A federal judge says the Liberal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters was unreasonable and infringed on protesters’ Charter rights.
In what’s already turning into a divisive decision, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote that while the protests “reflected an unacceptable breakdown of public order,” the invocation of the Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility.”
“I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires,” he wrote in a lengthy decision released Tuesday. “Ultra vires” is a Latin term used by courts to refer to actions beyond the scope of the law.
‘We will be appealing,’ Freeland says after court ruling on Emergencies Act
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says that she remains ‘convinced’ that invoking the Emergencies Act in early 2022 was ‘the necessary thing to do.’ A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the government’s use of the act was unreasonable.
The Federal Court case was argued by two national groups, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation, and two people whose bank accounts were frozen. They argued Ottawa did not meet the legal threshold when it invoked the legislation, which had never been used before.
The federal government says it already plans to appeal.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022 after thousands of protesters angry with the Liberals’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including vaccine requirements, gridlocked downtown Ottawa for nearly a month and blocked border points elsewhere across the country. The protests gained international attention for bringing parts of the capital city to a halt.
The act gave law enforcement extraordinary powers to remove and arrest protesters and gave the government the power to freeze the finances of those connected to the protests. The temporary emergency powers also gave authorities the ability to commandeer tow trucks to remove protesters’ vehicles from the streets of the capital.
Under the Emergencies Act, a national emergency only exists if the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” Further, a public order emergency can be declared only in response to “an emergency that arises from threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency.”
The act defers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s definition of such threats — which includes serious violence against persons or property, espionage, foreign interference or an intent to overthrow the government by violence.
Anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate demonstrators leave in a truck convoy after blocking the highway at the busy U.S. border crossing in Coutts, Alta. on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
The government cited the situation in the Alberta border town of Coutts when it invoked the act. In the early hours of Feb. 14, before the act was invoked, Mounties in Coutts seized a cache of weapons, body armour and ammunition.
Four men are now awaiting trial, accused of conspiring to murder RCMP officers.
Economic orders infringed on Charter rights: judge
Mosley said the situation created by the protests across the country did not meet the CSIS threshold.
“The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern,” he wrote. “But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act, particularly as there was no evidence of a similar ‘hardened cell’ elsewhere in the country, only speculation, and the situation at Coutts had been resolved without violence.”
Mosley’s decision also examined one of the most controversial steps taken by the government in response to the protests — the freezing of participants’ bank accounts.
“I agree with the [the government] that the objective was pressing and substantial and that there was a rational connection between freezing the accounts and the objective, to stop funding the blockades. However, the measures were not minimally impairing,” he wrote.
The judge said the economic orders infringed on protesters’ freedom of expression “as they were overbroad in their application to persons who wished to protest but were not engaged in activities likely to lead to a breach of the peace.”
He also concluded the economic orders violated protesters’ Charter rights “by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts.”
The two men whose bank accounts were frozen also argued that their rights under the Canadian Bill of Rights were violated, but Mosley disagreed.
He also concluded that the government’s actions did not infringe on anyone’s right to freedom of peaceful assembly.
Government plans to appeal
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, executive director of the CCLA, said their win sets a clear and critical precedent for future governments.
“Emergency is not in the eye of the beholder. Emergency powers are necessary in extreme circumstances, but they are also dangerous to democracy,” she said. “They 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.”
Joanna Baron, executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, said the decision is a “huge vindication for many people.”
“[Mosley] also mentioned that economic disruption cannot form the basis for the invocation of extraordinary measures such as those contained in the Emergencies Act, which I think would lead to a very disturbing precedent across Canada, for example in the event of labour strikes and disruptions,” she said.
The government has long argued the measures it took under the Emergencies Act were targeted, proportional and temporary.
Police move in to clear downtown Ottawa near Parliament hill of protesters after weeks of demonstrations on Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022. The public inquiry investigating the federal government’s unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act in February begins today in downtown Ottawa. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters at a cabinet retreat in Montreal on Tuesday that the government plans to appeal the decision, setting up a legal battle that could go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
“We believed we were doing something necessary and something legal at the time,” she told reporters on Tuesday. “That continues to be my belief today.”
“This was an extremely tense time. The safety of individual Canadians was under real threat … Our national security was under real threat – our national security, including our economic security,” she said Tuesday.
Speaking alongside Freeland on Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that the situation at Coutts and other border crossings helped to inform the government’s decision to invoke the act.
“It’s not banal when the security services tell you that they found two pipe bombs and 36,000 rounds of munition and ended up laying criminal charges as serious as to commit murder,” he said. “So the context is important.”
Mosley said those findings were “deeply troubling” but suggested the threats were being dealt with by the police of provincial and local jurisdiction outside Ottawa.
The judge wrote that it may be “unrealistic” to expect the federal government to wait when the country is “threatened by serious and dangerous situations,” as the provinces or territories decide whether they have the capacity or authority to deal with the threat.
“However, that is what the Emergencies Act appears to require.” he said.
Rouleau commission reached different conclusion
A mandatory inquiry, led by Commissioner Paul Rouleau, reviewed the government’s use of the Emergencies Act in the fall of 2022 and came to a different conclusion.
After hearing from dozens of witnesses and reviewing thousands of never-before-seen documents, including cabinet ministers’ text messages, Rouleau concluded the federal government met the “very high” threshold needed to invoke the Emergencies Act, citing “a failure in policing and federalism.”
“Lawful protest descended into lawlessness, culminating in a national emergency,” he wrote.
Justice Minister Arif Virani said the government cited Rouleau’s conclusions when discussing the government’s decision to appeal Mosley’s ruling.
“[Rouleau’s] decision stands at odds with the decision that was rendered today and I think that is important and that also informs our decision to appeal,” Virani told reporters Tuesday.
Federal government met threshold to invoke Emergencies Act: report
The final report out of the Emergencies Act inquiry found the federal government met the threshold to use it, as convoy protesters choked downtown Ottawa and blocked border crossings in early 2022. Still, Commissioner Paul Rouleau calls out police and the Ontario government for missteps in their responses.
CSIS Director David Vigneault testified that he supported invoking the Emergencies Act, even if he didn’t believe the self-styled Freedom Convoy met his agency’s definition of a threat to national security.
In his final report, Rouleau argued that the definition of “threats to the security of Canada” in the CSIS Act should be removed from the Emergencies Act.
Rouleau, an Ontario Court of Appeal justice, said he reached his conclusion with some reluctance.
“I do not come to this conclusion easily, as I do not consider the factual basis for it to be overwhelming,” he said in statements he gave after his report was made public.
“Reasonable and informed people could reach a different conclusion than the one I have arrived at.”
Mosley heard arguments in court over three days last April. He wrote that at the outset of the proceedings, he felt the protests in Ottawa and elsewhere went “beyond legitimate protest and reflected an unacceptable breakdown of public order.”
He said he reached his decision “with the benefit of hindsight” and a more extensive record of facts and law than cabinet had available to it when it made its decision.
Political reaction
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was quick to condemn the government and Prime Minister Trudeau personally.
“He caused the crisis by dividing people,” he posted on the social media platform X. “Then he violated Charter rights to illegally suppress citizens. As PM, I will unite our country for freedom.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said that his party reluctantly supported the invocation of the act.
“The reason we were in that crisis was a direct failure of Justin Trudeau’s leadership and also other levels of government that failed to act,” he said during a caucus meeting in Edmonton.
Singh said his party will watch to see where the appeal goes.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Beyoncé is expected to appear Friday in her hometown of Houston at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Harris’ presidential campaign has taken on Beyonce’s 2016 track “Freedom” as its anthem, and the singer’s planned appearance brings a high-level of star power to what has become a key theme of the Democratic nominee’s bid: freedom.
Harris will head to the reliably Republican state just 10 days before Election Day in an effort to refocus her campaign against former President Donald Trump on reproductive care, which Democrats see as a make-or-break issue this year.
The three people were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Harris campaign did not immediately comment.
Beyoncé‘s appearance was expected to draw even more attention to the event — and to Harris’ closing message.
Harris’ Houston trip is set to feature women who have been affected by Texas’ restrictive abortion laws, which took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She has campaigned in other states with restrictive abortion laws, including Georgia, among the seven most closely contested states.
Harris has centered her campaign around the idea that Trump is a threat to American freedoms, from reproductive and LGBTQ rights to the freedom to be safe from gun violence.
Beyonce gave Harris permission early in her campaign to use “Freedom,” a soulful track from her 2016 landmark album “Lemonade,” in her debut ad. Harris has used its thumping chorus as a walk-out song at rallies ever since.
Beyoncé’s alignment with Harris isn’t the first time that the Grammy winner has aligned with a Democratic politician. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, danced as Beyoncé performed at a presidential inaugural ball in 2009.
In 2013, she sang the national anthem at Obama’s second inauguration. Three years later, she and her husband Jay-Z performed at a pre-election concert for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Cleveland.
“Look how far we’ve come from having no voice to being on the brink of history — again,” Beyoncé said at the time. “But we have to vote.”
A January poll by Ipsos for the anti-polarization nonprofit With Honor found that 64% of Democrats had a favorable view of Beyonce compared with just 32% of Republicans. Overall, Americans were more likely to have a favorable opinion than an unfavorable one, 48% to 33%.
Speculation over whether the superstar would appear at this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago reached a fever pitch on the gathering’s final night, with online rumors swirling after celebrity news site TMZ posted a story that said: “Beyoncé is in Chicago, and getting ready to pop out for Kamala Harris on the final night of the Democratic convention.” The site attributed it to “multiple sources in the know,” none of them named.
About an hour after Harris ended her speech, TMZ updated its story to say, “To quote the great Beyoncé: We gotta lay our cards down, down, down … we got this one wrong.” In the end, Harris took the stage to star’s song, but that was its only appearance.
Last year, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, attended Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour in Maryland after getting tickets from Beyonce herself. “Thanks for a fun date night, @Beyonce,” Harris wrote on Instagram.
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Long and Kinnard reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report. Kinnard can be reached at
PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck says her party would collaborate with the federal government to work out the best deal for solving homelessness if elected on Monday.
Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser has said he sent a letter last month to provinces and territories asking them to work with Ottawa to find shelter for those experiencing homelessness.
The minister has said the government plans to directly hand out funding to Regina and Saskatoon since the province hadn’t responded to the offer before entering an election period.
Beck says it’s important to have a provincial leader who would sit down with federal officials to work out proper deals for Saskatchewan residents.
She says Saskatchewan should be working with municipalities and the federal government to ensure they can provide services for homeless populations.
Beck has said an NDP government would introduce rent caps, make vacant provincial housing units available to families and increase the supply of rental units.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2024.
OTTAWA – The NDP is taking aim at the Conservatives on abortion by putting forward a motion to push back against what it calls a “creep” of legislation, petitions and threats aimed at reducing access to abortion.
Leader Jagmeet Singh says his party will use its next opposition day to force the House of Commons to debate and vote on a motion calling for urgent action to improve abortion access.
Singh claimed that anti-choice Conservative MPs are “often calling the shots” in the Official Opposition, and that leader Pierre Poilievre has “let his MPs bring in anti-choice laws, anti-choice motions.”
“There is a real threat from the Conservatives,” he said, speaking to the media at a news conference in Montreal.
A spokesperson for Poilievre did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NDP in its press release cited several examples of what it called “anti-choice” moves from the Tories, including a petition presented earlier this year by a Conservative MP that claimed more than 98 per cent of abortions “are for reasons of social or personal convenience.”
Poilievre said at the time he disagreed with the petition.
He has previously called himself “pro-choice” and said he would not pass laws that restrict reproductive choices if he is elected.
“When I am prime minister, no laws or rules will be passed that restrict women’s reproductive choices. Period,” Poilievre said in a statement in June addressing the petition.
Conservative MP Cathy Wagantall introduced a private member’s bill last year to encourage judges to consider a victim’s pregnancy as an aggravating factor in sentencing.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada urged MPs to vote against the bill on the grounds that it promoted fetal rights, even though the bill’s text didn’t mention fetal rights.
Liberal ministers called the bill an effort to reopen the abortion debate in Canada.
Wagantall, who has been clear that she opposes abortion, said Bill C-311 had nothing to do with abortion.
At the time, a spokesperson for Poilievre said he planned to vote in favour of the bill.
Speaking in Montreal on Thursday, Singh also called out the governing Liberals, saying they haven’t done enough to improve abortion access in Canada.
“This vote is very important, but it’s also important that the vote on this motion is about not just the Conservative threat, but the lack of action of the Liberals,” said Singh, adding that access to abortion in Canada is “getting worse, not better.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2024.
