(Ottawa) Was it necessary to invoke the Emergency Measures Act to put an end to the “freedom convoy” last winter? The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CLAC) doubts it and asks the federal government to provide concrete evidence to the Commission on the state of emergency which is due to begin on Thursday. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to defend this decision.
Updated yesterday at 5:50 p.m.
“When we saw the illegal barricades this winter, we used the measures that were proportionate and necessary to prevent these illegal demonstrations from continuing to disrupt the economy and especially people’s lives,” he answered the question. from a reporter on Wednesday. The Prime Minister reiterated that the use of Emergency Measures Act was applied “responsibly and proportionately” and that it was short-lived.
For CCLA, the emergency powers granted through this legislation should be used only as a last resort. “That has not been the case and we believe that the actions [du gouvernement] were illegal and unconstitutional,” ACLC lawyer Cara Zwibel said at a press conference on Wednesday. She believes that the government should have tried other options.
She may cross-examine witnesses during the public inquiry. In all, 65 people must give their version of the facts during this commission chaired by judge Paul Rouleau, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and seven of his ministers.
Generally, national security threats are things that put people’s lives at risk, such as serious acts of violence or genuine attempts to violently overthrow the government. These are not thresholds that have been reached, in our view, or at least we have not seen evidence that demonstrates this.
Me Cara Zwibel, lawyer for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CLAC)
According to Me Swibel, we were perhaps more faced with a problem of applying existing laws. When hundreds of trucks blocked the streets of downtown Ottawa in late January, there was little response from Ottawa police and the Ontario Provincial Police. The situation had persisted until recourse to the Emergency Measures Act. A vast police operation bringing together around 2,000 officers from several provinces subsequently dislodged protesters opposed to vaccination against COVID-19 and health measures.
“We need to get more information about the discussions that took place between the federal government and the Ontario government about the powers the province had and could have used,” said the lawyer. . However, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is not on the commission’s list of witnesses.
The declaration of emergency was in effect from February 14 to 23. It allowed, among other things, financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of protesters without judicial review and the police to requisition truck-trailers to dislodge trucks from the streets of downtown Ottawa.
The blockade on the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont., had been dismantled before the declaration of emergency took effect. Two more convoys of trucks at the Coutts, Alberta, and Emerson, Manitoba border crossings were dislodged in the following days.
National security and the protection of the Canadian economy have already been mentioned on several occasions by various ministers of Justin Trudeau’s government to explain this historic recourse to Emergency Measures Act. This legislation was passed in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act. It contains two follow-up mechanisms, namely the holding of a public inquiry and a review by a committee of Parliament.
Parliamentary committee
The testimony heard to date by elected officials and senators during the Special Joint Committee on the declaration of a crisis situation was “not very conclusive”, according to its co-chair, Rhéal Fortin, MP for the Bloc Québécois. The government also handed them a dropper of 1,200 pages of largely redacted documents.
The only real question is: why did you proclaim the Emergency Measures Act, which is the heavy artillery of the legislative corpus? It is the biggest law of all laws. The answers to this question did not satisfy me.
Rhéal Fortin, Bloc Québécois MP and Co-Chair of the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of a Crisis Situation
The work of the committee will continue during the public inquiry, in parallel, but they could be inspired by new information that would result from the testimony.
The State of Emergency Commission hearings begin on Thursday and will run until November 25. Its final report must be delivered to the government by February 6, 2023. The government must then table it in the House of Commons and the Senate no later than February 20.