The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) announced Thursday that it will sue the federal government, considering that the threshold required to have recourse to the Emergency Measures Act has not been reached.
Posted at 5:38 p.m.
Because the government already has the legal authority to intervene in difficult situations, reliance on this law is “unnecessary, unjustifiable and unconstitutional,” according to Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, CCLA’s executive director. “This morning I listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s remarks and I heard no new legal reason to invoke a national emergency, nor the colossal power that the government hopes to give itself to circumvent the usual democratic process” , she said in a statement.
On Monday, Ottawa invoked the Emergency Measures Act, which gives extraordinary powers to the government to act. Since Tuesday, measures have come into force, such as a ban on organizing public gatherings that can harm the movement and safety of people and goods, disrupt trade or hinder the operation of essential infrastructure. It is also now prohibited to bring children or adolescents to an illegal assembly.
Without wishing to minimize the disruption caused by these events across the country, “it is not certain that the current demonstrations endanger the life, health or safety of Canadians”, argued Abby Deshman, director of the program of criminal justice at CCLA. The association will sue Ottawa for “violations of civil liberties” stemming from this law, such as the “significant limits on peaceful assemblies throughout Canada”, in particular by freezing the bank accounts of people participating in these demonstrations.
The organization criticizes this law for not being limited “to specific events”, can we read in the press release. ” [Les décrets d’urgence] apply equally across the country and place unprecedented restrictions on the constitutional rights of every Canadian,” the CCLA wrote.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, however, said the current situation in Ottawa is “complex, difficult and painful,” particularly for some marginalized groups who have experienced bullying.
With Mylène Crête, The Press