Enough is enough. Clear the blockades, restore the rule of law – by Derek H. Burney (National Post – February 18, 2020)

https://nationalpost.com/

Dialogue is no prescription for those who refuse to listen because they believe themselves to be custodians of the only truth

It is times like this when Lucien Bouchard’s claim that “Canada is not a real country” has an eerie ring of truth. Protesters of many stripes have the upper hand in pockets of the country. The rule of law has been parked in the cupboard.

Rail lines are blockaded and services suspended. A provincial legislature was shuttered. The country’s economy is crippled. The national interest has no defender. The preferred solution is not a return to order and apprehension of the offenders.

Rather it is “dialogue” — as remote and amorphous a prescription as the lowest form of sophistry; one that often can be a euphemism for vacillation and the evasion of responsibility.

A government that seems incapable of enforcing the rule of law or asserting the national interest has lost the will to govern. It has effectively ceded the right to govern. Dialogue is no prescription for those who refuse to listen because they believe themselves to be custodians of the only truth.

They break the laws of the land with abandon, certain that they will face no consequences. Many of their complaints have been addressed extensively by the courts and by the responsible regulatory agencies and have been endorsed by duly elected band councils. Yet nothing but abject capitulation is what is being demanded.

For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/derek-h-burney-enough-is-enough-clear-the-blockades-restore-the-rule-of-law