Calgary police can’t claim to be surprised this time.

Below is the event information for the “Idle No More” protest planned for Monday January 28.

It does appear that the times have changed and rush hour disruption may be avoided

 

From the South: March northbound on Macleod Trail (meet at Stampede parking lot) 1 pm

From the West: March eastbound on 9 ave (meet at Shaw Millenium park) 1 pm

From the North: March southbound on Centre st. (meet at top of centre st. park hill) 12:30 pm

From the East: March westbound on 9 ave (meet at the Deane House in Inglewood) 1pm

March will be lead by flags from the four directions, with drummers leading the way.

All will converge upon Olympic Plaza for 2pm

Yes, you read that right. Protesters plan to come down streets from all four directions as rush hour begins warming up and converge on Olympic Plaza on a weekday.

The event details can be found here.

Now it is getting clear that the attempted appeasement by Calgary Police on January 16th in allowing protesters to illegally close Calgary’s 14th Street bridge until late into the night was an utter and unsurprising failure. Appeasing lawbreakers simply emboldens them to go farther and now we see how they plan to do it.

 

The two white fellas pictured above during the illegal closure of the bridge were prime characters in last year’s “occupy” fiasco by the way.

 

It will not just be a weekend blocking of a bridge this time. This is a group of people who plan to march from all directions towards the center of our city during a peak period in a working day.

Now I have to ask, do these people have a permit to parade on these routes? If they do, I have some serious questions as to why they would have been issued at such a busy time. If they do not, then I expect that fines and possible arrests should happen almost as soon as traffic is disrupted no?

Maybe these people will be staying on the sidewalks. OK fine. We know though that they will not stick to the sidewalk. Their intent is to harass and annoy working Calgarians. They will not achieve that if they stay on the walks. Will tickets be issued and people moved from the roads should they deviate?

Waiting until these fools go away won’t work. People tried the old canard: “if you ignore them, they will go away” for months as people illegally squatted in Olympic Plaza in Calgary. It was not until an injunction was filed and finally real law enforcement began that Calgary got her park back (damaged to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars).

Make no mistake, the prime movers of this “Idle No More” thing are the same clowns who pulled the “occupy” thing last year. Below is them with a banner they giddily prepared last weekend in preparation for next week’s event.

There is no need to try and hide behind a false Charter right for people to break the law while expressing themselves. We wasted enough court time proving that such a right does not exist with “occupy” and the injunctions served across the country. The provision of the Charter below makes it pretty clear:

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Keeping people from blocking vital infrastructure and trade is a reasonable limit. People may legally demonstrate all they like as long as they do not impede upon others. So far “Idle No More” appears not to be interested in remaining legal and precedence has been set allowing them to break the law already unfortunately.

I very much expect Calgary’s Police Service to ensure that all laws are followed next week.

Otherwise citizens of Calgary may feel compelled to take things in hand ensure our laws are abided by. That would be a shame considering how much we spend on law enforcement.