@newtboy,

A company cancelling a multi-billion dollar project means multi-billion dollars not spent on the work of the project, that many jobs out of the economy. Exactly the same as a car manufacturer shutting down for a week, by your logic nothing was lost, the company just stopped spending money for a couple days...

I only support the groups right to protest, and not to illegally block roads or borders. I stand by my wish is for their prompt arrest when illegal blocking roads, borders or places of business.

That said, I believe it also wrong of me to fail to point out that our federal government has continually refused to act as I would wish in promptly shutting down illegal blockades. This is the very first instance were they've shown any interest in a prompt police enforced end, and they've in fact jump much further to invoking a declaration of national emergency so they can also target protesters bank accounts directly and without court orders.

An analogy would be someone that supports arresting people for possession of marijuana. The government then proceeds to only selectively enforce that law, say only acting to make arrests when people are a particular creed or color. It's perfectly consistent to believe the government arrests are wrong and unfair, and to NOT support them, while at the same time still believing the idea of the rule applied fairly being a good idea.

One side is about what I think the line for protest should be:
-I believe the right to protest should be independent of creed or belief, and should only be restricted when actions taken are illegal.(Ideally illegal being defined as impeding on freedoms of others)

By that, the convoy blockade of border or streets should have led to immediate arrests.

In the eye of fairness though, the last two years have already seen at a minimum 3 major protests, that included illegal blockades of work sites and railways and those were ALL allowed to run for weeks and in 2 cases months. The government of the day even tripped over themselves to message their support for the overall causes of the protestors.

In that light, it's wrong to simply ignore the fact that the first protest that is likely to vote conservative is the ONLY one where the government immediately condemns everything about them and feels compelled to intervene urgently.

Churches were literally burning last summer, and our PM's public statements spent most of their time sympathizing with the anger before pleading that burning churches isn't helpful. Where'd all that compassion for folks that you disagree with go when it meant a small number of downtown Ottawa business shutdown and horns honking go. Now our PM invokes terrorizing of the populace.

Trudeau's actions have been distressingly similar to Trump's as the division in our country grows, he's using his words to reach out to the extreme end of his side of the aisle, while tossing gasoline and vitriol onto his opposition. It's making things worse in the worst possible way when we need leaders uniting instead of stoking further division.

Economic disruption of the blockades was similar to the Mohawk blockade of railways about 2 years ago:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ottawa-rejects-police-intervention-to-put-an-end-to-blockades/

Similarly, mass lay offs and multi-billions of dollars of goods stuck sitting around waiting to get to the industries needing them.

Since at least 2012 the attempted expansion of an existing pipeline(Trans Mountain) was targeted continuously by blockades. Opposition and resulting delays leading to cost overruns so large that company ultimately halted the multi-billion dollar project.

In terms of dollars being lost, the convoy protest wasn't special. More over, the blockade of the border in Ontario that was causing the real economic damage was dismantled and removed before the 'emergency measures' were enacted. Which is to state, the emergency measures were primarily intended to clear out downtown Ottawa. In downtown Ottawa though, the damages were at minimum as localized as any of the lumber or pipeline blockades mentioned.


Prime Minister Trudeau couldn't be more unequivocal when he was expressing his support for the farmer protests in India and the Floyd protests in the US. Clip if you'd like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9EaSF6Y0eE

The protests in India absolutely did immensely more harm to India's economy than the convoy here did in Canada. The protests in support of Floyd were again unequivocally more violent than the convoy in Canada.

There really is no basis by which to point to the convoy's actions and find them in any way unique or distinct from multiple other protests within Canada, or ones abroad that have been either given more latitude, or outright embraced and supported.

The distinction as even you can't resist going after, is that their beliefs they are protesting for are stupid and wrong, so no right to protest for them. That isn't how the right to protest within a democracy should be allowed to work.

I also have to point out the 'ethical' argument isn't as cut and dry as you want to make it out either.
-Pipelines bad so blockading is good ignores the fact the same oil gets pumped regardless, it just gets loaded into trucks that burn even more oil to haul it and have a fair greater risk of accidents and spills.
-Defending the rights and lands of Aboriginal peoples(like at Coastal Gas Link site violently attacked with millions in damages while the convoy was being vilified for 'incitement') is anything but obvious. The Wet'suwet'en hereditary leaders made claim to parts of the pipeline route and demanded it be shut down. However, the same Wet'suwet'en people's multiple elected Band Councils signed on with their wishes to proceed with the project. In fact, ALL elected representatives of ALL the Bands with land along the route had ALL signed onto the project and wanting it to proceed. It is in no way obvious that ignoring the will of those other bands to favour the conflicting claims of the hereditary leaders is clearly the most respectful of the people's wishes.

@newtboy,

I agree with more of what you say than you make out. You need to appreciate how different Canada is from the US, particularly in power balance within government and corresponding police action and media coverage.

Long delays in stopping illegal blockade and protest activity is the norm.
-Fairy Creek blockades persisted almost 12 months before police took action
-Blockade of Coastal Link pipepline went on for months before police intervened to allow work to continue.
-Mohawk solidarity blockade of railways in Ontario persisted multiple weeks

The difference to the protests today, the Liberal government was tripping over themselves to reach out to those protest groups, while immediately spitting in the faces of this one.

I've always been of the opinion illegally blocking a roadway, border or business should lead to arrests within the time it takes to notify and send police.

The problem here from a Canadian eye, is that the only time current government is interested in bringing a hammer down is based not upon the actions of protestors, but instead based upon their professed cause.

I refuse to accept tying the right to protest to what cause is being rallied to.

Your video, Highest Railway Station in Europe, Jungfraujoch Switzerland, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

What?!?
That was quite something, starting by ignoring the impossibility of tunneling below the incredibly seismically active Bering straight and culminating with the theory that Russia and China are going to collaborate to build a $100 billion railway tunnel from essentially empty East Siberia to empty West Alaska and beyond with or without the USA's involvement.
I'm flabbergasted serious governments would admit they considered this plan.
What?!

Congratulations! Your comment on The Baboon That Controlled a Railway for 9 Years has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

Congratulations! Your video, The Baboon That Controlled a Railway for 9 Years, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 26 Badge!

Your video, The Baboon That Controlled a Railway for 9 Years, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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Another terrifying angle

At least ten people were injured in a ski-lift crush in Georgia’s mountain resort of Gudauri.

The citizens of Georgia, Ukraine, Russia and Sweden were reportedly taken to a hospital with minor injuries.

A ski lift malfunction was reported at Sadzele mountain ski trail in Gudauri in the morning on 16 March. There was an emergency stop after which the ski lift chairs started sliding back. The riders had to jump off the ski lift to survive.
According to the Georgian Healthcare Minister, David Sergeenko, 8 people turned to the Gudauri-based medical emergency clinic.

“Luckily no one was killed or seriously injured. There are two patients, the nationals of Ukraine and Sweden, who still need to be paid particular attention,” said David Sergeenko. According to the Georgian Healthcare Minister, the Ukrainian citizen has an open fracture of a forearm, while another injured person, a Swedish national, is a pregnant woman. Both of them have been transported from Gudauri to Tbilisi by helicopter.

The Georgian Ministry of Interior has instituted criminal proceedings under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of Georgia – “violation of safety regulations or procedures for the operation of the railway, water, air or cableway transport traffic”.

I could see this being much safer (and therefore more viable) than the Hyperloop.

Although I'm curious how it could ever be more efficient than just using an electric train.

As far as non-standard trains climbing steep grades, "cog railways" have existed over 150 years. (these aren't cable-pulled funiculars)

Awesome Lego Garden Railway has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

Also applicable here http://videosift.com/video/Railway-Worker-Saves-A-Drunk-Guy-From-Being-Hit

I would argue that automation still isn't the job killer #1. Plain old political decisions, such as sound finance, deficit hawkery, and austerity lead by a mile in this category. Neither is being addressed properly, but I find it hard to focus on the employment effects of automation when the Eurozone, for instance, runs at >10% unemployment strictly due to policies enacted by (non-)elected officials. We don't need technology to cause mass unemployment, humans can do that all on their own.

Additionally, even the amount of work available is a matter of perspective. Within the current system, the number of jobs with a decent salary is already dwarfed by the number of people looking for one. The amount of work to be done, on the other hand, is not.

Case in point: our (read: German) national railroad company is short-staffed by about 80.000-100.000 people, last I checked; our healthcare system is short-staffed by at least 200.000 people, probably a lot more; law enforcement is short by about 50.000; education is short by at least 20.000. Let's not even talk about infrastructure or ecological maintenance/regeneration. These are not open positions though, because nobody is willing/able to pay the bill.

So while I agree that we should be discussing how to deal with technological change, a more pressing matter is either to alter the system or to at least take back control over the vast sums of dead currency floating around in the financial nirvana or on Stephen Schwarzman's bank accounts. First stop: full employment. Then, gradually, guaranteed basic income when automation does, in fact, cause mass unemployment.

Finally, I don't think automation will do as quick as sweep as some presume. The quality of software in commercial machines is quite absymal in many cases, since it was written in the normal fashion: do it now, do it quickly, here's five bucks. Efficiency improvements generally come at the price of QA, and it shows. Europe's most modern railway control center is nearby, and it never went online -- Bombardier cut corners and never had the proper railway expertise to begin with. Meanwhile, the center build in '53 is working just fine, and so are the switches put in place when Wilhelm II was running the show.

Edit: That said, I'm thrilled to see mind-numbing labour being replaced by machines. Can't happen quickly enough.