A federal court ruled Tuesday that the Canadian government’s use of emergency powers to dislodge the 2022 trucker-led protests that jammed the capital Ottawa’s streets for weeks was “unreasonable.”
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland stood by the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act and said the government would appeal the court ruling.
The “Freedom Convoy” of big rigs drove into Ottawa at the end of January 2022 and stayed for nearly a month, causing traffic blockages and angering residents with nearly incessant honking and diesel fumes.
Major Canada-US trade corridors, including a bridge to Detroit that is the busiest international crossing in North America, were also cut off.
Ottawa’s former police chief Peter Sloly had called the melee a “tinder box waiting to explode” but protest organisers — some of whom are currently fighting related criminal charges — have insisted their actions were legitimate pushback against government’s pandemic policies.
Justice Richard Mosley ruled in the case brought forward by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that invoking the Emergencies Act “was not justified”, “was unreasonable and led to the infringement of Charter rights.”
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His ruling comes one year after a commission of inquiry led by former judge Paul Rouleau found the reverse — that its use was “appropriate” and “a drastic move, but… not a dictatorial one.”
Speaking to reporters in Montreal after the federal court decision was handed down, Freeland said “We do not agree with this decision, and respectfully, we will be appealing it.”
“I would just like to take a moment to remind Canadians of how serious the situation was in our country when we took that decision,” she said, referring to the complex scene on the ground that was plagued by a policing breakdown and escalating threats of violence.
“We were convinced at the time (that) it was the right thing to do, it was the necessary thing to do. I remain and we remain convinced of that,” she added.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc recalled, “The capital of a G7 country was effectively paralysed.”
Police eventually moved in, towing the trucks out of Ottawa in a crackdown that saw nearly 200 arrests.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s head Noa Mendelsohn Aviv said in a statement Tuesday that the extraordinary powers of the Emergencies Act, which had never been invoked before 2022, “should be used sparingly and carefully.”
“They cannot be used even to address a massive and disruptive demonstration if that could have been dealt with through regular policing and laws,” she said.
