We All Witnessed the Failure of Police to Control the Freedom Convoy

October 25, 2022

When thousands of angry, Trudeau hating anti-vaccine truckers and their raging hangers on from across the country occupied our capital for over three weeks Canadians watched blanket TV coverage with horror and wondered what kind of country is this that allows the lawless terrorizing of its national capital by these “yahoos” as the mayor of Ottawa called them.

Talking to a TV journalist who was our eyes and ears during these weeks it is clear that they reported “repeatedly” that the policed were not enforcing the law, showing illegal jerry cans of gasoline being toted to waiting trucks, including on the day the Ottawa police chief said tickets were being issued. One journalist recalled Police issuing parking tickets outside that downtown but not on the hill. Network TV showed us plywood storage structures being built, organized deliveries from a distant supply center, major online funding, singing and bonfires and fireworks at night, and incessant honking. They had difficulty talking to protestors who preferred social media to get their message out to appearing on camera. And telling the story of the occupation was very difficult even dangerous as TV reporters were swarmed and harassed.


Daily briefings by police did not provide much reassurance to Ottawacitizens. Tough questions on law enforcement were not answered with any satisfaction. It took a 21-year-old downtown resident, Zexi Li to launch an injunction to make horn honking illegal on February 8. The same week the police chief called for major reinforcements to help

beleaguered Ottawa police and the mayor called the occupation an “insurrection”. The public agreed. A debate in the Commons on the situation found everyone making the right noises but no real action plan to end the unprecedented complete breakdown of order in a major city. We watched amazed. By the last week only s few OPP

officer showed the result of pleading for more support. It was widely reported that tow truck operators refused to be involved.
 
Turns out the under resourced Ottawa Police and governments had been warned about the dangerous convoy by an OPP intelligence report distributed as it was being organized across the country. OPP Superintendent Pat Morris told the Inquiry into use of the Emergency Act that their intelligence warned there would be a “significant” event

that would involve large groups of motivated people, commercial vehicles with the intent of impeding government business with no exit plan. Protesters travelling to Ottawa showed an incredible motivation and would follow through on what they were saying, Morris tools the Inquiry. The OPP also warned of “ideologically motivated extremists who espouse sovereign=citizen ideals”. These warning were not taken seriously by Ottawa police who initially thought the demonstrations would only last a few days.


The political ins and outs of the use of the emergency powers and the suspension of some normal civic rights is dominating the news as is speculation as to what parties would be winners and losers coming out of its findings. The inquiry will hear over 60 witnesses including the Prime Minister and Ministers who will defend the use of the Act as the only way to clear Ottawa streets. And we will all be reminded of how several senior Conservatives openly and inexplicably supported the truckers – the new leader in act being inspired by the convoy’s blatant use of the freedom slogan and adopting it for his own.


Legalities aside, the use of the Act did succeed in ending the occupation and we applauded watching serried ranks of over 2,000 police push protestors back and clear Ottawa’s streets while tow trucks, forced to comply, towed rigs away.

 

I am reminded, as are many older Canadians of Pierre Trudeau’s “Just watch me” confrontation with CBC’s Tim Raife after invoking the War Measures Act during the FLQ driven October Crisis in 1970. He was clear he had no time for “bleeding hearts” who did not like the sight of the military who were called in. “Let them go on bleeding” he said. While the wholesale arrest of suspected separatists in Quebec left an enduring black spot on Trudeau’s reputation there, his decisiveness in dealing with an organized threat to government was well received in

the rest of Canada. The “freedom convoy” started as a revolt against vaccine mandates which were preventing unvaccinated truckers form entering the US. It morphed into a coalition of angry Justin haters and right-wing

extremists and malcontents with wider if unrealistic ambitions to form a parallel government – an ambition of the FLQ in 1970 as well.

 

Some will say in the end the anti-vaccers won – for example a new government in Alberta is dedicated to never again imposing vaccine mandates. But the “insurrection” on Ottawa’s streets went well beyond that, and many feel government finally had to show resolve and strong action to end the biggest demonstration of lawlessness Canada has seen for generations . The fact the Justin like his dad was decisive and did end the occupation may win the battle for hearts and minds, even if he did overplay his hand. Our distaste for images of lawlessness we saw

endlessly on TV over more than three weeks may help that.


by Patrick Gossage 

Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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