Monday, February 14, 2022

Join Professor Kent Roach and several U of T Law experts for the Feb. 16 webinar:
"How Freedom Rules and the Rules of Freedom: Convoys and Legal Institutions"

In an op-ed published, Feb. 14, 2022, for Just Security, based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Professor Kent Roach addresses the "Freedom Convoy" that overtaken downtown Ottawa and the area surrounding Parliament Hill since Jan. 27. He writes: 

Canada has not been the dull paragon of “peace, order, and good government” it is widely known for ever since a “Freedom Convoy” rolled into Ottawa and paralyzed the capital city on Jan. 27.

The protest against pandemic restrictions spread to border blockages at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, shutting down auto plants on both sides of the border that rely on just-in-time cross-border delivery. Some western border sites between Manitoba and North Dakota and between Alberta and Montana have also been shut down. Canada has received a somewhat humiliating offer of assistance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. As of Sunday, police had cleared access to the Ambassador Bridge with arrests, and the mayor of Ottawa may have reached an agreement with the occupiers to retreat from residential areas. This morning, it was announced that the federal government would likely invoke the Emergencies Act if convoy organizers did not meet a noon deadline to clear out of residential streets.

But the question remains: How did things ever get this bad?

Putting the “Freedom” occupation in context requires understanding Canada’s past overreactions to national security crises, its failure to take the risk of far-right violent extremism seriously, its failure to modernize laws dealing with protests, and its divided and often dysfunctional system of policing.

Read the full op-ed at Just Security