EDITORIAL: Ottawa protest was not Jan. 6

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The easiest way to discredit the false comparison of the Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa to the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is this.

In Canada, this weekend, the police overwhelmed the protesters, whereas on Jan. 6 last year, the U.S. rioters overwhelmed the police.

At no time since the Freedom Convoy protesters arrived in Ottawa on Jan. 28 did they attempt to overwhelm security forces and invade Parliament, threatening the lives of MPs and Senators, as thousands of U.S. rioters invaded Congress on Jan. 6 and threatened the lives of American politicians.

Because there was no attempt to occupy Parliament no one died in an attack that never came, as opposed to the five deaths related to the Jan. 6 assault on Congress in the U.S.

At no time, other than through rhetoric and a bizarre and undemocratic manifesto, did the Ottawa protesters actually attempt to throw out the Trudeau government by force, contrary to the U.S. rioters on Jan. 6, who actually attempted to overturn the results of the U.S. presidential election by force, throw out Joe Biden as incoming president and replace him with Donald Trump.

Charges laid against the protesters in Ottawa mainly have to do with criminal offences such as mischief and counselling to commit mischief. Not crimes such as assaulting, resisting, or impeding police using a dangerous weapon, or entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, which have been laid against alleged rioters in the U.S.

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Distinguishing between what happened in Ottawa compared to what happened in Washington is not to diminish what happened in Canada’s capital.

Lawbreakers who committed crimes on either side of the border in their nations’ capitals should, if convicted, be given stiff sentences to discourage such law-breaking in the future.

But with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history, which involves a massive expansion of federal powers, it’s important to remember that the protest in Ottawa could and should have been handled using our existing laws.

The concern here is that once governments get a taste of new powers,  their tendency is to keep them.