Canada's Case For Crypto

It has happened before in isolated and individual cases, but Canada has presented to the world the first mainstream and worldwide visible example of why we need our money to be private, decentralized, and away from the powers invested in governments and Central Banks.

If you haven't been living under a rock these past weeks, you've surely heard about the "Freedom Convoy," a protest against vaccine-mandates led by disgruntled truckers. Although there's a lot to say about the politics behind it all, and I do mean A LOT, for the purposes of this short post it suffices to say that the Freedom Convoy is a series of blockades and protests in Canada against Covid-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates which began in early 2022. At first the protests were directed against vaccine mandates for crossing the U.S. border, but soon became one against Covid-19 restrictions and mandates in general.

On Sunday February 20, the area surrounding the Canadian parliament in Ottawa was free of trucks and protesters for the first time since January. According to Fortune Magazine the police "arrested 191 people, bringing a total of 389 charges against 103 of them." It has to be said that inhabitants of Ottawa were largely against the protests, and that according to several polls, so were the majority of the Canadian citizens. But that's all I have to say, for now, about the background and origin of this protest that has garnered world-wide attention. The reason why I write this post, is the manner in which the Canadian government abused its power to end the demonstrations. No matter which side you're on, we should all be opposed against this abuse of power, we should all reconsider the way power is distributed right now, and we should all recognize that decentralized, blockchain-based, peer-to-peer digital money is the only line of defense against this particular abuse of power exhibited by the Canadian government.

The final blow against the protesters was delivered last Monday when the Canadian government invoked the "Emergencies Act" for the first time in history. Although this legislation has existed since it was passed by the Parliament of Canada in 1988, only now, 34 years later, it's being used for the first time. Wait, that's not entirely true; the Emergencies Act replaces the War Measures Act, which has been invoked only three times in history, namely during the First and Second World War, and the 1970 October Crisis; this should make clear that this statute is used in the most extreme circumstances only. In 2020 the invocation of the Emergencies Act was discussed, but in a conference call between Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau and the premiers, the premiers communicated their unanimous opposition to invoking the act. Not even the global pandemic was enough of an emergency to invoke the act, but protests that disrupt public life in a way that doesn't please the powers that be apparently are...

Again, it doesn't matter which side you're on; if you read the Wikipedia article on this event, you'll soon see that this specific or a similar act could have been invoked against any protest, be it Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter or indeed Anti-Vaccination-Mandate protests. Part of the mandate instilled in the Emergencies Act is the right to freeze private and corporate bank accounts. Let that sink in for a moment. Here's the relevant part, the part that's so insidious:

Under the Emergency Economic Measures Order, also enacted pursuant to the declaration of emergency, crowdfunding platforms and their payment processors were required to register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), and report large and suspicious transactions. Cryptocurrencies are also included in the expanded financial regulations. Banks were ordered to freeze personal and corporate bank accounts suspected of being used by people violating the regulations, and are protected from civil liability in enforcing the order.
_{source: Wikipedia}

What does that mean? It means that if you're participating, or merely suspected of participating "in public assemblies that could result in a breach of peace by disrupting the movements of goods and people, interfering with the operation of critical infrastructure, or by supporting violence," your personal or corporate bank account can be frozen. And banks that carry out this order are protected against law suits resulting from them carrying out the order. This should scare us all, also because of the inclusion of cryptocurrencies in the "expanded financial regulations." If I were a conspiratorial thinker I might even conclude that this is a move against cryptocurrencies specifically, as we all know how very opposed to decentralized money the banks and governments are. "Never waste a good crisis" is a slogan by which those in power operate, so we can be fairly sure that protests like these will be used as an excuse to further stamp down on our freedoms, and what bigger symbol of freedom than cryptocurrencies?

Freezing one's bank account, cutting someone off of the economy, is a form of violence that goes largely undetected by the general public, but is a form of violence nonetheless. While open state-violence can create sympathy for protests and protesters, this insidious and invisible attack on one's wallet can't. Not if this goes largely under the radar of the public eye. The typical news-segment discussing the invocation of the Emergencies Act doesn't mention the government's power to freeze bank accounts. Like we say; "not your key, not your money." This invocation of the Emergencies Act proves that money on a bank account isn't your money either. This should increase support for cryptocurrencies, but what I'm afraid of, besides this abuse of power, is that many people will be glad the Freedom Convoy is finally over, and because of that will praise the Canadian Government for their actions. I would like those people to think again, because next time when there's a protest for a cause they do support, they could be next...

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading my posts dear reader, I appreciate that a lot :-) If you like my content, please consider leaving a comment, upvote or resteem. I'll be back here tomorrow and sincerely hope you'll join me. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy!