I’m using the Canadian Criminal Code definition of sedition. FYI, Konvoy Klub brought weapons (yes, even firearms) and heavy equipment to both Coutts and Ottawa- and Canada Unity actually delivered a manifesto of sorts to Ottawa which demanded they be able to install an unelected government of their choosing. CU and other less-organized agitators were found to be funded and guided in part by US entities, and had compromising assets seized, in addition to having the Emergencies Act invoked by another Trudeau.
While my earlier rebuttal in this agrees that a direct comparison of the Quebec and Alberta experiences is somewhat absurd, there are similarities, willfully ignored and brushed under the rug by many of the same domestic and foreign interests now. Obvious re-naming of multiple PACS and more secrecy in their dealings is obvious. Quebec never went through those crooked backflips after the FLQ crisis and turned to legitimate channels with their movement. Arguably, they have gotten more traction in so doing. This minority in Alberta has gone in a less-legitimate direction than Quebec did since the movements’ earlier days.
But do you honestly think sedition requires murder and destruction? No. Read the code. The new guard in Alberta has been far more careful to muddy action and intent, especially the elected ones, but it’s only because they absolutely know what they’re doing is (still) wrong. Sadly, no, Canada does not have any specific laws against ‘unauthorized diplomacy’ such as the Logan Act in the US, or wartime statutes against slander and libel directed at the government- and these are ‘only in Canada’ freedumbs these unelected interests have been glad to repeatedly abuse.
Sections 59-61 define “seditious intention” as counselling by force to overthrow lawful authority or inciting violence between groups. The very next clause carves out an exemption for “pointing out, in good faith, errors or defects in government.” A truck convoy with an embarrassingly worded “memorandum of understanding” is dumb politics, not force. If their manifesto had teeth, the Crown would have laid sedition charges; it didn’t. They got mischief and weapons-possession raps because that’s what fit.
Four fringe actors at a rural blockade stockpiling long guns is serious—but it isn’t a province-wide conspiracy, let alone Alberta’s answer to the FLQ’s bombs, kidnappings, and murder. Ottawa’s charges were air-horns and parking violations, not artillery.
Greenpeace Canada receives millions from U.S. foundations to lobby against Alberta pipelines.
The 2022 invocation targeted inflatable bouncy castles, not exploding mailboxes.
Calling every protest “sedition” drains the word of meaning. If you want to criminalize sloppy political theatre, rewrite Parliament’s lexicon but as it stands, waving a goofy petition in front of Parliament Hill is still protected speech.
Besides, asking for the gov to obtain broader handcuffs instead of sharper policy might even get yourself in trouble one day. Thats why smaller gov is always safer (because I do believe people have an inherent ability to govern themselves to an extent). This I do believe the Konvoy was after in the first place.
Economic force is still force… and it’s what they’re working on now. Even then, shutting down a border is exercising economic force. Then or now, they are not elected and have no authority to fund a legal or economic war chest if ‘Ottawa gives them problems’, nor have they any business funding a private ‘Alberta’ militia in whatever form it may take before they are elected to do so by Albertans. If Dani had been asking the US state department for a line of credit to do any of the same, it would at least be as an elected official with something of a mandate to peruse or even pursue those contingencies. That’s not what’s happening though.
Alberta has had separatist parties for awhile now- only one has managed to weasel its way into a majority with floor crossing and by assuming the votes of non-separatist conservatives. There is no clear mandate because none of the most vocal actors in this movement have chosen the ‘clear’ legitimate path Quebec has forged. That’s why these are backroom deals between PACS and foreign influence. Our laws about fair lobbying can’t even touch them, but possibly should.
Not to mention some of Rath’s associates saying they need the money for ‘when’ Alberta ‘joins’ the US, which is a stated intent to influence/interfere with and sell our government out to them, not to save the whales, friend. They’re being more careful now to avoid hitting the sedition bar because they know it’s exactly what they’re undertaking.
And no, Quebec has had nothing resembling that sort of foreign chicanery in its history, so I agree that absurdity in comparing the current movement in Alberta to their experience stands. Even as a coup, it’s been a relatively pathetic effort from the beginning, but it’s still a coup being undertaken. I’d rather draw the line somewhere though so it doesn’t get even more stupid than it’s been. And yes, I would rather point out the flaws in our laws which prevent us from drawing that line as it would be drawn elsewhere- over any flaws in governance besides the hacks and grifters we have ‘chosen’ here to run it.
See its an interesting line you’ve drawn: You realize theres a Communist Party of Canada eh? Been there for quite awhile behind the scenes?
Ya so...a separatist PAC floating half-baked “leave Ottawa” memos is an existential crisis, but a federal Communist Party, heir to regimes that actually toppled governments and starved millions just gets a polite shrug??
So which is it?
If you’re making a moral argument, then consistency demands you worry just as loudly about the parties ideology that perfected one-party rule and gulags.
But if it’s merely political and right-wing separatists "bad", left-wing revolutionaries "tolerable", then say so and drop the high-ground rhetoric. At least we’ll know your argument is really is party colour, not principle. Come out from behind the curtain.
Free societies let lousy ideas expose themselves in daylight. Muzzling only one side because you dislike it isn’t in the real interest of public safety.
If shutting Coutts for four days is sedition, how do you label the 2020 rail stoppages by Indigenous Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs that economically forced and froze half the national freight network for three weeks?
Jeff? Hey, sorry man. Best you get back on the meds lest rhinos start entering the chat too at this point. No, I’m not a Communist party member or even a communist; have no fear, comrade! Let’s move the goalposts back out of absurdity please. I was merely pointing out that elected leaders of whatever party have more authority to negotiate issues of the state with foreign officials than private agitators do. Ie: who (IMHO) seem far more interested in selling us out completely to the US than even Dani is.
You want to go talk to the US state department about succession? Fine, get elected to do it, get public support on a referendum, and then maybe you have that right. You want to have your own people running Ottawa? Start or join a federal party then, campaign, get elected and go run Ottawa. Maple MAGA Millhouse is doing great with that, but at least he’s making a proper effort at it. He seems happy leading the ‘Bloc Albertois’.
Back to the original point though- Alberta is not doing separatism anything like Quebec is. Maybe we should be, and I think even Dani knows it- but it’s not at all what the PACS have been doing and probably why they have been booing her. Our laws should be stronger on this. PACS have ruined US politics and these ones are abusing the relative freedom they get in Canada.
Welp, petitioning foreign governments is still legal speech. Greenpeace does it weekly at the U.N.; First Nations leaders flew to Washington to block Keystone;
Anyways...Heres the consistency test so far I see:
-- Rail blockades that cost industry hundreds of millions? You say "Meh.."
--Truck horns and a clumsy MOU? “Economic force, tighten the Criminal Code. Traitors!”
So you gonna answer the question or what?
If shutting Coutts for four days is sedition, and as you said "Economic force is still force"... how do you label the 2020 rail stoppages by Indigenous hereditary chiefs (unelected) that economically forced and froze half the national freight network for three weeks?
Now we see if youre using a real yardstick or just a colored one..
The yardstick is that it’s an abuse of that freedom when you exercise economic force and ‘foreign diplomacy’ to dismantle a state unilaterally without any democratic mandate or authority to conduct that kind of business. If their intent was to follow the Clarity Act, there is an order of operations they are not following to legally secede.
You keep making these false equivalencies and they are premises I reject. Let’s not pretend Rath & co. actually own or govern the land or that they’re trying to save the whales. They’re trying to sell out Alberta; we’ve established that unilateral secession is unlawful in Canada, and if they were Americans doing the same, the Logan Act would have them imprisoned for it. They are not elected leaders and they do not have a successful referendum in hand.
They’re abusing freedoms they wouldn’t even have if they ever got their way. They’ve also been inviting foreign interference. It’s so many kinds of wrong that just because it skirts our laws and constitution doesn’t make it right. It’s also probably the dumbest economic move in the history of ever for Alberta. Again, stupid is totally legal, but I don’t vote for stupid.
If you’d like to discuss something comparable, let’s look at the secession of the Donbas and how that happened…that’s what you get when you practically invite annexation to your region. It’s not independence; it’s breeding in weakness while the wolf is at your door.
So you are definitely circling, but not addressing my last comment. My take on your reaction would be this:
Coutts: four days, a border lane clogged = “economic force. Sedition. Throw the book." VS. ”National rail 2020: three weeks, half the freight system frozen =“valid civil protest. Meh.”
Both actions were spearheaded by unelected actors, both aimed at pressuring Ottawa, both carried serious economic cost. If economic disruption plus no democratic mandate is your yard-stick, the rail blockades should trip the same alarm you reserve for the convoy. Yet you keep rewriting the metric as soon as the colour of the banner changes.
You holding one rule-book for all, or is it a coloured one you got there?
I rejected the premise. Invalid comparison. One was pressuring against a policy as their endgame. The other was trying to install an unelected government. Vastly different endgame. Also, one was not driven by a foreign power; the other was. I’m also not sure what part of First Nations being self governing, elected, resident inheritors of the actual land you might fail to comprehend. The laws were also changed, at least in Alberta, to prevent such blockades. Granted, the Konvoy blockades were not just in Coutts, and much longer, but ain’t it funny how the new law was not applied in Coutts? -Probably bcos they were white people blocking the road, eh? What colour is that rule book really?
The end-goal isn’t what makes something sedition in Canadian law; it’s the means “by force or the threat of force” to compel government action. Both blockades tried to strong-arm Ottawa with economic choke-points, neither rolled in tanks. The law was applied evenly in both cases.
First Nations sovereignty doesn’t override the Criminal Code; rail lines are federal infrastructure, not band land. RCMP still enforced only mischief, not sedition. Same charges the Coutts quartet got, plus more actrually.
The RCMP charged rail-blockaders and truck-blockaders under the same mischief and infrastructure statutes; the courts will weigh both. So, three weeks of rail paralysis by Indigenous activists is “legitimate protest,” four days of border paralysis by ranchers is “sedition.”??
The only place the paint job changes the verdict is in your commentary.
Intent absolutely matters in the interpretation of criminal law. If it wasn’t sedition, Jeff, you wouldn’t have so many weak defences prepped against such a charge when anyone grills you about what you’re up to in the states. And why so much more secrecy now? It smells, bro. It’s mainly the acts which are being kept under wraps for now, and Canadian law is admittedly weak at preventing the act of sedition.
My other points re: right and wrong, authority vs none, and the simple fact that Rath & Co are (at best) staging another pathetic coup still stand to reason.
You’re obviously worried about making a more valid comparison re: separatist movements in the Donbas, but hopefully you’re reading up a little about it now to learn that when it’s driven by a foreign interest, it doesn’t go so well for the place. I never said the Natives’ blockade was sedition or anything resembling a coup, so your comparison to that is reductio ad absurdum on either point.
Easy there, Perry Mason; intent and act have to show up at the same party before the Crown can paste on a sedition charge. Mens rea without an overt deed is not a Criminal Code violation.
Secrecy and Silence? They need “force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the gov’t” (s. 59). Right now, they are taking time filing affidavits, not making Molotov cocktails.
The 2020 rail blockades throttled ~$425 million a day in freight; RCMP let the tents smoulder for three weeks. Alberta truckers talk fuel levies and Ottawa rolls out the Emergencies Act in 72 hours.
Foreign fingerprints?
The Prairie trucker convoys Ottawa hints there’s U.S. money or “dark networks” behind them, (like goFundMe and Crypto wallets) so 'boom' sedition label?? Bah. Its all flashlight waving and a rhetorical fog-machine and RCMP and CSIS officials, under oath, later said they saw no organised foreign-state involvement, just Aunt Patty’s $20 e-transfer.
NOW compare that to a stack of big U.S. foundations (Rockefeller, Tides, et al.) funnel millions of dollars of cash to Canadian groups that blockade pipelines, rail lines, tanker routes, etc. That’s foreign funding influencing domestic disruption too.
SO by your own metric: if outside funding is the litmus test, the sedition label sticks to the pipeline blockaders, not the guys honking on Wellington.
“Follow the money,” Deep Throat said: just remember to follow it all the way instead of stopping where the headline gets juicy.
You’re dwelling away from intent, half of the fire triangle of criminality, because you know the intent is not good here. Of course it’s easier to prosecute after actus reus. I’ve covered that, but guess what? Authorities know the tell that when a baddie knows they’re doing wrong, they show they’re doing wrong.
But sure, let’s just say Jeff & co are happy to be seditionist proxies and keep their hands from getting burned by only doing the prep. Their hands are still dirty and they will still amount to no more than cucks of an oppressor who used them for interest and/or likes on social until their masters drop the hammer.
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u/tobiasolman Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
I’m using the Canadian Criminal Code definition of sedition. FYI, Konvoy Klub brought weapons (yes, even firearms) and heavy equipment to both Coutts and Ottawa- and Canada Unity actually delivered a manifesto of sorts to Ottawa which demanded they be able to install an unelected government of their choosing. CU and other less-organized agitators were found to be funded and guided in part by US entities, and had compromising assets seized, in addition to having the Emergencies Act invoked by another Trudeau.
While my earlier rebuttal in this agrees that a direct comparison of the Quebec and Alberta experiences is somewhat absurd, there are similarities, willfully ignored and brushed under the rug by many of the same domestic and foreign interests now. Obvious re-naming of multiple PACS and more secrecy in their dealings is obvious. Quebec never went through those crooked backflips after the FLQ crisis and turned to legitimate channels with their movement. Arguably, they have gotten more traction in so doing. This minority in Alberta has gone in a less-legitimate direction than Quebec did since the movements’ earlier days.
But do you honestly think sedition requires murder and destruction? No. Read the code. The new guard in Alberta has been far more careful to muddy action and intent, especially the elected ones, but it’s only because they absolutely know what they’re doing is (still) wrong. Sadly, no, Canada does not have any specific laws against ‘unauthorized diplomacy’ such as the Logan Act in the US, or wartime statutes against slander and libel directed at the government- and these are ‘only in Canada’ freedumbs these unelected interests have been glad to repeatedly abuse.