I'm glad it looks like the protest in Ottawa is coming to an end. It's taken up so much media attention that I'm looking forward to an upcoming focus on something else entirely. It's such a shame that the coverage was so ubiquitous when so many athletes were competing at the Olympics. I understand it's a major story, but many of those athletes have spent their entire lives training to compete in the Olympics. That's a major story too, a once in a lifetime narrative for many brave Canadians and Québecois(e).

Part of me thinks we missed out on a chance to build bridges during the protest, to build bridges between different grassroots conceptions of democracy. I understand that the protestors should not have shut down downtown Ottawa for weeks, and I'm glad they're being removed so that local residents can resume their daily lives again (while receiving compensation from the Federal Government). Had they conducted their affairs in a less controversial location such as a park however, like the Occupy Movement, I would be examining the narrative differently.

I don't agree with the protestors nor with their methods but I support their democratic right to protest. The Right will form government again some day and when they do the Left will protest. Seeing how right wing protestors were treated by a left wing government, with the introduction of the Emergencies Act no less, will not lead a right wing government to regard left wing protestors with sympathy. Instead of building bridges in Ottawa, the Liberals and NDP have ensured that protestors on the left will be hit equally as hard if not worse when the conservatives regain power one day, most likely without hesitation.  

Perhaps I'm being foolish, perhaps they had to be hit hard, but it seems to me that the protestors could have been removed without resorting to the Emergencies Act (which currently applies everywhere in Canada and Québec). 

Perhaps the new world is just a revolving situation where the left will continue to harshly deal with protestors on the right when they're in government, while the right deals harshly with protestors on the left when they regain power.

That's an ugly situation and one you would think level-heads would be reasonable enough to avoid. 

But it's not going to happen in the immediate future. 

I always thought it was the left that strove to find reasonable solutions.

Not to demonize all the participants with shortsighted dismal prejudice.

But it looks like ideas that should have been forgotten, like the STASI and the suppression of freedom of speech, are still popular in left wing circles.

You can count me out of such discussions. 

And I will not support leaders who engage in them.