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00:00:01
Are the police on strike?
145 Plays2 years ago
Luke Lebrun, the editor of Press Progress and Ottawa resident, joins the pod to talk about what he's seen first-hand during the Ottawa occupation, plus the incurious Ontarian learns about the Edmonton Police Service's refusal to enforce a court-ordered injunction.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Features
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey folks, Duncan Kinney here to say that the Progress Report is a proud member of the Harbinger Media Network. A podcast on the network that I want to highlight is the latest from the Forgotten Corner. Hosts Jeremy Appell, Scott Schmidt, and Robert Alexia are joined by author Tyler Shipley to discuss both his new book, which is on my nightstand and I'm gonna start reading soon, called Canada in the World, but also the Ottawa occupation and a bunch of other great stuff. You should really listen to it, it's a fantastic pod. Now, onto the show.
Meet the Host and Guests
00:00:42
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to the Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney. We're recording today here in Amiskwichiwa, Skaigam, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty Six territory on the banks of the Kasiscasa, Wannasipi, or the North Saskatchewan River. Joining us today is Luke Lebron, editor of Press Progress, an organization that Progress Alberta and the Progress Report are frequently mistaken for, but just to be clear, we are in fact two separate organizations
00:01:10
Speaker
just so everyone knows. But Luke, that does not stop you from getting hate mail about me. Is that correct? That is correct, Duncan. I frequently get emails directed to you letting me know how much some people really don't like your podcast. It's great. It's actually really good because I don't get those emails and you get them. But please send them my way. I do perversely like knowing what the haters think.
00:01:39
Speaker
To be honest, I think I get more criticism directed at you than actually directed at me. Well, you got to love Alberta.
Ottawa Occupation Overview
00:01:47
Speaker
So Luke, the reason why we're having you on the podcast is because you are like literally in Ottawa right now. You are, you are our boots on the ground. You are our man on the street. You are your eyeball witness to what has been going on in Ottawa for the past going on three weeks, three weeks going on four weeks now, just about fourth. Uh, we're going into the fourth weekend.
00:02:10
Speaker
And I've been following your Twitter account with great interest. And before we get started, I do want to place us in the context of what we're recording. We're recording this here. It's like 10.08 Mountain Standard Time on Friday morning. Like right now, police are in the middle of their operation to arrest and clear and tow out people in Ottawa.
00:02:30
Speaker
We just be mindful of that when you're listening to this, that something horrible may have happened. We have not heard about anything horrible being happened yet, but just FYI.
00:02:43
Speaker
The reason, again, why I wanted to bring you on is to really provide a sense of scale to what's been going on in Ottawa. Essentially, the big journalistic, mainstream journalism outlets have really been focusing on what's on the hill and a handful of notable places. But can you give us a sense of the size and scope
00:03:08
Speaker
of the kind of convoy occupation, you know, from someone who's like living through it. Yeah. So, I mean, I think the first thing is that most of the images that I think people are seeing on TV, I mean, like 90% of the images are basically of Wellington Street right in front of Pearlman Hill. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Obviously, you know, it makes for the most dramatic image. It's also kind of the focal point of where a lot of the protesters are
00:03:34
Speaker
you know, they have a stage set up there and what have you. And then the other thing is just that all of the media outlets tend to have their offices within about a block radius of this location. So, you know, on TV, you're seeing predominantly
00:03:50
Speaker
images of this like one or two block kind of stretch in downtown Ottawa right in front of parliament but in reality you know like so downtown Ottawa just to give people a sense of you know the actual layout um and please like go on google maps and just like look at this it'll probably make more sense but like downtown Ottawa uh like the actual urban area of it is like a 20 by 20 give or take block kind of
00:04:16
Speaker
area. You know, in the north, it's the Ottawa, the Ottawa River on the east, it's the Rideau Canal on the south, it's the Queensway basically. And so of that area, like basically, there's like a 10 by 10 block, kind of, you know, downtown core with like office towers is what you would think of when you think of downtown. And that entire area is has been occupied by pickup, not pickup trucks, but large kind of like big rig type
Infrastructure of the Convoy
00:04:46
Speaker
Trucks right and on the sidewalk are they in the middle of the street or in the middle of the street they've been you know the idol twenty four seven. The driver sleep in there in there in their trucks for the first couple weeks they were blaring their horns like god all hours of the day and night.
00:05:05
Speaker
And yeah, and I mean, this is basically, I mean, with some exceptions, there's a couple of streets that police have managed to keep open just for like emergency vehicles and what have you. But there's basically like a giant 10 by 10 block kind of area that's just like, you know, trucks everywhere with them, you know, they're blowing diesel, diesel fumes into people's bedroom windows and what have you.
00:05:28
Speaker
Um, so that's kind of like the, the occupation zone, if you will. And then beyond that, and this is kind of like one of the weirder things is that the surrounding neighborhoods, the surrounding residential neighborhoods. Um, there's a lot of a smaller pickup trucks, um, you know, cars and whatever, and they're driving around with these like.
00:05:45
Speaker
um flagpoles with like Canadian flags off them a bunch of them also have flags that say fuck Trudeau um and you know so like during the day they kind of just like drive around hectoring people this is where people are getting harassed by just random uh you know people in random pickup trucks like they'll see people wearing masks and they'll just start you know yelling at them or threatening them or whatever
00:06:07
Speaker
Um, and then at night, I mean, there's people sleeping on residential streets in their, in their cars and vehicles. Um, and it's pretty wild. Like, I don't think people are seeing that part of the, uh, that part of this occupation. And, uh, I mean, for myself, I've been going out at night and trying to, you know, take little videos, just showing people what, uh, the scene is like in different neighborhoods around the city.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, you've been going out at night and kind of scoping out the occupation. One of the things you found on one of these walks was that like the baseball stadium parking lot had essentially become like a de facto supply headquarters for the occupation. What's been going on there? And is that still open and still operating?
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, that's another weird thing. I mean, I'll take a step back before I get to the baseball stadium, but they have. OK, so like another thing that's just really weird about this whole occupation is they have a very elaborate kind of organization and like they've got supply lines like these people, they have food being brought in to them. They've got barbecues and stuff. They're basically, you know, they have tents set up with where they're distributing food and what have you.
00:07:18
Speaker
And all of this is supported by these logistics camps that they've set up at different places in the in the city and around the region. One of them was set up at Confederation Park in downtown Ottawa. This is like
00:07:33
Speaker
two blocks away from Parliament Hill. It's right across the street from City Hall. And so yeah, they started building like wooden structures. They had like a bunch of RVs there. There was like a, there's like fires in oil drums and it looked very, you know, kind of like a Mad Max sort of feel to it.
00:07:52
Speaker
Um, anyways, that eventually got torn down. There was another, and then, so then there's like this other logistics camp. It is, um, you know, it's a fair distance away. It's hard to describe actually. It's, um, probably about like a five minute drive from downtown Ottawa. And it's located at the Ottawa baseball stadium, which is owned by the, uh, city. So, uh, you know, years ago, Ottawa used to be the, uh, home to the farm team for the Montreal Expos, the Ottawa
Convoy Organization
00:08:17
Speaker
Lynx.
00:08:17
Speaker
RIP expos. RIP expos. And, you know, so we, we, anyways, Ottawa has like a fairly large, you know, baseball stadium probably fits like five to 10,000 people or so. And for whatever reason, Ottawa police decided to tell the
00:08:35
Speaker
tell the convoy that they could go to. Well, first of all, they told them they could go to a whole bunch of different places around the city and use it as like parking lots. But what ended up happening like we just go here. You know, we don't like you being here. So could you go somewhere else, please?
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I mean, for the first couple of days of it, I mean, I think Ottawa Police treated it like they were doing traffic for a big event. So they directed them to a couple of different places. One place was down by the War Museum in the west side of the downtown. Then the other place that they sent them to was the baseball stadium. So I guess police thought that they were just going to relieve
00:09:15
Speaker
some of the congestion downtown by sending trucks to park there. What ended up happening instead was they fortified the area, built this really elaborate base. Oh my God, there's probably a hundred vehicles or so, like big trucks as well as RVs and a whole bunch of things. They've got tents set up. They've got- They've got walls, they've got palisades, they've got cannons. Yeah, exactly. That's not true, of course.
00:09:43
Speaker
No, but they've taken grocery store skids, those wooden skids, and they've built this wooden fence around the perimeter. There's a boat there for some reason. They've got a navy.
00:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, they've got this boat. They've got like two saunas. They had like a hot tub. I went down there and I started scoping it out and I actually got confronted by some of them. Kind of hilariously, they actually thought I was like an undercover cop and started questioning me and then I guess I gained their trust and they believed me that I wasn't a cop.
00:10:22
Speaker
They told me that they received like a whole bunch of food. They claimed that they had like three months worth of food or something like this. And it was given to them by some wealthy Ottawa landowner whose name they didn't know, but they just knew that he like sent them a whole bunch of food. So they were like stocked up for about three months.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, so that's like another another part of this this whole thing which just makes it so strange. The other thing too is there are quite a few people who are pretty senior in the
00:10:54
Speaker
the leadership of the convoy who have former military or RCMP training and or like backgrounds in the military or the RCMP and I mean not to overstate it I don't think these people are you know military geniuses or you know strategic geniuses by any means but you can sort of tell that they when they approach a problem they kind of look at it through that lens so that's why they're I that's in my sense in my opinion that's why they're
00:11:20
Speaker
probably, you know, setting up supply lines and base camps and what have you.
00:11:25
Speaker
And your point about the police being embedded, former police, current police, former soldiers, current soldiers being embedded within this convoy occupation is an important point. And one of the reasons when we look back at this, the public inquiry that's going to happen is like, okay, so you didn't touch them for three weeks. And I think that's going to be one of the factors that comes up, right?
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, for me, you know, when I look at it, I mean, I think the first mistake they made, as I kind of mentioned earlier, was, you know, when they showed up, they sort of treated like they were just doing, you know, event traffic control kind of thing. And then they, you know, they let the they let a whole bunch of trucks just drive right down Wellington Street, park next to the PMO.
00:12:13
Speaker
Park right across from the House of Commons and you know that whole area and then once they let them in they just never left and I I mean I assume that the police thought that after one day maybe two days they would just all you know go home after the weekend, but They ended up staying for three to four weeks
00:12:32
Speaker
So some of the other reporting you've been doing, which has been really interesting, is these other base camps. There's at least one that's outside of Ottawa, which seems to be incredibly well resourced. Where is this located? What are we talking about resource-wise? And what happened when you reached out to confirm to the landowner that he was hosting essentially a forward operating base of the convoy occupation people?
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, so outside of Ottawa, there's an area called Russell Township, and there's a town called Embran. And it's primarily, actually, so Russell is a town, and then right next to is Embran. Russell is kind of more of an Anglophone place in Embran's Francophone. Anyways, if you drive about 30 minutes down the 417, you'll drive past the giant Amazon warehouse that recently was built, and then the next exit,
00:13:28
Speaker
There's a place called Vars. The first thing that struck me when I drove there was that when you get off the off-ramp, they've actually put up their own road signs directing people to the base camp. This is not something hiding out. They've actually put up their own alternate road sign system just to direct people to the place.
00:13:52
Speaker
Anyways, yeah, so it's located in this farm field about five kilometers south of the 417 right outside Embran. Again, when I went, it was on a Sunday midday and there were about 50 vehicles there, but I've seen videos where at night it
00:14:09
Speaker
balloons up to, you know, 100 or so it might be even larger than that at some points. Yeah, they've got tents, they've got RVs, they've got those, you know, those like kind of mobile construction site offices. Yeah, they've got trailers. Yeah, exactly. They've got all that stuff. It's loaded with food, it's loaded with fuel, it's got all kinds of
00:14:31
Speaker
All kinds of things. It's really strange. Actually, the other thing, too, is when I drove there, I actually found like additional sites, which were I mean, they've got like porta potties. It looked like basically a bunch of RVs boondocking in the middle of empty lots just in these rural areas.
00:14:49
Speaker
And yeah, and it's very strange and I actually, I, so I, I first, I, I just heard about this base camp. So I decided to go out there and check it out. And then my next question was just, you know, how is this thing able to exist out here? Um, so then I started reaching out to the, you know, local government and the RCMP detach, or sorry, OPP detachment that's in Russell. Um, I reached out to, uh, like a local community Facebook group. And what I ended up discovering is that this, um, this rural community is actually.
00:15:19
Speaker
being divided by COVID conspiracies and far-right extremism and that kind of stuff. Most of the people in the town recognize that this stuff is just really batshit. But there's a pretty vocal
00:15:38
Speaker
a vocal, you know, part of the community that is increasingly getting radicalized, especially during the pandemic. Part of this is, you know, Randy Hillier, who is, he's a, you know, former MP, well, he's a current MPP, he formerly was with
00:15:55
Speaker
Doug Ford's Ontario PCs. Doug Ford kicked him out of the party. He's now created his own independent party, which he's going to run in the next election. Part of this is that people like Randy Hillier have been doing a lot of organizing on the ground in these kinds of rural communities outside of Ottawa and in rural Ontario. The other part of it is that a lot of the local residents were telling me that they're getting
00:16:19
Speaker
this conspiracy newspaper called Druthers, and it's just showing up in people's mailboxes. They don't know where it's coming from. I'm familiar with Druthers. It gets handed out at the rallies here by the pro convoy folks. It's just like anti-vaccine, anti-COVID conspiracy rag that gets handed out by volunteers.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So I mean, it was just a whole bunch of things that are going on in this community. And I don't think that they what came out from to me from what I, you know, the discussions that I had with some of the people there is that I really doesn't sound like their local institutions are prepared to deal with the onslaught of, you know, far right organizing and, you know, the conspiracies are coming in through these newspapers, but also obviously online.
00:17:07
Speaker
That's a fantastic segue actually to the conversation around the state rapidly losing legitimacy in the face of this crisis. Conversely, we've seen Justin Trudeau bring in the Emergencies Act, the very first time it's ever been invoked since this bill has been created.
Government Response and Emergencies Act
00:17:29
Speaker
I assume just based on the reaction that you are now, you can't go more than two blocks in the city of Ottawa without having to show your papers, is that correct?
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, so they've set up police checkpoints all across, I think they're calling it the red zone. So for myself, you know, just to go to the grocery store, you kind of have to, you know, flash your ID and tell them you're a local resident. It hasn't been too, too onerous at this point. But I mean, they're obviously trying to keep out additional reinforcements that have that are heading towards downtown.
00:18:05
Speaker
Justin Trudeau brought in the Emergencies Act. I'm cracking jokes. I think it is quite serious. The reason why I think it's serious isn't because it's an infringement on our civil liberties, it's this, that, and the other thing. The reason, my analysis why it was brought in is because it was a signal to the police to do their fucking job.
00:18:27
Speaker
And in order to get the police to do their job, instead of just like get the police enforcing the law as they are supposed to and, and, uh, and using the laws and statutes available to them, uh, for the flight to enforce and kind of crack down on the flagrant law breaking that has happened as a part of this convoy.
00:18:45
Speaker
Instead, our federal liberal government saw fit to bring in the Emergencies Act, which is a bit like killing a fly with a hammer here. At the end of the day, this is a policing problem. This was a fuck up by the police to let them in in the first place. It's been a fuck up by the police to not actually enforce the law and just let these people do whatever the hell they wanted for as long as it's gone on.
00:19:11
Speaker
And instead of just telling the police what to do, because apparently you can't, no one is allowed to tell the police what to do. They are a law unto themselves. Justin Trudeau has to bring in the Emergencies Act and have Christian Freeland say all of these things that we're going to do and be very stern about it. And that's my take on the Emergencies Act. You're living through it right now. What's your take?
00:19:38
Speaker
I mean, for me, my question is, what powers did police not have that they required through this Emergencies Act? Exactly, yes. There are trucks parked in the middle of streets. They're blaring their horns. They're sleeping there. Do we not have laws to prevent that? To me, it would be very concerning if we don't have a law that prevents someone from
00:20:01
Speaker
just sleeping in their car while their horn is going for 24 hours a day. From legal experts that I've heard, I'm obviously not a legal expert, so I'll defer to them on these things, but it sounds like they're
00:20:17
Speaker
were clearly enough laws for police to do their jobs prior to the Emergencies Act being invoked. The other thing too is the municipal government declared a state of emergency, the provincial government declared a state of emergency, and now the federal government is doing it.
00:20:34
Speaker
It seems to me like part of this is optics and it's kind of about showing, you know, that the government's serious and they're going to do something. And it's kind of addressing this perception that, you know, just no one was doing anything. I mean, with that said, I mean, there may be some, from what I've heard, there are like some, you know, this like frees up some additional resources in some cases or allows, you know, some bureaucratic red tape to be, you know,
00:21:03
Speaker
to remove that from the equation. So, I mean, there may be some merits to some of this, but for the most part, it does seem like, you know, the question is, you know, what additional power did they actually need?
00:21:15
Speaker
No, and one thing that I keep talking about in the context of like, again, the bringing in the Emergencies Act, you know, is here in the city of Edmonton, we had city council bring in an injunction to stop the honking that happens on Saturdays. These are efforts by the authorities, by the, you know, our elected officials and leadership, ostensible leadership.
00:21:35
Speaker
to address what in my mind is like a pseudo police strike. This is a labor action by the police to simply not do their job. They are deciding to not enforce the laws selectively. It's been very clear from the beginning of this convoy occupation that there is one set of laws in policing for them and one set of laws in policing for everybody else. This police strike doesn't look like a strike usually looks like with picket lines and signs.
00:22:05
Speaker
and the labor board involved. They're just going to show up to their job and do it real half-assed.
00:22:15
Speaker
reasons for that. Obviously, the police are clearly sympathetic to the political goals of the protesters. We've seen multiple videos of police supporting these people or hugging them. It's quite clear that modern policing requires a certain amount of dehumanization of the people that you are policing in order for the police to do their job.
00:22:42
Speaker
It's quite clear that the police in this case were not able to apply that level of dehumanization to these people. Roughing up these convoy people and arresting them and slamming them into the cars and throwing them into the back of a cop car was just simply not on the table.
00:22:56
Speaker
These convoy people are a lot different than intoxicated unhoused people or skinny anarchists fighting for unhoused people in an encampment in a park somewhere. These convoy protesters look like the cops and the cops clearly sympathize.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think my observations, I think there's probably several things going on, at least in Ottawa. I mean, maybe in Edmonton, there are different dynamics, and maybe you can shed some light on that. For me, like, I mean, so in Ottawa, there's a couple things. So one is that Peter Slalley, the former police chief who resigned, he was brought in, I mean, you know, just to
00:23:37
Speaker
you know, just to recognize, I mean, he was the first black police chief in Ottawa's history. He was brought in after, you know, there was a killing of a man who was mentally, you know, had mental health issues by police. And, you know, he was sort of brought in to address some of the some of the fallout that came from from that whole incident. And
00:24:02
Speaker
You know, so there were definitely tensions between the police association in Ottawa and slowly and that may have had some, you know, there may be some of that that was going on. I mean, I don't think that police are just, you know, outright disobeying orders. That would be very serious. And I think they could actually get prosecuted if there was.
00:24:19
Speaker
But we saw that there was former police chief slowly put out a directive saying, hey, if you see people with gas cans walking by you, arrest them, take the gas cans. The OPP, who were there to support the Ottawa Police Service, decided not to enforce it. And then the OPS, the Ottawa Police Service officers decided not to enforce it right alongside the OPP. This has happened. This has been documented. This has been reported.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, so in those cases, I mean, there's, you know, when those sorts of things have happened, what the police have said is that, you know, they're outnumbered, and they need more resources. And that has been a whole thing. I mean, it seems a little ridiculous to me, because when you look at, for example, in Windsor, you know, within a day or two, they managed to clear that whole area just by, you know, showing up in
00:25:03
Speaker
you know, a fair number of with a fair number of people and telling them that they would get arrested if they didn't leave and they just sort of scattered immediately. So I don't know anyways, it does seem like the like the response that the police have given has been that, you know, they felt like they didn't have enough numbers to deal with the
00:25:22
Speaker
problem. And so that's why they just sort of selectively didn't enforce it. It is I mean, at the same time, though, it's obviously not helpful for them that there's videos of, you know, some police allowing people to sit in the back seats of cruisers and sort of pose for selfies, like as if they're getting arrested, like it's this like carnival, carnival attraction kind of thing. Anyways, it's a it's a big question, though, like why there wasn't
00:25:50
Speaker
why there wasn't more done at an earlier point throughout this whole thing.
Public and Police Reactions
00:25:57
Speaker
It has also seemed really clear that the police had no plan and they were just flailing for about two or three weeks. You're on the ground there. You're in Ottawa. Do you think that this idea that
00:26:10
Speaker
Are the police rapidly losing legitimacy as an institution? Is the whole idea of defunding the police gathering steam as people have seen the incompetence of law enforcement kind of firsthand?
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, so the first part of that question, I mean, they have, there are so many videos that have just come out that are like almost comical and absurd. Um, you know, there was this one video recently where, uh, you know, they started towing this one pickup truck and then the guy just throws this temper tantrum. He's sitting in the, he's sitting in the truck as they're trying to tow it away. And he's just, you know, yelling at the cop and berating the cop and saying, like, you know,
00:26:50
Speaker
You have no right to tell me, you know, what to do and all that sort of stuff. And then I guess he just made such a fuss that they decided to let him let him go. And so you look at these videos and they're just, you know, it's just really embarrassing. The saunas, I think, were also another another one that just really
00:27:10
Speaker
really made everyone scratch their heads. You've seen dogs locked in cars. You've published a story about a kid with a gas can strapped to his back. Things are getting a little fucked up.
00:27:25
Speaker
Yeah, and then there's like a bouncy castle on like right in front of Parliament Hill in the middle of all this. You know, it's, I think I think these images have done a lot to erode trust in Ottawa police definitely especially amongst people who would you would not normally
00:27:43
Speaker
here criticizing the police, but I mean, definitely there are a whole bunch of people on Twitter, people who might be more centrist, you know, kind of like these more establishment kind of Ottawa, you know, Ottawa. Yeah, normie liberal bureaucrat types. Yeah, who are just like openly talking about like defunding the police now. So, you know, the police have done a pretty good job at building up some consensus on that issue.
00:28:13
Speaker
We've also seen some incredibly heartening scenes of resistance as well. Last weekend, there was the Battle of Billings Bridge, which was written about in the breach, which we will link to in the show notes, which was very dope. You were talking to me about a strategic shutdown of an intersection in Ottawa last weekend, which messed up the convoy and was incredibly embarrassing and emasculating for the convoy occupation people. Can you tell me about that?
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, the first couple of weeks, there were no real, you know, resident led initiatives or, you know, kind of direct actions because people were warning, you know, people were warning everyone to stay away from downtown. I mean, it legitimately was a bit of a, you know, a safety issue. A few a few things were being organized and then there were like actual threats being made towards
00:29:03
Speaker
towards some of the organizers. I think people just finally got fed up with the police in action and they started taking things into their own hands last weekend. The first one was basically down by bank in Riverside. This was a route that the convoy people were using to travel from the baseball stadium to downtown.
00:29:23
Speaker
And basically a whole bunch of residents showed up, including some of the local city councillors and the local MPP, Joel Hardin. They basically set up right at the intersection. And then as the trucks tried to get
00:29:41
Speaker
from the logistics camp at the baseball stadium to downtown. They all kind of mobbed the trucks and they basically said, we won't let you pass until you take all your ridiculous signs down from your trucks and so forth. And that seemed like it was a pretty effective action to disrupt their supply lines and to, it ended up leading to all these images of truckers taking down their,
00:30:09
Speaker
You know they're ridiculous fuck Trudeau flags and some of the stickers that they have on the sides of their vehicles. Yeah. And then the other one that you mentioned. So this was down by the Museum of Nature.
00:30:23
Speaker
Um, basically, uh, I think it was just about like 25, 30 people who blocked an intersection. But because Ottawa has this very Kafka asks sort of one, like every street in downtown is a one way street to sort of regulate traffic. Um, so because of that, it's kind of hard to get around. There's only about three, like real access points to downtown from the Queensway.
00:30:48
Speaker
So they placed themselves in this one intersection that was just if you look at it on a map, it was actually just really brilliant, like a really brilliant spot to to, you know, to block because it made it really hard to get downtown.
00:31:03
Speaker
And by doing that, you know, it actually forced the hand of police and then they ended up having to shut down one of the off ramps from the highway, which was allowing, you know, a lot of these people to get from there, you know, from outside of Ottawa into downtown. And and yeah, I mean, I think I think it was pretty clear that some of these actions were more effective than a lot of the stuff that police had been doing to date. Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
It's encouraging to see people essentially take their own safety into their own hands. As we have seen over the course of the past month, the police are selectively applying the rule of law. The rule of law, the thing that conservatives hold up and politicians hold up as this sacred thing, it's clearly only in place some of the time for some of the people.
00:31:58
Speaker
And so it's up to us to keep each other safe. And it's been incredibly encouraging to see the Battle of Billions Bridge and the action that you're talking about. You can keep yourself safe. You can mess with the convoy.
00:32:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, another thing too is just like the images that are going around, right, just from people who have, you know, iPhones or whatever, and they're just walking around taking videos of these things. And it really has shamed the police in some cases into taking action, for example, the in Confederation Park.
00:32:32
Speaker
as I mentioned, where they started building wooden structures. It just took a couple of people taking photos and videos of these wooden structures. They had a huge cache of gas canisters and propane tanks and stuff, which was a huge fire hazard.
00:32:51
Speaker
You know, so just like something as simple as, you know, an image, like it really once that gets out there, it kind of forces the hand of local officials and police to actually do something.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah, and we saw this here in Edmonton, where a small group of counter-protester, 20 to 30 people, chose a specific spot to stop a part of the convoy, and they did so. They did so for about an hour. But hilariously, the Edmonton police were there, quick as a whip, to break up this counter-protest. They mobilized about three big vans. They had cops with the big, long crowd control nightsticks ready to go.
00:33:31
Speaker
All of this to facilitate the ongoing convoy, which again disrupted downtown Edmonton for the next four to five hours after the counter-protest was over.
00:33:46
Speaker
It's important to realize that the rule of law is always going to be applied asymmetrically here. The police clearly have who they favor. And that sucks, but still there are still efforts you can take to keep each other safe. And it's incredibly encouraging to see these counter protests led by residents, people who live there. So full support to the real heroes is what I'm saying.
00:34:09
Speaker
So tell me, so tell me, Duncan, I know as an Easterner, I know very little about what has been going on in Edmonton. How is like, I mean, based on what I've described to you, how is how does the situation in Edmonton with some of the convoy activities, how does that feel like it differs from from from auto?
00:34:29
Speaker
from Ottawa. Here in Edmonton, over the past three weekends, we have seen convoy actions where several hundred, maybe even a thousand or so, numbers are tough to come by. Trucks and vehicles, some large trucks, a lot of pickup trucks, some cars, essentially swarm downtown Edmonton. They essentially snarl traffic. They bring it to a halt in many cases if their numbers are large enough.
00:34:55
Speaker
And, uh, they lean on their horns and they fucking just like in Ottawa, they lean on their horns, you know, for a good, essentially daylight for during daylight hours, as soon as they show up until they leave, they're on their fucking horns. And, uh, and they stopped traffic and they, they lean on their horns and they're about, uh, you know, the community of Oliver, there's around 20,000 people downtown. There's about 10,000.
00:35:14
Speaker
talking about like 30,000, Rossdale, maybe 2000, so maybe like 35,000 people are like directly affected by this, you know, these incredibly loud vehicles just leaning on their horns for several hours at a time.
00:35:30
Speaker
Uh, in order to, to counter this disruption, because as you can imagine, people were complaining, uh, the city of Edmonton went to the trouble of getting an injunction. Uh, you know, not as serious as the emergencies act, obviously, but they went to the trouble of getting injunction. And this junction said, Hey, if you're, if you're leaning on your horn, you could be charged bad things could happen to you. I am paraphrasing of course. And, uh,
00:35:51
Speaker
And that was just before last weekend. And the Edmonton Police, in their fine wisdom, decided to essentially ignore it. The same protest happened, you know, several hours, you know, during daylight hours of this kind of cacophony. And the Edmonton Police handed out nine whole tickets for noise. I believe 60, 70 tickets total.
00:36:14
Speaker
Again, there was far more than nine instances of people honking their horns. Again, you have the police selectively deciding what laws to enforce, applying the rule of law to some people and not to others, as we saw with the counter demonstration.
00:36:31
Speaker
And there has been some political fallout here in Edmonton. We have seen the police chief having to go to the trouble of explaining himself for the throwing this kind of press conference where everything, essentially it was like a congratulatory, we're doing a great job. And if you're complaining, you suck a press conference, which is a really interesting tack to take by a police chief, but really kind of par for the course with the kind of current
00:36:59
Speaker
police chief and his communication style, which was very funny. You got the opportunity to ask him a question, didn't you?
00:37:09
Speaker
Yes, I did show up to this press conference and I did ask him, hey, are you going to enforce the law? And he was like, that's just your opinion. And we don't like your opinion. I'm paraphrasing, of course, if you want to go see it, it's very easily you can go to the progress of our Twitter account. But yeah, he was kind of very curt and dismissive. And he clearly has incredibly thin skin and doesn't like any kind of pushback on his narrative.
00:37:31
Speaker
I've gotten into it with the police chief before and he clearly doesn't like me and doesn't like the fact that our journalistic outfit exists. It took months and months of work and negotiations to actually get them to recognize us as an official news outlet and to send us their press releases and to let us participate in their press conferences and stuff.
00:37:55
Speaker
Surely, as a fellow journalist, Luke, you can appreciate that it would be incredibly problematic for the police to decide who is and isn't legitimate media, which is something they actually were like, we don't believe you're legitimate media.
00:38:06
Speaker
I found, when I watched that video clip of you asking the police chief the question, I was really surprised. He said something to the effect of, he basically said that you were offering an opinion, not a question or something, but you were actually clearly asking a question. It was almost like the implication was that you had to ask the question a certain way. It was just really bizarre to me.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, he yeah, it was it was a bizarre exchange and to people who are not aware of the dynamic between the chief and I I wonder what people think because yeah, it's certainly he certainly like comes off as like
00:38:44
Speaker
incredibly dismissive of what was a tough question. It's not like I was out there lobbing him softballs, but I can't remember or call the exact language of my question, but it was a hard question. Dude, you get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Every once in a while, a fucking jerk like me is going to step up to a microphone and ask you a question that might not be the phrase in the most particular way to your liking. Deal with it, man.
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, it kind of reminds me, I mean, from my experiences of dealing with, you know, dealing with conservatives in Alberta, there is really like a culture, like a different culture when it comes to, I don't know, it's almost like this, this, this attitude of, of like, they feel like they're above being questioned, or they think that they're owed this certain, like a certain level of deference or something, it's very odd.
00:39:39
Speaker
And he and based on reporting that progress, Alberta has done we know that, you know, Chief McPhee has attended UCP fundraisers in the past or at least one, the UCP t Rex Derby, which happened at a racetrack outside of Lekom Alberta where
00:39:54
Speaker
UCP MLAs dressed up in T-Rex costumes and raised each other and they bet on it and all the proceeds went to the UCP party. That was the fundraiser that Chief McPhee attended with a friend of his who runs an ankle bracelet company. Yeah, again, original reporting from us. I don't know if you saw that, Luke. He wasn't the one who was dressed up as a T-Rex, was he?
00:40:15
Speaker
He was not dressed up as a T-Rex though. Those were UCP MLAs dressed up as T-Rex. Yeah, that's, that's much, much better. Um, you know, and then the following day here in Edmonton, after that police chief press conference, we had, uh, the Edmonton police commission hold their monthly public meeting that they're kind of obligated to hold under the kind of terms of the legislation that these things exist
Criticism of Police and Authorities
00:40:38
Speaker
under. And I know in Ottawa, we've seen drama at the police board as well.
00:40:43
Speaker
Uh, the Ottawa police board has kind of like been turned into this, uh, political football by, uh, the mayor who is, uh, seems to be incredibly unpopular right now. Like I really cannot emphasize enough to your Alberta listeners how much they need to go on YouTube and watch an Ottawa municipal, um,
00:41:02
Speaker
council meeting that happened a few days ago. It is just wild. There were multiple people crying. Jim Watson tried to, the Mayor Jim Watson, former Liberal, Ontario Liberal Cabinet Minister, tried to purge, well he did purge the police board, all the councillors who were on it, and replace them with his loyalists, one of which was a person who had previously
00:41:30
Speaker
like basically blamed quote unquote non-whites for criminal activity in her suburban community. It was just really wild. I mean, you don't need to know anything about Ottawa municipal politics. It's just like, you know, people crying everywhere and yelling at each other. Just human drama at a grand scale. Yeah, it's really- Because there's like 24 fucking counselors or something, isn't there?
00:41:53
Speaker
There's just mass hysteria, people breaking into tears. It's like Game of Thrones too. Like for whatever reason, there's about like a dozen different factions on Ottawa City Council and they're all just kind of, there's just so many different grudges that are playing out. But yeah, so this police commission meeting happened the day after this police chief held his press conference.
00:42:18
Speaker
And yeah, so the public shows up and about eight or nine, maybe even 10 people show up and they're like, yo, uh, could you do your fucking job, please? This is essentially how I would summarize the tone of, of, uh, their messages, uh, that they were sending to the police commission, which is ostensibly, you know, much like the Ottawa police board. This is, this is the civilian oversight. This is the body that gets to tell the police what to do. And they are the group, they are able to write policy. They, they determine who the police chief is. They can fire the police chief at any time.
00:42:45
Speaker
and hire anyone if they so desired and they're able to write policy that the police must follow. This is the way we control our police. Hilariously, the chair of the police commission, so the person who runs the meetings, the highest profile person, this guy named John McDougall, he wrote an op-ed that appeared in the Edmonton Journal the day of Police Chief McPhee's
00:43:07
Speaker
uh, disastrous press conference. And essentially it's like the police are doing a great job and we stand behind them and we probably shouldn't question them either. Cause it's a very hard job. And, uh, that's, it was like, uh, it was an embarrassingly like pro cop op ed. And so I showed up to this police commission meeting. I direct my question and it's like,
00:43:26
Speaker
Is he like, you're supposed to be impartial as the police commission. Like, didn't you just violate the code of conduct? And, uh, you know, the, the, the person who's answering the question is kind of like dissembling. It's all, you know, people have on the commission have different opinions and it's like, well, he's the chair. Like the way this thing is set up, like he's the official spokesperson. He speaks for all of you. And, uh, this other commissioner speaks up and say, he speaks for us. He's doing a great job and we love him. I mean, I'm paraphrasing again here.
00:43:54
Speaker
Uh, and, um, you know, his op-ed was fantastic and it's like, well, okay. Like if all, you know, I have sources that say he didn't tell anybody on everybody on the commission about this, that they saw it when, uh, they saw the op-ed when it was published in the Edmonton journal and not before. And, uh, so yeah, so like, it's interesting to see these ostensible, you know, these police boards, these police commissions kind of like, you know, they're,
00:44:19
Speaker
they're not effective oversight bodies and they never have been. They're creatures of the police chief, they're creatures of senior police administration and they've been largely bodies. They're bodies that don't do much. They're there to like approve the budget and back up the police when they kind of need backup as the sensible civilian oversight. So it's interesting to see the legitimacy of those organizations fail as well.
00:44:42
Speaker
Do you know off the top of your off the top of your head what the backgrounds are of the police board in Edmonton in Ottawa and in, because we did some we did look into this a year or two ago and you know it was like a lot of is really interesting it was a lot of kind of small business, like local business community type leaders.
00:45:02
Speaker
Um, like, I mean, obviously there are provincial appointees who are just kind of like patronage appointments. And then there's city councilors. And then you have these like community members who are just like random people from the chamber of commerce. And it's really bizarre. Like when you start looking at it, you just realize, um, I mean, the people who are on these things are just clearly, you know, just loyalists of there are like random business people on the commission there. The chair is this like X military guy.
00:45:29
Speaker
The vice chair is like he's a he's a guy who runs like a like a homeless services organization.
00:45:35
Speaker
There are random business people and lawyers on it. There are some community activists on it, but again, none of them were asking questions of the police chief when he was going on his chief's report. The only people who were asking questions were the two city councilors that sit on the police commission. It's not like they were asking super tough questions either, but they were the only people who spoke up.
00:46:01
Speaker
But I think, I think we're coming to the end of our chat here, Luke. I want to thank you for, you know, the, the boots on the ground reporting that you've done, you know, coming on the podcast. What now that we've kind of sat down and thought about and talked about this for, you know, the past 45 minutes, what, what have you taken away from this like three week going on four week occupation? Like, what, what are you, what are you struck by as, you know, images of cops,
00:46:28
Speaker
Um, you know, arresting people kind of roll in now. Oh God, I know. There's probably several things. Uh, one, one thing is, I mean, I think it's really clear to me, um, that, you know, I don't think.
Discussion on Right-wing Extremism
00:46:42
Speaker
not just police, but I think, you know, law enforcement or any kind of authorities, like they really don't take the threat of right wing extremism very seriously. And obviously, there's like a whole bunch of different reasons for that, probably because, you know, in some cases, you know, a lot, I mean, a lot of the people who are in the convoys and whatever, they're often cut from the same kind of cloth as
00:47:02
Speaker
The people, you know, in the police themselves. So, you know, there's some unconscious bias or maybe conscious bias in these sorts of situations. But I mean, beyond that, like, I really don't think that they take the threat. Like, I mean, Ottawa has essentially been under a far right occupation.
00:47:21
Speaker
For three weeks going on to four weeks right now and it like even as police are moving in I mean from what I've seen it does not look like they are treating this as seriously as It probably ought to be I mean in in couch if I'm pronouncing its couch boots my apologies
00:47:41
Speaker
In coots, I mean, there are like, there's a whole cache of weapons and people associated with the Diagon movement, you know, just some really extreme kind of militia type stuff. And it just seems like they are not taking that kind of stuff seriously. So that'd be my one of my big takeaways.
00:48:01
Speaker
Breaking news from my mom. Before I jumped on this podcast with you, I was talking to my mom, actually, and I was like, hey, if Pat King gets arrested, can you text me? And she did text me a few minutes ago. Pat King has been arrested. It was apparently unremarkable. He wasn't like slammed into the car or beaten. So there you go. One of the main, one of the more notable. It's breaking news.
00:48:30
Speaker
Yeah, one of the more notable organizers and voices of this far right convoy occupation thing has finally been arrested. So there you go. I will be interested to see that when I'm finally done recording. Yeah, I think my biggest takeaway from this, Luke, is that yes, the state has simply lost a ton of legitimacy. One of the ways that states demonstrate their legitimacy to the people is by
00:48:58
Speaker
handling and dealing with crisis. The state in this case simply did not do so. They let the situation escalate. They did not enforce the law. Their hypocrisy and this selective application of the rule of law really got people fucking pissed off.
00:49:20
Speaker
you know, there's, you know, defund the police, abolitionists, like these movements exist. But I think there is going to be a lot of wind in the sails of people who are critical of police, whether that extends to full on abolition, you know, it's a spectrum. But the police is the like the legitimate arm of the state that's enabled that is deputized to enact violence on everyone on behalf of the state when and if when necessary, like people have just seen that it's all bullshit.
00:49:51
Speaker
And as someone, you have chronicled my descent into anarchism on Twitter. I think more people are thinking this, right? This is a delegitimizing event. And can the state recover? I mean, states are very hardy. They're very able to take criticism and improve in the future.
00:50:18
Speaker
I think real damage has been done here. And that's my biggest takeaway. You know what? Another thing is I don't think people really, until you live through something like this, I don't think it is obvious how fragile our institutions are in order itself. If people had weapons in Ottawa and were just openly displaying them,
00:50:45
Speaker
You know, this is the kind of thing that could have turned into a, into a civil war or like, you know, what, what you would sort of think of as a civil war in some of these situations. And it's, uh, I don't, I don't think people quite appreciate just how, uh, you know, fragile that all is. I agreed. Luke, uh, how can people follow along with your work on the internet? The fantastic work you do at press progress.
00:51:07
Speaker
while they can find my work at the web URL, www.pressprogress.ca. And as well, I'm on Twitter, the app symbol, an underscore symbol, and then Elle Lebrun. Yeah. I follow Luke's account on Twitter. He's done a great job kind of documenting some of the on the ground stuff that other reporters and institutions have not kind of getting off the beaten path a little bit.
00:51:34
Speaker
And they also do great work at Press Progress, so please follow them. If you have any notes, thoughts, comments on this podcast or any of the other work I do, I am also very easy to reach. I am on Twitter, at Dunkin' Kinney. You can reach me by email at dunkincayatprogresselberta.ca. If you like the work that we do, please support us. There'll be a link, there is a link in the show notes. Click it, put in your credit card, five, 10, $15 a month, whatever you can afford. It really helps us out.
00:52:02
Speaker
If you have other ways of wanting to donate, again, you can reach me via Twitter, the email account I just gave you. Thanks to Jim Story for editing this podcast, as always. Thanks to Cosmic FamU Communist for our theme. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.