Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said emergency measures would not be maintained “one day longer than necessary”. The day after the vote in the Commons, they have already been in place for a day too long.
The government has failed to demonstrate that the use of the Emergencies Act is necessary to end the Ottawa protest and the economic blockades in Coutts, Windsor, Surrey and Emerson. As MPs voted 185 in favor and 151 against, Monday evening, the streets of Ottawa had returned to their legendary reputation of dead calm, and goods were once again flowing freely between Canada and the United States. This is proof that the police had the necessary levers in the Criminal Code to dismantle the barricades and arrest the culprits. They lacked reinforcements, a strategy, and the will, a will that was sorely lacking during the first days of the crisis.
The organization and determination of the instigators of the pseudo-freedom convoy alone cannot explain the success of the 24-day occupation in front of parliament. Through a bewildering mixture of incompetence and complacency, the police forces have allowed the hard core to take hold. The propensity of the police to minimize the threat of the extreme right and their lukewarmness to investigate groups and individuals who claim to hate the other is a worrying phenomenon. Elected officials should pay more attention to it through public scrutiny. Without getting involved in police investigations, they are entitled to hold the police to account in a public forum, first on their handling of the crisis, and then on the degree of seriousness they accord on the far right. Even if it is in the minority and sometimes extravagant in its fanciful delusions, it must be taken seriously when it calls for the overthrow of the government, the assassination of its elected representatives and the abolition of ” health dictatorship.
All things considered, Canada has not escaped the outbreak of populism, institutional resentment and conspiracy which has disturbed the democratic debate in the United States since the advent of Trumpism. The episode that has just concluded in Ottawa is a resounding alarm signal. It should force police forces to be more vigilant in collecting criminal intelligence and investigating the far right.
Considered in this broader context, the use of the Emergencies Act is akin to a gesture of desperation by the Trudeau government and its main ally, the NDP, which seem shaken by the surge of aggressiveness and the challenge of the liberalism. The leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, has justified his support by a desire to stop the movement and dissipate the threat hanging over democracy. It is an illusion to think that the ambitious objective will be achieved. This movement swarms and frogs on social networks. He will slip easily under the safety net provided by the state of emergency. The reasons given by the government are tenuous. Angry truckers could return, we are told. On this account, it will be necessary to maintain the state of emergency permanently, or until the last 18-wheeler is withdrawn from circulation!
The law should not be used to contain apprehended threats, but to respond to a situation of imminent danger. The Prime Minister only has to take a walk on Wellington to see for himself that the emergency is over. The fragility of the bedrock on which the Liberal argument rests was evident during the debate in the Commons. Less than an hour before the vote, as Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe pointed out, no elected Liberal was in a position to say whether the government would be forced to resign in the event of a setback.
Thus, the elected officials voted for the emergency measures, a little as if it were a vote of confidence, in proportions which remain to be elucidated. This is yet another disappointment on the part of the Liberals and their NDP affiliate. Will the Senate, this counterweight whose independence the Prime Minister boasts, swallow such a snake?
Some will say that the Emergency Measures Act at least makes it possible to seize the financial assets of the organizers and to cut short their ambitions for growth. If this objective is as important as the government claims, the government need only amend the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to include the use of crowdfunding platforms by groups far right. It would also be a good way to prevent the movement from gaining momentum with foreign financial support. In a democratic society, the seizure of financial assets should not be subject to arbitrary police action. The operation should be framed by law, and subject to judicial review.