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Ex Post Facto Laws Mean No One Is Safe
The Trudeau regime is applying its unlawful declaration of emergency retroactively. Thus, people who contributed to the truckers before the declaration are having their bank accounts frozen. This means that no one is safe from arbitrary law. The U.S. Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. However, we aren’t in much better shape since the FBI and the Mueller Special Counsel Investigation bankrupted Trump supporters. In the U.S.’s version of a banana republic, the losers get to persecute the supporters of the guy who won it. Biden urged Trudeau to take action since the authoritarians need to stand together. Once again, the Trump supporters have proven to be right about who threatened civil liberties.
Published in Politics
Yes, this is the very definition of tyranny
I wonder why people cannot see that
But but but… what Trump would have done, if he’d had a second term, would have been much worse!
They promise.
Republicans in the House & Senate need to A) put Democrats on the record as to whether or not the approve Trudeau’s actions, and B) protect US citizens from his tyranny. They should put forth bills in both houses that A) condemn Trudeau’s actions, and B) a separate bill that states that the US government will make sure that US citizens who have their money stolen and/or their bank accounts frozen on account of donations to the Trucker Convoy will have their monies returned/bank accounts restored.
Of course, I’m still steaming about Clinton raising taxes retroactively in 1993. I haven’t felt safe since then.
FYI, Article 1, Section 9 states in part “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
Those Founder Dudes were geniuses.
Except, I think the many Covid edicts and mandates showed us that passing laws isn’t necessary. The would-be tyrants simply need to declare “Emergencies.” They can do a lot of harm to the citizens while the lawsuits make their way through the courts.
Most Americans have lived secure in the sense that the law is on their side for a long time now, and it is difficult for people to imagine that tyrannical acts will ever be applied to themselves since they are the good guys. Now psychiatrist Mark McDonald argues that “support for destructive and irrational mandates is falling,” that a majority are now opposed to workplace mandates, and he credits this to the hypocrisy of people like Gavin Newsom and London Breed. So people are starting to understand.
What is unlawful about the emergency declaration?
Also, even in the US where we have an ex post facto clause, it generally only applies to changes in criminal law. For example, sex offender registration acts did not violate the clause, because they were civil regulations.
Here, it sounds as if the bank accounts weren’t even seized, just frozen.
I don’t like the policy, in this application, though I wouldn’t mind if it was done to an account used to make donations to Al Qaeda. However, at first glance, it doesn’t look like an ex post facto violation.
Wow.
Donate to the wrong cause and lose all access to you money without trial and no biggie to you. In fact you agree with it. No trial
[redacted]
The tiresome twaddle of forced contrarianism…the gift that keeps on giving.
For the record, I am against freezing a private bank account of people donating to a cause I don’t like.
I don’t mind so much if a group has been formally put on a terror list (by Congress), but simply a cause that the government doesn’t like is seriously questionable.
Men of practical wisdom.
Putin wasn’t actually playing “0, Canada” but whoever put this together was doing a great job of trolling.
The Ottoman Empire was once the Sick Man of Europe. I wonder what diagnosis Xi and Putin will make of the US.
I don’t think that people who gave money to Al Qaeda, previous to them being designated a terrorist organization, had their accounts frozen. They certainly would have come under serious scrutiny ( unless the FBI were in charge, Ha!) but the account would only be frozen from future donations. Furthermore, making an equivalence between Al Qaeda and the Canadian citizens protesting the long over-extended mandates…peacefully… is a reach you might want to re-think @arizonapatriot.
It is a reach
Of course! All that was missing was the rap beat and dark sunglasses descending on him at the end. The fact that Canada’s deputy PM is Ukrainian wasn’t lost on the creator.
How about this: the US invades Canada and burns down Ottawa while Canada invades the US and burns down Washington, DC. Then peace. Win win!
Canada should have a hockey summit series with the US. The winner squares off against the Russians for world domination. As the Chinese don’t yet have a decent team, we’re a shoe in unless its televised in China in which case the size of the contract will mean they all play ping pong instead.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits ex post facto convictions:
My wager is that the government is counting on having the “emergency” resolved before the courts can rule their seizure of people’s bank accounts unconstitutional. They’ll give back the money if so ordered, but in the meantime they were able to deprive the Freedom Rally of financial support.
It’s the classic “ticking bomb” argument: It’s better to arrest a mad bomber illegally and be forced to set him free than to not arrest the mad bomber and have him set off his bomb.
Note that the Charter doesn’t say it’s illegal to charge someone with an ex post facto offence. It only says they cannot be found guilty of one.
Besides, nobody’s been charged with illegally funding the protest, as far as I am aware, so it’s not something they can be found guilty of, therefore the government didn’t violate section 11.
Those who had their funds seized will have to sue, arguing that it constituted an unreasonable seizure under section 8 of the Charter. I’m not confident the Supreme Court won’t rule that it was a reasonable seizure.
They might also try to argue that seizure without charge constitutes cruel and unusual treatment or punishment under section 9 of the Charter. Again, I’m not confident that the Supreme Court will agree.
The government can do nearly all the stuff they did without the Emergencies Act, but only by getting a court order first. What the Emergencies Act really does is give the government the authority to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission. They still have to justify their actions in court eventually.
I’m curious what the Mohawks will do. I’m assuming that if they’re accused of illegally running booze and cigarettes across the border they’re transacting in cash which means they may be assembling an air force, navy, marine corps and amphibious assault, not to mention nuclear weapons, satellites and laser guns.
For the record, I didn’t change my handle.
Because it is a tyranny
Meaning someone else did?
Likely the Canadian government.