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The rail blockades

February 27, 2020   ·   0 Comments

Your editorial “It’s really complicated” presented the rail-blockage problem well.  It is a complicated matter, but chiefly because of differences in opinion about the power of government to act.

Government consists of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches  Police services are directed by the Executive branch run by the political party in power, which therefore has the authority to order or deny police actions.  That is not what the prime minister (our chief executive) believes, though his own father used the same position to activate the War Measures Act in 1970; so we have a problem.

Police and the armed forces have the right to withhold violent action if they believe that it is not required, but they do not have the right to allow illegal activities to continue uncontested.  They must act to remove the demonstrators, and in that respect they have been remiss.

Here is an idea that will tell us what the people think about the economic and heating costs of ending carbon dioxide emissions.  Let’s leave the blockades in place for a year. 

Charles Hooker  

East Garafraxa resident

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