canada covid-19 protest
What exactly is illegal about the Canadian trucking protests?
<p>I have been following the coverage of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_convoy_protest" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Canada convoy protest</a> in the news, and particularly the invocation of the Emergencies Act by PM Trudeau. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mCEDdIEBDY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">In his announcement</a>, he says:</p>
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<p>We're entering the third week of illegal blockades, that have been disrupting the lives of too many Canadians.</p>
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<p>Here in our capital city, families, small businesses have been enduring illegal obstruction of their neighbourhoods</p>
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<p>He is not alone in his position that the protests are illegal. Doug Ford called the protests <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SpSHzipehM" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;an illegal occupation&quot;</a> last week.</p>
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<p>We're now two weeks into the siege of Ottawa. I call it a siege because that's what it is: an illegal occupation.</p>
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<p>My question is: What's illegal about it? I can find lots of quotes from politicians <em>saying</em> that it's an illegal protest, but not much about exactly what laws are being broken. I'm not Canadian, and don't know exactly what sort of protests are protected under Canadian law. So I'd like to find out what's illegal in this case.</p>
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<li><p><strong>Some protesters have been found with illegal weapons</strong>. A war memorial was also desecrated, and other individual acts that are obviously illegal have been reported. I'm not aware that that makes the protest as a whole illegal (but I could be wrong).</p>
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<li><p><strong>The blockades are severely economically damaging.</strong> Again, to my knowledge, this does not by itself make a protest illegal.</p>
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<li><p><strong>The noise is disruptive to the local area.</strong> Does Canada have laws against noisy protests?</p>
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<li><p><strong>Local emergency powers make occupation of certain areas illegal.</strong> My interpretation of the above quotes is that the <em>justification</em> of the use of emergency powers is that the protests are <em>already</em> transparently illegal. Again, I could be mistaken.</p>
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<h2>You can't break the law just because you say &quot;I'm protesting&quot;</h2>
<p>While Canadians have a right to gather and protest in their charter of rights, such protests must be conducted lawfully.</p>
<p>In the present example, the protesters are blocking roads, bridges and border crossings. This is <a href="https://ccla.org/our-work/fundamental-freedoms/right-to-protest/" rel="noreferrer">illegal</a>.</p>
