Chris Selley: The unwritten, and mostly effective, rules of protesting in Canada
The honour system is generally preferable to over policing
![Protest Calgary](https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Protest-Calgary.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288&h=216&sig=EitAyv8noYotvFcEt_maDQ)
Article content
In the unlikely event you’re feeling too cheery and optimistic about the state of the world, by all means check out the video of a pro-Palestinian protest at Ottawa’s Bayshore Mall in Ottawa on Friday. As children attempt to share their Christmas lists with Santa, protesters regale passersby with insightful chants such as “while you’re shopping, bombs are dropping.” An unseen child shrieks incessantly. It’s like anti-PR for the Palestinian cause — the intellectual equivalent of the cretins who ruin paintings and ask why we’re worried about them instead of climate change. It’s spectacular self-sabotage.
On the narrow question of a ceasefire, the Palestinian side is winning the argument in Canada: An Ipsos poll conducted late last month found 81 per cent of respondents favoured “an immediate ceasefire,” including a whopping 93 per cent of gen Z and 88 per cent of millennial respondents, respectively. There is no reason to believe any of them are more sympathetic to Israel three weeks later. Canada shifted its position at the United Nations, quite possibly in part because prominent Liberal Muslim donors to the Liberal Party of Canada indicated their displeasure. All this happened despite thousands of Palestinian supporters taking to the streets immediately after Hamas’s Oct. 7 pogrom in what can only honestly be called celebration.
Calls for a ceasfire are defensible. That wasn’t. The Bayshore Mall scene wasn’t, and nor was the scene at another mall, Toronto’s Eaton Centre, on Sunday, when a protestor was caught on tape threatening to put someone “six feet deep” within easy earshot of police officers. Many viewers initially assumed the threat had been made against one of the officers; the police say it was not, and that the recipient of the threat wasn’t interested in pursuing the matter, so they let it slide.
Either way, it aroused much anger from people who saw it as an unambiguously arrestable death threat. Back in the day, they said, cops wouldn’t have hesitated to slap the cuffs on whoever said it. Others claimed it was a case of a double standard: “We would never accept this against any other group,” as University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist put it, in reference to the Eaton Centre fracas.
Respectfully, I’m certain that we would accept this against any other group … if any other group were doing these specific things, which thankfully they are not. (Sorry, Jews. You’re up to bat again.) The police did here what they almost always do — especially in Ontario — which is to manage potentially sticky situations in the direction of safe, peaceful outcomes. Very often that is difficult to distinguish from doing nothing at all. You certainly don’t have to like it! But the general principle applies no matter who you are or what side of an issue you’re protesting.
Protesting for Indigenous rights? The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) essentially allowed First Nations militants to annex an entire housing development in Caledonia, Ont. More recently the OPP did bugger all to clear the Mohawk blockade of the CN main line near Kingston, Ont., for a mind-boggling 19 days days.
Protesting against vaccine mandates and lockdowns? Much to the consternation of some bien-pensant Canadians, not only did police not prevent or bust up weekly marches and protests in Toronto and other cities, they escorted them around town — lockdown rules against gatherings be damned.
Protesting the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, again in flagrant violation of lockdown laws? Not only will police escort you around town, the Prime Minister will take a knee with you.
Supporters of the Ottawa occupation often claim to have been persecuted by police: the 78-year-old man who was hauled out of his vehicle and arrested simply for honking his horn in support, according to some observers; the woman who was trampled by a police horse. Not to say either was necessary or defensible, but the overall context there was the occupation of the downtown of a G7 capital … for a month. It is emphatically not a tale of police overreach.
There are unwritten rules for protests in Canada, chief among which is that you get a certain amount of time to make your point and inconvenience people (if you think that’s going to help), but after some unspecified length of time you need to screw off home. Most groups seem to understand this. Canada struggles with groups that don’t. From the mean streets to the halls of Parliament, Canada basically operates on the honour system. Again, you certainly don’t have to like it. But most of the time, it works not half-badly. I’m more inclined to call out those who violate that honour system than to support more aggressive policing … which rarely works out well.
All that said, malls are private property, and generally not averse to tossing unwanted customers, which is their right. “Private property owners can legally ask you to move off their property even if you’re not breaking any laws,” the B.C. Civil Liberties Association advises protesters.
Forcing Santa-botherers and child-worriers off private property is an escalation I could probably get behind. And if that makes it more difficult for Palestinian supporters to target Jewish-owned businesses like Indigo, well, that’s a win for them as much as it is for holiday shoppers. After what we’ve seen on Canadian streets since Oct. 7, it’s a minor miracle their side has as much support as it does.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.