In Canada, as everywhere, governments do three things: make rules, enforce rules and settle disputes about rules
Dale Carnegie warned years ago against starting any persuasive effort with “You’re an idiot because…” So let me gently suggest that many commentators on the failure of Canadian police to enforce injunctions against illegal blockades might want to reconsider the sudden conventional wisdom that politicians must not tell the police to do their job.
Thursday’s National Post quoted B.C. Premier John Horgan that “I don’t want to live in a society where politicians direct police to take action against other citizens … that’s why we have courts.” And, the Post added, “Marc Garneau, the Liberal transport minister, said court injunctions that CN Rail obtained late last week to clear out protesters ‘must be respected’ but cautioned it wasn’t up to governments to order police how to proceed.” Then Garneau’s boss interrupted his lectures about carbon footprints to hop off an airplane from Africa to the Middle East to Africa to Germany to tell journalists “We are not a country where politicians can order the police to do something”.
Oh really? Then who can? Or are they a law unto themselves?
Some say yes. Including a Post colleague who recently wrote: “Just as the RCMP have court authorization to clear protesters and encampments along the pipeline route, the Ontario Provincial Police have court authorization to clear the Mohawk rail blockade near Belleville, Ont. Unlike the RCMP, the OPP refuses to exercise its authority. And we just have to live with that. Conservative politicians are barking at Justin Trudeau to ‘enforce the law,’ but he doesn’t give orders to the OPP, and neither does Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and nor should we want them to.”
John Robson – National Post – February 18, 2020.
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