Judge Paul Rouleau explicitly approves of the federal government’s invocation of emergency measures to put an end to the Freedom Convoy last winter, an event described as a “national crisis” which showed a “failure of federalism”.
“The decision to invoke the law was appropriate,” said Franco-Ontarian judge Paul Rouleau in a long-awaited report tabled in Parliament on Friday.
According to him, “the very high threshold for invoking the law has been reached”, although he comes to this conclusion “reluctantly”. This was the first time the Emergencies Act had undergone such a mandatory review, as the law had never been used in its nearly 35 years of existence.
The emergency measures were imposed nine days from February 14, 2022, and gave law enforcement additional powers, such as freezing protesters’ bank accounts and commandeering heavy tow trucks. A year later, Judge Rouleau concluded that the invocation of the law had above all a deterrent effect, by discouraging protesters from continuing the occupation of Ottawa.
The right to demonstrate peacefully guaranteed by the Constitution has limits, we can read. “I do not accept the descriptions made by the organizers that the demonstrations in Ottawa were lawful, calm and peaceful or resembled a celebration. [Dès le premier lundi], the gathering was no longer peaceful given the widespread intimidation of residents and the fact that their ability to live and work had been fundamentally disrupted,” wrote Justice Rouleau. The “dangerous and chaotic” situation was beyond the control of the organizers.
The freezing of bank accounts was a reasonable measure, he judges, and the possibility of requisitioning the tow trucks was an effective measure, but above all to allow the Ontario police to pass the bill on to Ottawa.
Agree with Justin Trudeau
The police authorities were confronted last year with a situation which “degenerated and risked becoming dangerous and unmanageable”, after a three-week occupation of the Canadian capital by this vast protest movement opposed to sanitary measures, which was joined by many Quebecers from January 29, 2022.
The Commissioner thus lends credence to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s main argument during his testimony in november, according to which the situation was becoming more and more explosive at the time of resorting to emergency measures. The crisis had then reached national proportions, as evidenced by the many demonstrations of support organized in other provinces during the month of February.
“It is unfortunate that such a situation happened, because in my opinion it could have been avoided. […] Legal demonstrations have descended into illegality, to the point of provoking a situation of national crisis”, can we read in the imposing document of more than 3200 pages spanning five volumes.
Commissioner Rouleau believes that this slippage is the consequence of an “inability to foresee such a moment and to properly manage legitimate demonstrations”. He believes that better collaboration between the levels of government would have made it possible to avoid chaos, in particular by talking to the demonstrators. An expert who called the case a “failure of federalism” had the right words, writes the Franco-Ontarian judge.
This recommends, in particular, improving cooperation between police forces and broadening the definition of a threat to national security in the Emergencies Act to break away from the narrow description of the Act respecting the security intelligence (CSIS). The Commissioner is sorry that the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, refused to testify during the investigation, nothing more.
Remarks by Justin Trudeau about the “small marginal minority” could, however, ignite the debate, it is pointed out. At a press conference on Friday, the main interested party acknowledged that he regretted this choice of words. “I regret that my comments about these people [qui publient de la désinformation] could have been depicted as an attack on [ceux] who wanted to exercise their freedom of speech and expression. It was not my intention. I could and should have chosen my words differently. »
While in Calgary, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, very opposed to the use of emergency measures, again criticized the policy of “divide and conquer” of the Liberals during the pandemic. “Instead of stigmatizing them, we must unify people. This is how the Prime Minister should act. »
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Judge Paul Rouleau severely blames the police forces. Former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly would have trusted his subordinates and would not have seen the slippages of the Convoy coming. Before the heavyweights arrived in Ottawa, The duty had yet reported that its participants wanted to stay there for days, even weeks, until the federal government waived its vaccination and health obligations.
“Much of the mess in Ottawa was the result of the OPS mistaken belief [Service de police d’Ottawa] regarding the duration of the protests,” the report details.
Ex-Chief Sloly had “not developed a comprehensive operational plan to end the protests”. Instead, he drafted a policing protocol described by Justice Rouleau as a “sub-plan,” which gave his partners the mistaken impression that there was indeed a plan.
Judge Rouleau also recommends that the Canadian government conduct a review of how federal intelligence agencies share their information with other levels of government.
The public hearings showed that problems with sharing intelligence on the Freedom Convoy led the Ottawa police to rely on incomplete reports of questionable professionalism, while reports from provincial agents on the activities of the protesters were accessible to them.
The provinces should also be consulted during the next invocation of emergency measures, notes the Rouleau report. Quebec, in particular, was opposed to this exceptional law applying on its territory. The judge believes that the Trudeau government could have geographically restricted the measures, although he accepts his explanations for having imposed them on the whole country.
After hearing 76 witnesses, including police officers, demonstrators, civil servants and municipal and federal politicians, then a whole series of experts, Judge Rouleau arrived at the diagnosis that the demands of the Freedom Convoy “were modeled by an online landscape riddled with misinformation”.
The events of the winter, “a torrent of political protest and social unrest”, were extraordinary, “but not entirely unpredictable[s] “, notes the judge. According to him, all levels of government should now study the impact on society of misinformation present on social networks.