Women of ABpoli Hot Flashes: Freedom
This week in AB
Alberta's Justice Minister and Cabinet on a break
As everyone likely knows by now, Kaycee Madu got a ticket for distracted driving last May. Madu claimed that he was definitely not on his cell phone at the time, and that he told the officer such when he was pulled over.
It is perhaps because of Minister Madu's insistence that he was unfairly ticketed - targeted, even - that the Minister of Justice thought he should reach out directly to the Chief of Edmonton Police Service and ask if EPS members had him, Alberta's Minister of Justice, under illegal surveillance.
EPS Chief McFee told Madu that he was not being surveilled illegally.
Madu, who is adamant that he was not driving distracted - because, he claims, his cell phone was in his breast pocket prior to being pulled over - then asked the Chief of EPS if members had instead targeted him, Alberta's Minister of Justice, because he is Black.
EPS Chief McFee told Madu that this was also not the case.
Upon hearing this, Kaycee Madu, Alberta's Justice Minister, who claims he was not driving distracted at the time of the alleged offence, pled guilty to the offence he was charged with by paying said ticket.
More than eight months later, when the story became public knowledge - and not just a jokey-joke amongst UCP staff - Alberta's Minister of Justice, Kaycee Madu, tweeted that he was absolutely not guilty of the offence with which he was charged, and that he pled guilty to by rendering payment for the offence.
Jason Kenney has called for an "independent" investigation into whether it was inappropriate for Madu, in his role as Alberta Justice Minister, to call the Chief of the Edmonton Police Service about a ticket he personally received. Premiering seems super-duper hard.
FREEDOM CONVOY TO THE RESCUE!!!
I think a lot of us started out this week with the hope that one hundred or so trucks heading to Ottawa to protest public health restrictions (provincial), as well as border restrictions (American - announced in October, in effect as of January 22 - and subsequent Canadian restrictions on Americans) would not really be a story we would have to listen to all week long. Instead, it's poised to last longer.
Before the week ended, Canada Unity released more information about their plan, including a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that, through an agreement between Canada Unity and three Canadian citizens - on behalf of everyone in Canada - and the Senate and Governor General - on behalf of the federal government and Her Majesty the Queen - would deliver an end to (provincial) public health mandates, and force public entities (provincial and federal) to rehire staff that was put on leave of absence or fired for refusing to get vaccinated, and "to promote the same to the private industry and institutional sectors employees [sic]".
Now, that's not how governments work in Canada, so it really seemed like this should all just fly under the radar while everyone else went about their lives. It did not.
The GoFundMe for the convoy of around 115 trucks grew, and grew. There's almost $9 million in the account with people donating upwards of $40K at a time.
Supporters lined overpasses to cheer on the convoy and others joined the convoy along the way - upwards of 600 personal vehicles from the west arrived in Ontario. They were met in Ottawa by an additional number of people, between two and three thousand, and more trucks from the east, on Friday.
Problematically, when you're against complying with public health measures, some luxuries the rest of us take for granted (like hotels, restaurants, malls, bathrooms in stores, etc) are not available to you. And when you have no money, you end up having to demand food from a kitchen for local homeless.
As usual, crowds of pissed off people don't tend to behave all that well - these were no exception.
People parked on the Cenotaph, a war memorial on the grounds of Parliament. They relieved themselves on the structure. They "dressed up" a statue of Terry Fox with some claiming he would have joined the convoy. They danced on the grave of the unknown soldier. They yelled at or generally interrupted media, shut down a mall by refusing to follow health guidelines, celebrated with white supremacists, and generally managed to piss off far more people than they brought over to their "side".
The truckers mostly stayed in their trucks, honking their "horns of freedom".
Ottawa police sent out a release Sunday asking residents to avoid downtown for work, leisure, or school, as the convoy is making passage and entry difficult and hey, what's a total inconvenience to a city of one million people when one hundred or so non-residents have grievances?
Meanwhile, in Alberta, sympathetic protesters have blocked the Coutts border crossing between Alberta and Montana with the apparent blessing of everyone involved.
Premier Jason Kenney, who went to Washington D.C. on Friday, tweeted on Sunday that the blockade was in violation of the Alberta Traffic Safety Act but nothing changed - well, aside from Grant Hunter, the UCP member from Cardston-Taber-Warner deleting his Instagram photo about taking his family down to Coutts to support the illegal activity.
Reports from the area say that police on either side of the border are redirecting traffic to another point of entry and - I repeat - everyone seems perfectly happy letting the protesters hang out and enjoy the free camping.
I expect the Coutts crossing blockade to quietly disperse once beef producers start making calls, and the Ottawa convoy... well, they have $9 million and they're planning to "keep this block party going" until summer (I apologize for sharing a link from a former rebel staffer but they've blocked reliable media sources from attending).
On Thursday, organizers Tamara Lich and B.J. Dichter withdrew a cool million, which makes the need for local residents to donate food and water to the truckers a little suspect, but perhaps the local patriots just want to make sure the right people are getting what they need.
Note: the convoy protest has drawn a lot of riff-raff. Since they aren't getting any of the GoFundMe millions, it's unlikely they'll stick around - unless that block party is generously funded, of course.
Update on RCMP investigation into UCP 2017 leadership: inhale
"This is a very large and complex investigation that has involved many years of work and multiple avenues of investigation. As such, a date of completion for this investigation is unknown." Exhale.
No one saw it coming
Just when we'd given up on Alberta Health and the Chief Medical Officer of Health completely, they suddenly stepped up to provide access to necessary health procedures. Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) are not recommended for use on children under two years of age (and who can find them, anyway?), so the Ministry has generously allowed children under two to have access. The bar is just so damned low.
“Because you missed it @uLethbridge My speech to faculty today. #ULeth”
The University of Lethbridge Faculty is having discussions with the University of Lethbridge in the final days before a potential strike. Be sure to read Angie's story of how the faculty helped her carve out her own space - the best teachers really do change lives.
Have you deleted your Spotify subscription?
“Keep on rocking in the free market world, Mr. Young. ♥️✊ https://t.co/zwIlI0pf9p”
Neil Young walked the walk last week telling Spotify it was either him or the conspiracy theories of Joe Rogan. Spotify chose to keep platforming Joe Rogan and Young pulled his music, with another Canadian icon, Joni Mitchell, following suit.
Others made their own subscription changes in response, or asked Spotify to remove their content, and reportedly cost the company $2 billion - that's 'billion' with a 'B'.
Young said he made the decision "because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines – potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.” Hard to argue that.
Final Thought:
Cover photo credit: @abpressrelease