In an attempt to cut off funding to the Canadian “Freedom Convoy”, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken unprecedented steps by invoking a 1988 Emergencies Act, enabling the government to freeze bank accounts without going through the courts. As one commentator put it, a “Super Bowl ad for Bitcoin”, if ever there was one:
Canada Wades into Unchartered Territory
Despite subzero temperatures, Canada has in recent weeks experienced ongoing protests in Ontario by a loose affiliation of truckers and citizens, dubbed “Freedom Convoy”.
While initially established to protest vaccine mandates for truckers going between the US/Canada border, the group’s fundamental purpose is to force the federal government to abandon all mandates. Thus far, it seems to have worked, as numerous provinces have since dropped the more onerous restrictions.
A week ago, the government classified the protest as an “unlawful occupation”, resulting in GoFundMe withholding over US$8 million in donations to the Freedom Convoy. Now the government has gone one step further in an attempt to place a tighter squeeze on protests.
Yesterday, Canada invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time, with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland saying: “We are broadening the scope of Canada’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financial rules so they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment providers they use.” Freeland went on to say that these actions would also cover cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin Fixes This
Few would have predicted that Canada, a self-described Western liberal democracy with fundamental freedoms enshrined in its Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, would invoke emergency powers to run roughshod over the fundamental rights of its citizens, much less confiscate the assets of those with whom it disagrees.
Arguably, there has not been a more compelling and clear use case for Bitcoin in a modern Western democracy:
Even politicians took notice, such as this US Senator, who tweeted:
Nothing makes the case for crypto more than a government freezing bank accounts to suppress free speech …
US Republican Senator Tom Emmer
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who is often painted by Western governments as “authoritarian”, took to Twitter himself:
Whether driven by the emergency declaration or not, Bitcoin rose around four percent overnight to trade at US$44,200 at the time of going to press.
Watershed Moment?
As exciting as it is to have companies like Tesla buy bitcoin, or when El Salvador declares it legal tender, one could argue that it is moments like these that will be remembered in the long arc of Bitcoin’s history.
There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Is this a point in time when decades happen within weeks? That remains to be seen, but it looks more likely now as ever.
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