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As background you should know that the roleout of COVID vaccine has been very slow in Canada due to shortages of the vaccines, all of which are produced offshore. This problem combined with the emergence of new variants of the virus has made Ontario into a disaster zone over the last month. To try to deal with this, the provincial government quarantined the entire province for four weeks. You can only leave the house for food, medical appointments, exercise and critical work. All very well, except that it hasn't worked and a couple of days ago, the province extended the quarantine for an extra two weeks and tightened the restrictions - no playgrounds and horror of horror, no golf. A bit silly but OK. What they did that was unbelieveable however, was to give the police the power to stop pedestrians and drivers, demand their ID and demand an explanation for why they were out of the house.
This is an approach right out of the manual for how to run a police state and is almost certainly unconstitutional. As you can imagine the civil liberties organizations immdediately announced that they were going to court. Most importantly however was that virtually every police force in the province including those in Toronto, the Toronto region and Ottawa where I live, announced that they were not going to implement the order. Clearly the police had a better understanding of the law and of how to interact with the public than did the politicians.
At 7:00 pm yesterday I was so angry that I wrote my local member of the provincial legislature to complain. Probably no real link but at 7:30 pm, the government backed down.
Did I mention that this was a Conservative Government and that I am a member of the Party
In any case, kudos to the cops!!
This is an approach right out of the manual for how to run a police state and is almost certainly unconstitutional. As you can imagine the civil liberties organizations immdediately announced that they were going to court. Most importantly however was that virtually every police force in the province including those in Toronto, the Toronto region and Ottawa where I live, announced that they were not going to implement the order. Clearly the police had a better understanding of the law and of how to interact with the public than did the politicians.
At 7:00 pm yesterday I was so angry that I wrote my local member of the provincial legislature to complain. Probably no real link but at 7:30 pm, the government backed down.
Did I mention that this was a Conservative Government and that I am a member of the Party
In any case, kudos to the cops!!
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