Tim Louis of COPE
A person who is an active member of Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) came to me a couple of weeks ago and warned that Tim Louis has been hanging out with a bad crowd. I have deep trust in this source- but, I almost couldn’t believe what they said at first. I’ve met Tim a couple of times, and he appears to be a rather nice fellow. I’d never imagine he would be aligning himself with the DTES crazies.
Well, after some research, it seems they were 100% on-target. Tim Louis has been associating himself with a rather motley crew. I’ve gathered a lot of evidence on this, and will be putting out an article on this soon. But, for now, I have something much more important to cover…
Tim put out an article yesterday about the events of last week’s Casseroles march- an article that totally blew my mind. If I ever had any doubt about his suitability as a political leader, I don’t any longer. Tim is either an incredibly naïeve man, or the worst kind of political hack.
Louis starts off talking about the injustice of Quebec’s Bill 78- I agree with him on this part. That said, it is a bit disappointing how he neglects to mention the background behind how Quebec got to that place. Many of the participants in the Quebec demonstrations acted rather unreasonably- culminating with a gang of masked hooligans invading the Universite du Quebec a Montreal and assaulting two women.
But, for Louis, it seems to be the norm to ignore people acting like hooligans- at least, he totally ignored the asinine behaviour of the demonstrators in Vancouver. In case you have forgotten, let me share a quick video with you:
Now let’s look at how Louis frames the story:
“If there is one lesson from Quebec for Vancouver’s ruling class, it is that the crackdown against the protesters came too late in Quebec. Rather than following Montreal police forces in their initial hesitation to confront protesters, the VPD is acting early rather than waiting for things to multiply out of control.”
Can you see the difference here? Tim’s implication that the Vancouver Police Department decided to pre-emptively crush the Vancouver casseroles to stop it from multiplying is completely ridiculous! There were only about 20 people at each of the past two Casseroles, this was not a movement that was about to mushroom. The reality is that all of the conflict was created by the demonstrators as part of an effort to grow their numbers.
Tim’s next sentence says a lot about his lack of good judgement:
“As Lauren Gill has recently stated after the arrest of a dozen non-violent ‘Casserole’ protesters in the past week: “this is not the criminalization of dissent but the preliminary criminalization of dissent: the police are trying to stop a movement before it event gets started.”
Remember what I was saying in earlier articles about the ‘talking points’ about ‘criminalization of dissent’? Well, here we see them again. Quelle Surprise!
And, remember what I was saying about Tim hanging out with a bad crowd? Lauren Gill is one of the most crazy of the DTES activist crazies- I really expected more of him than to quote her verbatim. Tim, if you hang out with bad kids, you are going to end up getting into trouble. Didn’t your mother teach you this?
If you have any doubt, watch this video of Lauren Gill telling people to ‘yell out to the pigs across the province’ and Harsha Walia (supporter of Black Bloc violence) creating division between the police and the people of the DTES.
Next, Louis quotes Ethan Baron’s story from last week’s Vancouver Province. Unfortunately, as my first video shows, this story has already been discredited. Either Tim is behind on the times, or he is conveniently ignoring the fact that this article is a sham.
And, finally, Tim starts ripping at Mayor Gregor Robertson for increasing police funding. Has he forgotten that Vancouver has a serious problem with gang wars and organized crime? Not to mention Riots! The police can hardly keep-up with the city’s crime problem- they desperately need all of the resources they can get!
If I’ve wondered what’s behind all of the fake controversy people have been stirring about the Casseroles events, I’m not any longer. This was most obviously a sarcastic, manufactured, crisis to help COPE build a platform for the next election.
Tim Louis, you should be deeply ashamed of yourself for promoting this crap. If you were ever to become mayor, you’d have to build a trusting working relationship with the Vancouver Police Department. This is not the path to doing so. If you continue down this road, you are the last person who should be leading the city’s government.
Shame on you!
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I really wish people would get more informed about Bill 78 before they start mouthing off about it, you included dear Greg.
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Can you explain?
Okay, maybe that was written in a way that could be considered more antagonistically than I meant. But as someone who is neck deep in the Quebec situation, and as someone who has heard so much misinformation spread about Law 78, I tend to get a little frustrated.
If you the time, a test: List the 5/6 main provisions of Bill 78, and the context in which they were written. I bet that I can convince you that Law 78 is neither draconian nor unnecessary.
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My problem with Bill 78 is that it backfired. Rather than fix the problem, it only added fire to the flames. The bill couldn’t have helped the bad people better had they written it themselves.
That said, I’m not there to see the effects. Is it working as intended?
Well, there have been less problems since then, but the thing is, it is not even being applied. The main test will be when the rearranged schedule starts in Aug.
Regarding the 50 people/protest part, it is more like the speed limit: most people do “traffic speed” which on a 100 km/hr highway is usually about 110-115 km/hr. Although the police have the right to ticket you at that speed, they very rarely do. The same could be said regarding Bill 78.
As for your “fueling the fire”, the only thing fueling the fire is the misinformation/missing information regarding it. For example, protests with more than 50 people are NOT illegal. They just require a route, so that the police can make proper arrangements to keep all people safe. For example, if you were to hold a rally at the VAG and then decide to walk down Howe to Davie and then Hornby to the VAG, yes they want you to go in the direction of traffic. Also 8 hrs gives plenty of time for the media to let people know what roads to avoid, so they can make other arrangements. Please note as well that may of the protesters are delighting in the FTP aspect and change direction as often as possible to frustrate the police. This requires 4x the number of officers, because instead of having a couple at the front to the march, a couple at the end and a couple blocking off the intersecting streets, they have to have several squads of motorcycle police flying all over the place block trying to block of the streets making the police have to cover an area, using my previous example that stretches from Dunsmuir to Burrard or Thurlow to Seymour St to as far ahead of the march as Nelson.
Missing information:
-Law 78 has effectively saved the school term for about 150,000 students, about 55% of which support the strike, by rearranging the school term, at a cost (being negotiated right now with the teachers union) of 45 million dollars to the taxpayer. Otherwise they all would have lost their term, because there was not enough time to make up the required hours.
-During the course of the boycott, many students went to court, using their own money, to get injunctions to be able to attend their classes. The injunctions were met with blockades, fire alarms during exams and violence against female students. Thus there is a provision that says any protest on campus may not prevent someone attending classes. Seem fair and democratic, no?
-During the boycotts, many teachers wearing red squares refused to teach any students, despite the fact they were under contract and still being paid (please note all teachers have been paid regardless of whether they fullfilled their contract obligations or not). Imagine, if you will, if you are a 20 yr old student who has gotten a court injunction to take your course so you can graduate, only to be met with a teacher wearing the red square, citing “safety reasons”, which is rather ironic considering the violence and destruction has been caused by others wearing the red square. Bill 78 ensures that, assuming all safety/union/contract/employment laws and standards are met, the teachers and support staff must provide the services they were contracted to. (Sort of falls under the right to education regardless of sex, ethnicity or political/religious beliefs.
-Law 78 expires in a yr, which may be moot, because some are expecting an election in Aug, although the latest it can be called is about a yr from now because of laws requiring elections to be called.
There is more, but I wont bore you with it, yet.
(BTW, you “Notify me when follow up comments are posted” doesn’t seem to be working.
A lot of this was put on Tim Louis’ post, but it did not pass the moderation and was not published.
(If you want to read up on a political nutjob, btw, Google ” Amir Khadir(s daughter) and Quebec protests. Esp the article where he accuses the Liberals/SPVM of firebombing the metro, and the numerous charges his daughter is facing. That stuff is right up your alley.)
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