No names. No badge numbers. No accountability.

Pictures show Canadian police ready to break up the Freedom Convoy protest by any means possible. Videos show mounted police trampling protestors and grounded citizens are seen been treated to batons and boots. They are scenes that belong in a dystopian movie, not one a supposedly liberal democracy.

As much criticism as was given to former Ottawa Police chief Peter Sloly, he did manage to resign before he had to take command of this final confrontation. I'm not sure what Sloly's motivations were for quitting, but it's clear that the new Chief, Steve Bell was picked for being a thug willing to do the dirty deed. Somehow, there is always one such ambitious, immoral creature waiting for an opportunity to earn a promotion by doing the things others wouldn’t.

If this was happening in another country the outcry from the international community would be noticeable. The fact that it isn’t makes me wonder if they are thinking of trying it in their own countries and are seeing how things pan out in Canada. To an extent it has already been happening in France and the Netherlands, amongst others.

But anonymity won’t save those police officers. Friends and neighbours will know what job they do for a living and questions will be asked. “Were you there?” “Was it you wielding that baton?”. They can’t all have claimed to be on desk duty that day whilst citizens denied the means of self-defence were battered into subjugation.

With the numbers involved, all policing must be by consent. Canada’s police have just lost that consent, along with their self-respect. Police may indeed break up the gathering in Ottawa, but they have homes to go to and they will be forever marked out as having “Just done their job”.

Trudeau’s political career is finished, but a year from the end of his term of office, he has managed to fan, not extinguish, the flames of freedom.

Martin Day - Party Secretary