreak of violence—it was a peaceful, decentralized protest that made people in power uncomfortable. And for some, discomfort is now treated as the same thing as harm."
Left wingers love to justify the chaos of left wing protests by saying protests are supposed to be disruptive. Of course, that's only good when it's protests they approve of

The Dictator and the Truckers: A Grim Sequel - "Besides cracking down on the truckers and their financial supporters, the Prime Minister unleashed his apparatchiks to maliciously persecute a woman who had journeyed across the country to serve as organizer and spokesperson for the truckers. Tamara Lich, an Indigenous grandmother from Alberta, was arrested and charged with the indefinable crimes of “mischief, obstructing police, and counselling others to commit mischief and intimidation.”... The next day a judge decided she was criminally responsible for organizing what was, in fact, a peaceful protest. Lich spent two weeks in jail and was then released on bail with orders not to communicate with anyone associated with the convoy. She was rearrested after attending a Freedom Rally where she was photographed near another person associated with the convoy. After serving another 30 days in prison, she was again released on bail after a different judge ruled that there had been no significant interaction.  As this B.C. Prosecution Service information sheet explains: “Persons who are charged with an offence are constitutionally entitled to be released from custody unless Crown counsel is able to justify their continued detention…including consideration of the background of the accused, and the risk to the public.” It is inconceivable that under Canada’s current bail system, Lich could be considered a public risk. Her constitutional rights to the presumption of innocence and to timely access to bail were clearly violated – and this seems to have been deliberate.  Meanwhile in Ontario, Randall McKenzie, a habitual offender charged with weapons violations and assaulting a police officer, was last June set free on bail. In contrast to the oppressive bail conditions imposed on the entirely non-violent and non-threatening Lich, and her immediate rearrest on the flimsiest of pretexts, McKenzie was released without major conditions other than periodically reporting to his parole officer. While out on bail, McKenzie then is alleged to have cut off his ankle monitor and committed a slew of additional crimes, culminating just after Christmas in the ambush and murder of Ontario Provincial Police Constable Greg Pierzchala... Incredibly, the Crown prosecutor on her case has stated publicly that he will seek a prison sentence of ten years, something imposed only for very serious violent assaults by habitual criminals – if then."

Inside the Case Against Freedom Convoy’s Tamara Lich and Chris Barber - "While half-a-dozen other charges were later added to the pair’s alleged offences, mischief was the common thread that connected them to the vast majority of other protesters arrested during the crackdown.  This prevalence of mischief seems a rather surprising fact. Amidst what was supposedly a massive and violent breakdown in public order, mischief – or counselling others to be mischievous – turned out to be the most serious crime the police could detect. In Ottawa there were no assaults, no murders, no guns or bombs, no fraud or extortion, no rioting and looting, no treason. Nothing, in other words, that might have signalled that an actual (as opposed to imagined or media-manufactured) insurrection was underway or imminent.  There was, however, one criminal act that provably did occur in Ottawa during the protests. Two men attempted to set an apartment building’s entryway alight and then sealed the doors shut. This appalling and dangerous act was immediately attributed by some to the protesters. Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, for example, stated it “clearly demonstrates the malicious intent of the protesters occupying our city.” Police soon established, however, that the fire had no link to anyone connected to the Freedom Convoy...  According to University of Ottawa law professor Joao Velloso, most mischief charges in Canada are actually quite minor and usually punished without any jail time. Reliance on what he, unlike Spratt, views as a rather insignificant crime as the means to punish Freedom Convoy protesters seems like “a safe, bureaucratic choice for the police”... While outcomes have varied, a clear pattern emerges from a survey of mischief charges laid during the Emergencies Act. Most have been dismissed or returned with a not guilty verdict after only a few days in court. A few – such as Billings’ guilty plea – have resulted in a minor sentence befitting the minor character of the crime itself... By comparison, the trial of Lich and Barber stretched into a 13-month epic, comprising 45 trial days. All for a collection of rather modest mischief and obstruction charges. Why would that be?  The answer, according to Ari Goldkind, a high-profile Toronto criminal defence lawyer, lies in the exact thing Wetscher tried so hard to wave away during her concluding statement: politics. “There is no question whatsoever that this is a political trial,” Goldkind states emphatically in an interview. For the Trudeau government to justify its suspension of Canadians’ civil liberties through the Emergencies Act requires an identifiable villain or two. Lich and Barber fit that bill. The length and unprecedented vigour with which the Crown has pursued the pair – Lich especially – as well as the manner in which the trial has dragged on, argues Goldkind, suggest there’s a “prosecutorial vendetta” against them... While the Freedom Convoy was essentially ungovernable, comprised as it was of many disparate groups and publicity-seeking, independent-minded individuals, Lich tried her best to put her own calm and reasonable stamp on the proceedings. Throughout the protest, Lich’s efforts were observably peaceful and without any apparent mal intent... In her dealings with the police, she always tried to find common ground – a fact readily acknowledged by police witnesses during the trial... In her own interactions with the protesters, over whom she had no real control, Lich repeatedly stressed the protest’s peaceful nature and worked tirelessly to rid the movement of disreputable or hateful characters. She even cobbled together a deal with Ottawa mayor Watson to move some trucks out of the downtown area; ironically, that deal went into effect on the same day as the Emergencies Act was invoked...  in June 2022 it was announced that Lich had been awarded the annual George Jonas Freedom Award, sponsored by the JCCF. Naturally enough she wanted to go to Toronto to accept the honour in person. But before she could, the Crown came after her yet again. At a court hearing necessitated by the award (since her bail conditions also banned her from setting foot in Ontario), Crown prosecutor Moiz Karimjee argued that simply by accepting the honour, Lich had violated the terms of her bail and should be locked up again. Such an absurdity was quickly brushed aside by the presiding judge, who ruled she could travel to Ontario to attend the celebration, provided she abided by the remainder of her bail restrictions. While there, however, Lich was photographed standing beside another convoy participant, Tom Marrazzo. As she recalls in her book, “Lawyers were standing just outside the frame” when the picture was snapped, in fulfilment of her bail conditions. No matter. When the lawyer-less picture began circulating on social media after she’d returned home, Karimjee issued a Canada-wide arrest warrant in her name. Two homicide detectives were then dispatched from Ottawa to pick Lich up in Medicine Hat; the two burly detectives slapped her in leg shackles for the trip to the Calgary airport. You can’t be too careful with grandmothers... Superior Court Justice Andrew Goodman asked Karimjee if he could name a single mischief case in Canada that had resulted in a 10-year sentence. When Karimjee demurred, Goodman set Lich free once more...   In an effort to explain the Crown’s extreme hostility towards her, Lich reveals in her book that prosecutor Karimjee has donated over $17,000 to the federal Liberal Party since 2013 and that his generosity has merited an invitation to at least one “donor appreciation” event with Trudeau himself. Similarly, Bourgeois, the judge who initially denied Lich bail, was once a Liberal candidate in an Ottawa-area riding during the 2011 federal election."

Resistance Theory: The Freedom Convoy’s Place in our Divided History - "former Conservative MP Derek Sloan recalls that when other protesters have come to Ottawa, mainly First Nations officials, “Trudeau would gladly meet them, take a knee, drop the flag to half-mast for months on end, issue endless apologies, and more. But when these honest, hard-working Canadians came to Ottawa, he showed nothing but contempt. [H]e tried to paint them as violent extremists and seditionists.”... And Trudeau is still on the warpath. This is a prime minister, says former Calgary Herald editor David Marsden with considerable justification, who has “never done what most people would consider a full day’s work in his life.”... The son of a former prime minister and the beneficiary of a family trust, he did a stint of substitute teaching and was a snowboard instructor. Not a glowing CV.  “The prime minister doesn’t like Alberta,” Marsden continues, “His government policies have been designed to bring the province to its knees. He swallowed the Pollyanna spittle [about green energy saving the world] being peddled by his environment minister,” the ineffable Steven Guilbeault who, along with deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, is part of the figurative three-headed Cerberus that guards the gates of Canada’s political underworld." In essence, Trudeau is the perfect exemplar of the Eastern anointed class, the so-called Laurentian Elite (or Laurentian Consensus), a term coined in its modern sense a dozen years ago by John Ibbitson in the Literary Review of Canada and elaborated in his book, The Big Shift, co-authored with Darrell Bricker. Defined as “the political, academic, cultural, media and business elites” of central-east Canada, the term draws upon the much older “Laurentian School” of thought concerning Canada’s founding structure and originating purpose developed by mainstream (Eastern Canadian) historians like Donald Creighton... Ibbitson acknowledged that the Western provinces had been treated as “semi-colonial possessions” rather than equal members in Confederation. But he thought all had changed. “The West is in,” Ibbitson declared. “In fact, it is in charge.” This was his assessment of the effect of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government – which has proven utterly ephemeral. Harper may have been “Canada’s First Post-Laurentian Prime Minister”, as claimed in this journal, but it was not to last... the equalization drain represents “just a small part of the province’s outsized contribution to confederation in recent years.” It calculates that “the gap between Albertans’ contribution to federal revenues and federal expenditures plus transfers to the province, totalled $20.5 billion annually in 2017/18. And this measure excludes Albertans’ disproportionate cumulative contribution to the Canada Pension Plan, which on net totalled $2.9 billion in 2017.” Meanwhile, as Alberta is being plundered, Justin Trudeau, like his father Pierre, is doing everything in his power to eviscerate Alberta’s energy industry, the source of its prosperity and of Canada’s solvency. Indeed, the recently completed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, shipping oil at last after a horrendous nearly 15-year gestation, is slated to contribute 0.25 percent to Canada’s GDP growth next year – more, indeed, than the entire province of B.C. Leugner concludes, despairingly: “It is my opinion that Canada, as it’s currently structured, is a broken nation.” This from a veteran, much-deployed officer in the Canadian military. The Prairies are Canada’s food and energy breadbasket and have suffered under the rule of Eastern Canada’s Laurentian peerage, particularly with former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s low-pricing, high-taxing National Energy Program (NEP) in 1980, which devastated Alberta’s oil industry and entire economy... Alberta is “the province that carries most of the weight, bears the most pain and has the least say in this mad enterprise.”...   This is how we need to understand the truckers’ massive 2022 protest, nominally a form of domestic resistance against the vaccine mandates that crippled their health and their livelihoods, as it did the nation in large. But it is fundamentally an expression of the greater historical context of Eastern political, legislative and market domination of the Western provinciae and the determined response of a long misprized, undervalued and misrepresented sector of the nation, rising up against the metaphorical equivalent of the federal government’s 1885 land grab... Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government introduced and quickly passed the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act in response to proposed federal net-zero electricity grid regulations and other recurring intrusions on the province’s core jurisdictions... As to be expected, the Sovereignty Act has been denounced by all the usual Laurentian suspects and Liberal toadies: the CBC, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and many others. No matter. The aforementioned Barry Cooper places Alberta’s Sovereignty Act in the context of the Prairie provinces’ long struggle for due constitutional recognition and the political equality of their citizens... The federal government has no business intruding on the rights of the provincial domain as guaranteed by the Constitution. But under Trudeau the Younger, that is virtually all it does"
When left wingers screech about Albertan "traitors", they are upset the colonies are revolting. Of course, they don't mind Quebec separatists