Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have to defend next week his decision to resort to emergency measures in February, the legality and usefulness of which were questioned during the first five weeks of public hearings of the Rouleau Commission. .
“The public has the right to know what happened,” said Judge Paul Rouleau during his opening speech on October 13.
More than 60 testimonies later, the Commission has collected the sometimes contradictory versions of the facts on the sequence of events that led a convoy of opponents of health measures to stay three weeks in the federal capital and to disrupt border points in the country, at times under the helpless gaze of the police.
The main mandate of the Commission, however, is to determine whether it was justified to invoke the emergency measures to dislodge the Convoy of freedom, last February 14 in the evening. This question must be examined from all angles during the appearance expected of no less than seven federal ministers, and finally of the Prime Minister himself.
They will have to respond to the various testimonies or evidence filed that have called into question some of the justifications offered for invoking the emergency measures.
Has the law been respected?
To invoke the Emergencies Act, there must be a threat to the security of Canada, according to the law. Such a threat “means within the meaning of section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act”, continues the legal text.
In its own assessment, CSIS found no such threats. In context, this is limited to “the use of serious violence or threats of violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective”.
The prime minister’s national security adviser, Jody Thomas, admitted on Thursday that she did not limit herself to this legal definition. According to her, the economic impacts, the violent speeches and the entrenchment created by the trucks posed a serious enough threat to pass the test.
The director of the National Security Measures Observatory, Stéphane Beaulac, is eagerly awaiting the Prime Minister’s explanations. Taking such liberties vis-à-vis a text that governs the police is contrary to the standards of a rule of law and risks having serious implications in the federation, he believes.
“When in doubt, very clearly, one should favor an interpretation that is not broad and liberal of “national security”. Otherwise, it would allow the federal government to interfere more [dans les champs de compétence] of the provinces”, illustrates the professor of law at the University of Montreal.
The emergency measures were justified from the outset by the fear of violence. At the end of the Ottawa protests, at least 140 people faced a total of 533 criminal charges, including a dozen related to weapons. Convoy sympathizers are accused of a wide spectrum of violent or threatening acts, but the evidence did not show an organized criminal plan.
What did the federal government know about police advances?
By the time Justin Trudeau made the decision to invoke emergency measures, police were already on the verge of dislodging protesters at the Windsor border and had an action plan to restore the law in Ottawa. It is not clear, however, whether the Prime Minister had this information.
RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki showed up at the February 13 meeting with some notes. “I am of the opinion that we have not yet exhausted all the tools already available under the existing legislation”, can we read in the document, filed in evidence before the Commission.
Gold, M.me Lucki did not take the floor to express this view. She also did not update elected officials on ongoing operations in Windsor. The same evening, the Ambassador Bridge, which links this city to the United States, reopened to traffic.
The Ottawa police were also getting organized at this time. A second game plan had been drawn up to empty the streets of its protesters angry with vaccination obligations, this time with the blessing of the other police forces. “We often heard about a plan. But what we have not seen, at the end of the third weekend, are actions in accordance with the plan, ”commented the clerk of the Privy Council Office, Janice Charette, on Friday.
Provincial and federal police officials used the pretext before the Commission of a lack of an action plan by the Ottawa police, or of other conflicts of jurisdiction, to delay the dispatch of the reinforcements requested at the beginning of February. The Premier of Ontario did not want to get involved, much to the chagrin of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Doug Ford went to court to avoid having to testify.
Have the special powers been so useful?
In the end, the Canadian border blockades of Coutts and Emerson would also have been lifted without the help of emergency powers. A document specifies that this federal law would have even delayed police plans at the Manitoba border, which returned to normality on February 16.
Stay Ottawa. It is unclear whether Emergency Measures really managed to provide its officers with the heavy tow trucks that refused to cooperate with the police. This aspect was one of the main justifications for resorting to the law.
The City of Ottawa, for example, had two of these machines at its disposal. The Ontario Provincial Police estimated that this would have been sufficient for its needs, and in addition had an agreement to use 34 of these tow trucks. This version was contradicted by federal counsel. For its part, Alberta has procured its own devices.
Eventually, 280 bank accounts were frozen under emergency measures. Financial institutions were to investigate their customers, but documents show the RCMP suggested names of suspected protesters to them.