The Liberal government unreasonably invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points nearly four years ago, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Friday.
The court dismissed the government’s appeal of a 2024 ruling which deemed former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to use the legislation unlawful and infringed on protesters’ Charter rights.
“As disturbing and disruptive the blockades and the convoy protests in Ottawa could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security,” wrote the three judges on the appeal court.
Political actors want to paint this as a failure of the federal government but fact of the matter is, it was a failure of enforcement, and we simply do not have the means in which to hold that enforcement accountable the same way we do the federal government, which is another issue entirely.
We should have high standards for the EA’s use, but the same people who will justify state sponsored violence that targets people they don’t like, are celebrating this ruling as government overreach, because it’s about the narrative not reality, and I find it exhausting.
Police should’ve done their jobs and the federal government shouldn’t have used the act, that’s the real story.