Thread by @Justin_Ling

I'm in Ottawa this morning, where a demonstration is planned for 11 to protest Canada's signing of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

Opposition has been growing to the compact, including from the Conservatives and Maxime Bernier. They've contended it'd sacrifice Canadian sovereignty on the issue — it doesn't.

"The GCM is a voluntary, non-binding document that introduces no additional obligations to states." theconversation.com/global-compact…

It's cold but I'm wearing a lot of Icelandic wool so.

The RCMP already made one arrest — though he looked more antifa than proud boy, tbh.

I don't know. But there's now a small gaggle of arrestees! And it hasn't even started yet.

Here's the scene. Maybe 200-300 people, and a small army of cops.

A guy in a security hat stopped me — realized pretty quick he wasn't with the RCMP.
"Who are you with?" He asks
"Who are YOU with?" I reply
"We're with La Meute."
And so I walked away.

Plenty of gilet jaunts — yellow safety vests. Folks obviously taking their inspiration from the Paris protests.

Lots of La Meute vests and signs. (Even a La Meute drawstring bag! There's money in memorabilia, evidently.) Spotted one makeshift Q-Anon placard, so that's literally a bad sign.

There's lots of "security" here — protesters playing dress-up in fatigues.

I went to go check out the antifa contingent but they just headed away from Parliament Hill so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, heard my first reference to having "our laws imposed on us by the global banking elite."

So if you're playing the home version, fill in the "barely coded antisemitism" square.

Some of the alt right types thought Maxime Bernier was gonna show, but I don't see him. And I'm not sure this is the crowd any politician would wanna be in.

The U.S. embassy warned folks of 1,000 protesters. lol. Nowhere near that number.

Some of the "security" brought their own ziptie handcuffs. Would love to see the actual security reaction if they tried to use it on anyone.

Oh so Maxime Bernier emailed supporters this week saying he'd be attending this rally. But I don't see him.

Here's the full crowd. Speaker says Trudeau is a "traitor," then there was some conspiracy stuff about locking up critics and the "globalist elite."

Current speaker says Maxime Bernier wasn't able to come.

Good call, I think, Maxime.

Tom Quiggin is here. He's the self-styled security research behind this: vice.com/en_ca/article/…

Quiggin is regaling his experience testifying before the House of Commons and the Air India inquiry as an expert.

He testified in the House as an individual (virtually anyone can do that) and for the inquiry as an expert from the Nanyang Technological University (Singapore.) So.

I'm officially bored.

Seems I'm not the only one. People are slowly filtering away as Quiggin continues his speech (which went, suffice it to say, wide.) Still maybe 200ish here. (At max it was 350 or so.)

There's some dude from Denmark speaking. I think he was introduced as a rep from the far-right Danish People's Party. So that's fun.

He's talking about "no go zones" in Sweden. So definitely a quack.

Oh, I put it together. He's Rasmus Paludan, head of upstart ethnonationlist party Stram Kurs. He's saying lots of very stupidly Islamophobic things.

He did say that he hopes they'll join him in achieving their "final goal." The "final goal" is apparently "victory" which is creepy.

The current speaker, who I think is a rep from LA Meute, is managing to tie together the migration compact with the media bailout with M-103 and about a half-dozen other greatest hits.

And that's it for me.