Did Justin Trudeau accidentally prove crypto bros’ point?
by Liz Wolfe
Reason.com
Late yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked his country’s Emergencies Act of 1988 in an attempt to snuff out anti-vaccine mandate protests that have roiled Canadian domestic politics for weeks. Invoking the act allows Trudeau to broaden Terrorist Financing Act rules to bring crowdfunding platforms and payment processors under greater government scrutiny.
The announcement of these new policing powers is in response to the “Freedom Convoy,” a group of truckers and their supporters who have traversed Canada in recent weeks to protest in the capital city of Ottawa, demanding an end to Trudeau’s requirement that truck drivers be vaccinated in order to reenter their home country when coming from the U.S. The vaccine policy was implemented in January. Citing the Canadian Trucker Alliance, the Toronto Star reported in late January that “that as many as” 16,000 truckers “may be sidelined due to the new restriction.”