Finding the balance between the right to protest and the rule of law FREEDOM

In addition, Ken Coates 9 The danger of politicizing the policing of protests looks at the Freedom Convoy’s long-term consequences to the Ryan Alford nation’s future and Stuart Parker examines the curious case of 13 Now that the horns are silent, the real work begins the NDP’s historic decision to support the federal government’s Ken Coates use of the Emergencies Act. [...] Ken Coates ter and inaccurate representation of the protesters as an unruly group of racists The truckers have finally left Ottawa, To say there is and dangerous radicals completely failed the good citizens of the nation’s capital to rally the country to his side and gave have their city back, and the police have political unease strength to the movement. [...] The Emergen- in the land is Members of the government caucus cies Act, a serious over-reaction from the are clearly upset with the handling of the outset, was a damp squib that unnecessar- to understate crisis, although the vaunted Liberal Party ily sullied the Canadian political landscape. [...] turbance,” something that can be handled The second option which was open to Douglas continued: with the Criminal Code and other laws on the government was that if it came to the Instead, the government has taken the the books, and “apprehended insurrection.” conclusion that the powers it now enjoys unusual step of invoking the War Measures Until the government made out the case under the Criminal. [...] troops are the beneficiaries of Western training and have experience Russia’s inability to trigger the rapid collapse of the Ukrainian in undertaking combat operations since the 2014 Donbass War, government, alongside the apparent rise of a paramilitary and 22 INSIDE POLICY • The Magazine of The Macdonald-Laurier Institute that territory.