Excessive Police Response to Carbon Tax Protests？ ｜ A Critical Compass Clip
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
165.58902
Summary
In this episode, we discuss the recent carbon tax protest outside of Banff, Alberta, and the response by the police to it. We discuss the role of the police in the protest and the tactics used to clear the protesters from the highway.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
on april 1st canada experienced another increase on our carbon tax what it does do and we know
00:00:12.320
this because of the parliamentary budget office and the canadian taxpayer federation we do know
00:00:17.620
that despite what anyone will tell you you do not get more money back in rebates on your carbon tax
00:00:26.900
because you can't or it wouldn't be called a rebate or yeah well it wouldn't it wouldn't
00:00:31.140
function as a tax and it wouldn't be a rebate so no no none of the terms would make sense if that
00:00:36.240
were the case of course there is a response to this and in uh on highway one uh and i think this
00:00:43.820
is outside of banff um this is uh care of our uh hopefully future friend of the channel i'd really
00:00:52.220
like to to meet and interview this guy because he's doing great work mocha uh i'll just play the
00:00:57.180
short clip here uh get the sound on police involvement here at this level this could elicit an even bigger
00:01:03.140
response like what we saw at milk river is that what they want uh what are they going to do you know
00:01:07.960
they've got too many people down here that just elicits a negative response and and it turns people
00:01:14.560
against them and they wonder why we saw what happened in ottawa we see what happened here and
00:01:19.380
we saw what happened we saw what happened it's atrocious that this much money is being spent on
00:01:24.440
this when we've got as much rampant crime in these communities and they won't do anything about it
00:01:30.380
but they'll they'll stand arm in arm against civilians who are just exercising their god-given rights to
00:01:36.720
actually protest the taxes the carbon taxes the cost of living and we've had it the protest started
00:01:44.060
yesterday and it's still going on on the second day when is it going to end well i've i've packed
00:01:49.220
for three weeks uh there's a few of us who have packed enough food for three weeks uh there are
00:01:54.440
some really nice people in the town close by in cochran that have volunteered to come and do our
00:01:58.880
laundry for us so we would like to stay here for as long as it takes to end the carbon tax
00:02:02.780
so obviously that's disgusting uh i can't i can't believe that that type of police presence or response
00:02:12.780
is necessary uh for an axe the tax rally i mean these are you can even see the the context the
00:02:20.160
the scale of this so they for those who have never been between like this is not a blockade let's just
00:02:28.560
be clear right yeah this is not a not a blockade this is between uh just outside of calgary uh there
00:02:34.600
is a a i think a petrol can in the background there and this is kind of a little side road
00:02:41.120
and that that's kind of a major hub and a lot of people fuel up before going to the mountains there
00:02:46.820
so that's on on your way to canmore and it seemed like they had one lane as they were standing out
00:02:53.080
there on one lane to wave to cars as they go by so they didn't block traffic i think once the police
00:03:00.900
came in they cleared that one lane and they pushed everybody off um towards where the rvs are and
00:03:07.720
they were they would have been the police line would have been sitting on like on that dirt there
00:03:13.380
uh to get everybody off off the road okay so this is a side road then that that most of the that
00:03:19.560
traffic is on yeah that's a side road being to the right and the major highway there so yeah just to
00:03:24.940
give that context i think is good because now you're asking well maybe that was preliminary
00:03:31.780
maybe they were worried about a coots or another blockage of a major artery uh feels like in this
00:03:40.020
case this is more of a awareness versus a disruption um kind of process yes where they wanted to get the
00:03:51.340
support of people and i i think generally they with that being such a major highway to the mountains
00:03:56.780
i don't think the intention is to make life miserable for all the people you don't you don't win
00:04:01.900
people's favor by like pissing them off in this case so like i was just gonna say we we saw some
00:04:10.020
weapons there like is that a are those necessary for this kind of a like this kind of a protest this is
00:04:17.640
more of a gathering like yeah lawn chairs you have signs you have people hanging out like half the
00:04:22.900
time we'll get just flags and family members and i wouldn't be surprised if there's a barbecue and
00:04:28.620
some smokies yeah like fired up behind like no bouncy castles no and that uh oh god i gotta pull it up
00:04:37.760
again here that uh officer holding the uh holding her uh with her trigger discipline there on that
00:04:47.640
cool like look yeah you're that's real uh look at that look at that steely glaze
00:04:55.360
of a of a police officer just well the other like what what do you think is going through her head
00:05:01.080
right now well it's they must feel like either they're just following orders or maybe they believe
00:05:10.920
they're doing the right thing the problem with this well does she think she's gonna stand there and
00:05:14.860
like unload like a a magazine's worth of bullets at some protesters today like i don't know what the
00:05:21.180
point of that is you know that's that's so far and away above intimidation at that point like it's just
00:05:26.660
well i think those are rubber bullets on that particular gun i don't know for sure like there
00:05:33.340
were some threads of people comparing um like if those were assault weapons versus right like suppression
00:05:40.960
um and some were some were pistols right with uh just extended grips or something yeah extended
00:05:47.160
stocks but at the same time is that does that follow the proper kind of the these ideas of like
00:05:55.000
de-escalation policing like is that building relations is that and and do you have the same