{"id":80419,"date":"2022-11-25T00:54:46","date_gmt":"2022-11-25T04:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=80419"},"modified":"2022-11-25T23:20:57","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T03:20:57","slug":"canadas-prime-minister-justin-trudeau-justifies-his-invoking-emergency-to-control-the-protracted-protests-and-demonstrations-that-gridlocked-the-capital-and-entry-exit-points-along-borders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=80419","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Justifies his Invoking Emergency to Control the Protracted Protests and Demonstrations that Gridlocked the Capital and Entry-Exit Points Along Borders;\u201cI am absolutely, absolutely serene and confident that I made the right choice,\u201d says the PM"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBY<\/p>\n

MARIEKE WALSH, MARSHA MCLEOD AND BILL CURRY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the threats to Canada\u2019s national security from last winter\u2019s convoy protests were both economic and violent and before he invoked the Emergencies Act the premiers were unable to suggest any alternative to using the sweeping powers to end the protracted demonstrations.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the Prime Minister was the final witness to testify at the inquiry studying the act\u2019s use. Mr. Trudeau made the ultimate decision to invoke the never-before-used act on his own on Feb. 14, with the goal of ending protests that gridlocked the capital and jammed several border crossings across Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am absolutely, absolutely serene and confident that I made the right choice,\u201d Mr. Trudeau said.<\/p>\n

He testified that before he made the decision there was consensus to invoke the act from senior cabinet ministers and top security and civil service advisers. He called a memo from the country\u2019s top bureaucrat in favour of triggering the powers \u201cessential\u201d to his decision \u2013 even though that memo lacked a threat assessment. And he told the inquiry that despite the two most serious border blockades resolving, it was his understanding that overall the protests were escalating, not dissipating.’<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister testified in a packed hearing room in the heart of the capital \u2013 where big rigs and other vehicles dug in last January \u2013 as several convoy leaders watched from front-row seats. Convoys of protesters rolled into Ottawa on Jan. 28. The demonstrations soon spread to border crossings, including, most significantly, in Windsor, Ont. However, that blockade was cleared before the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act.
\nShannon Proudfoot: It\u2019s Trudeau\u2019s show and Friday he will have to answer for it<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Over six weeks of public hearings, thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of testimony have been presented to the Public Order Emergency Commission. It is led by Justice Paul Rouleau.
\nThe critical question that Mr. Rouleau is studying is whether the government met the strict legal threshold to invoke the act.
\nThe Emergencies Act states that to declare a public order emergency, there must be \u201cthreats to the security of Canada\u201d that are so serious they mark a national emergency. The act\u2019s definition of those threats comes from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.<\/p>\n

The government has acknowledged that it did not meet the definition of threats under the CSIS Act but maintains it still met the legal threshold for invoking the act.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trudeau\u2019s government has not released the specific legal opinion explaining why it believed it could use a different threshold for invoking the act. And Mr. Trudeau has refused to waive solicitor-client privilege on the advice.<\/p>\n

During his testimony on Friday, Mr. Trudeau agreed that the threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act cannot be lower than the CSIS Act. But he also argued that when deciding to invoke the Emergencies Act, the federal government can consider a wider set of factors than CSIS does in assessing whether there is a threat to the security of Canada. He did not, however, account for how the federal government factored in or considered the finding that the protests did not reach the CSIS Act threshold.<\/p>\n

To declare a public order emergency under the act, the governor-in-council, cabinet and the Prime Minister are making that determination, Mr. Trudeau testified. \u201cThe context within which we look at this definition is very different from the deliberately narrow frame that CSIS is allowed to look at what inputs it can take in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trudeau argued there were \u201cthreats of serious violence\u201d during the protests.<\/p>\n

Asked what those threats were, he cited the \u201cweaponization of vehicles,\u201d with cars ramming other cars at the Coutts, Alta. blockade; active resistance to police and \u201ctrucks used as potential weapons\u201d in Ottawa; and the use of \u201cchildren as human shields.\u201d He also referenced a cache of firearms seized in Coutts, as well as the presence of people \u201cpromoting\u201d ideologically-motivated violent extremism at the protests, which he said had the danger of triggering a \u201clone wolf\u201d actor.<\/p>\n

The rare testimony from a sitting Prime Minister underscored the significance of the inquiry. Throughout the hearings, Canadians have, for the first time, seen the private text messages between cabinet ministers and senior political staff that show the pressure the federal government was under during the protests, as well as their own personal fears.<\/p>\n

By the third weekend of protests in Ottawa, on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12, Mr. Trudeau told the commission in an interview ahead of his testimony that the government felt it was the \u201cright moment\u201d to invoke the act. From Feb. 10 to Feb. 13, Mr. Trudeau chaired several Incident Response Group meetings and one full cabinet meeting.<\/p>\n

According to a summary of his interview, Mr. Trudeau said that through the discussions the government determined that the only way to give police new powers in a timely manner was by invoking the Emergencies Act because the legislative process would have taken weeks.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister \u201chad real concerns, including concerns about armed elements in Coutts and concerns about children and guns or other weapons that may have been in the trucks in Ottawa,\u201d the summary says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a sense that things were dissipating,\u201d Mr. Trudeau testified. He noted that even as things were resolving at the Ambassador Bridge and in Coutts, there was talk of more blockades in Fort Erie, Ont., New Brunswick, Quebec, and B.C.
\n\u201cThere was a sense that this was a broadly spread thing. And the fact that there was not yet any serious violence that had been noted was obviously a good thing, but we could not say that there was no potential for threats of serious violence \u2013 for serious violence to happen over the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were seeing things escalate,\u201d Mr. Trudeau said.
\nThe Prime Minister also testified that another key factor in his decision was that he did not see a viable alternative.
\n\u201cIf I had been convinced that other orders of government, or any other law in Canada was sufficient to deal with this emergency, then we wouldn\u2019t have met the threshold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After his cabinet meeting on Feb. 13, Mr. Trudeau was still legally required to consult with the premiers. He had the meeting on the morning of Feb. 14 and the government has maintained there was no final decision before then. But text messages from cabinet ministers at the time show that by the end of the day on Feb. 13 they expected the act would be invoked.<\/p>\n

In his talk with premiers, the Prime Minister told the inquiry in his pre-interview that some provinces wanted the act only invoked in Ontario, \u201cignoring that it was a national emergency.\u201d He noted that limiting the powers to Ontario did not address that vehicles from across the country were in Ottawa and Ontario could not revoke those licenses or vehicle insurance.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trudeau also highlighted what he saw as a contradiction: that premiers who had urged federal action and help prior to the act\u2019s invocation still opposed his decision to invoke the sweeping powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Prime Minister said that he was open to hearing from the premiers that they had a solution and that he did not need to invoke the Emergencies Act. He did not hear that,\u201d the interview summary tabled at the inquiry said.<\/p>\n

One of the most contentious powers used under the act was the ability to freeze the bank accounts of protesters without due legal process. The commission has heard that financial institutions primarily relied on a list of individuals provided by the RCMP when deciding which accounts to freeze. The service also alerted the banks when to unfreeze the accounts.<\/p>\n

All accounts that were frozen using powers under the Emergencies Act were unfrozen by Feb. 24, according to a federal government document tabled with the inquiry, although some remained frozen because of an unrelated court order.<\/p>\n

Around 280 accounts, totalling about $8-million in assets, were frozen using powers under the Emergencies Act, according to a Finance Department report tabled with the commission. The number of people affected, however, was less than 280 because some people had multiple accounts frozen.<\/p>\n

Justin Trudeau was directly challenged by Sujit Choudhry, a lawyer who cross-examined the Prime Minister on behalf of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, to waive solicitor-client privilege and allow the release of the internal legal opinion that concluded, according to the government, that the threshold was met for the invocation of the Emergencies Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you advise that that opinion be released in the interest of transparency?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trudeau did not answer the question and instead waited for Government of Canada lawyer, Brian Gover, to oppose the question.
\nMr. Choudhry asked the Prime Minister why the government has never previously stated that the definition of threats is broader under the Emergencies Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put it to you that not until this commission has the Government of Canada ever publicly communicated that the threshold for declaring or determining threat to national security is different under the Emergencies Act than under the CSIS Act. Not once. Why is that sir?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister did not directly answer the question.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s in the first line of the public order emergency section of the Emergencies Act,\u201d Mr. Trudeau replied. \u201cThat the governor in council can, on reasonable grounds, declare a public order emergency, if in their reasonable opinion, I\u2019m paraphrasing, obviously, there are threats to the security of Canada and it is a national emergency. That doesn\u2019t mention the CSIS threshold anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the section of the act that the Prime Minister was paraphrasing, loops back to definitions contained elsewhere in the act. Those definitions say that a public order emergency \u201cmeans an emergency that arises from threats to the security of Canada and that is so serious as to be a national emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The act goes on to say that \u201cthreats to the security of Canada has the meaning assigned by section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nCourtesy:Globe and Mail<\/em><\/p>\n

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BY MARIEKE WALSH, MARSHA MCLEOD AND BILL CURRY Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the threats to Canada\u2019s national security from last winter\u2019s convoy protests were both economic and violent and before he invoked the Emergencies Act the premiers were unable to suggest any alternative to using the sweeping powers to end the protracted demonstrations. On …<\/p>\n

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