Never in recent Canadian history have so many important people testified under oath before a commission of inquiry. The skewer of federal ministers, senior civil servants and representatives of the police force who marched in front of the Commission on the state of emergency during these six weeks of public hearings, in Ottawa, was enough to wow the gallery. The filing of text messages and emails exchanged by these people in the days leading up to the invocation of the Emergency Measures Act, in february last, will have provided an incredible insight into the workings of the highest levels of government in Canada. We will have learned a lot of details, including their interpersonal relationships, details that the main interested parties would certainly have preferred to keep to themselves.
At the end of the hearings, however, we are left with the impression that the exercise will have served more to confuse than to enlighten the public. No federal minister who testified this week before the commission chaired by Judge Paul Rouleau will have answered THE fundamental question. None could explain how the occupation of border crossings and downtown Ottawa by protesters opposing health restrictions constituted a threat to national security as defined in the Act. on the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. However, it is on this definition that the Emergencies Act is based.
Citing professional secrecy, Attorney General David Lametti refused to release his department’s legal opinion that would have justified the decision to invoke the state of emergency. Clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette and Jody Thomas, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, both insisted on an expanded definition of threats from that enshrined in law to defend the use of security measures. emergency by Ottawa.
On the eve of the invocation of the law, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), David Vigneault, had informed the cabinet that, in his opinion, its demands had not been met. CSIS had even expressed concern that the use of emergency measures might incite some people to violence. During his appearance before the commission, Mr. Vigneault said he changed his mind after seeing the legal opinion of the Department of Justice, the very one that the government refuses to make public. By Judge Rouleau’s own admission, this fundamental lack of transparency undermines the Commission’s efforts to accomplish its mission, which is to determine whether the invocation of the Emergencies Act was justified or not.
On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland claimed that it was instead the threat to the Canadian economy (due to the blocking of cross-border crossings) that justified the invocation of the Measures Act. emergency, even though the law does not mention economic threats as part of national security threats. She bluntly overstepped the mark by stating, “If our economic security is threatened, our entire security is threatened. But that’s not what the law says.
The passage of Mme Freeland before the commission nevertheless highlighted the impatience of business people in the face of the authorities’ inaction. The notes taken by Mr.me Freeland during a conference call with the CEOs of major Canadian banks on the eve of the invocation of the Emergencies Act expressed their deep concerns. The CEO of the Bank of Montreal would have reported to him the comments of an American investor who would have treated Canada of “republic of bananas” because of blockades at the border. While the Ambassador Bridge had been reopened even before the invocation of emergency measures, however, the economic consequences of the trucker protests seemed to be of more concern to the government than the real risks of an outbreak of violence.
The boss of M.me Freeland tried to correct the situation during his testimony before the commission on Friday. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may even have saved the day for his government displaying an absolute conviction that his decision to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time was well founded. “Threats of serious violence were the key… There were all these things that presented real threats of serious violence,” he said, explaining his decision to follow the Privy Council Office’s recommendation to invoke the law. . This recommendation was based on a liberal interpretation of the definition of national security threats that the government still refuses to reveal to Canadians. And that is enough to make you shudder.