Never forget the Emergencies Act

Days after I returned from Davos a few weeks back, I had the misfortune of coming down with a nasty case of pneumonia. Klaus Schwab’s parting gift, perhaps? In any event, in the downtime I found myself reflecting on the last few years.

While some remnants of the Covid era are, unfortunately, still with us, both in policy and people’s behavior, I choose to view the pandemic in past tense. In doing so, I’ve been forced to ask about much of it, did that really happen?

Were people really barred from flying or taking the train because of their vaccination status? Was caution tape really put around playgrounds so no one dared exercise outdoors? Were families really charged if they had an extra person at gatherings in their own homes? Did Quebec really try to fine the unvaccinated?

The answer to all of these questions is, of course, ‘yes,’ but that doesn’t make it any less surreal.

There’s been an ongoing discussion in recent months about whether we should all declare a “pandemic amnesty,” which is to say move on from the last three years and wipe the slate clean. I understand the temptation behind this: it was a miserable period and dwelling on it isn’t necessarily productive.

Though most of the people eager to declare this amnesty are the ones who contributed to that misery. Now, they’ve just realized they got it wrong.

Even so, I have some level of sympathy for those who were consumed by fear and acted accordingly. I have no sympathy for those who peddled and promulgated that fear. I’m looking at you, Justin Trudeau.

One year ago today, Trudeau’s Valentine for countless Canadians peacefully protesting his government came in the form of the Emergencies Act.

It was an extreme, yet characteristic, development in a years-long assault on civil liberties.

The Emergencies Act was the Trudeau government’s answer to the people who refused to accept the permanent pandemic – the people who refused to abdicate their own choices to the government.

The Freedom Convoy was a watershed moment in Canada, a country that does not have rebellion or revolution baked into its collective DNA. While the convoy was born out of protest, its power came because it turned into a movement that cut across ethnic, regional, and even political lines.

The Freedom Convoy did what Trudeau failed to do – unite people. That’s why it was so threatening to the government.

If one views a lot of the government’s pandemic response through the lens of control rather than public safety, the use of the Emergencies Act looks to be part of a natural progression. Terms like “public order” and “national emergency” were used to obscure the real goal of tamping down dissent.

Yet even the most cynical people were shocked when the Trudeau government went there.

“Dear Lord,” former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford said when he learned what the government was doing.

Despite Trudeau’s insistence that Charter rights would be protected, journalists were assaulted; protesters who came on foot and had never been in a big rig in their lives were arrested and dropped on the outskirts of the city; and scores of people had their bank accounts frozen without recourse.

As I wrote one year ago:

Mobility rights, freedom of the press, freedom of peaceful assembly, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. These rights were edited out of Trudeau’s version of the Charter the moment he invoked the Emergencies Act, his gaslighting notwithstanding.

“We will not be suspending fundamental rights,” Trudeau said, somehow with a straight face.

Despite his claim that the Emergencies Act is a “last resort,” he nonetheless managed to wind up there without so much as sending a part-time intern for an assistant to the deputy minister of transportation out to speak with any of the people protesting first.

While Justin Trudeau hasn’t called in the military just yet, his phony declaration of an emergency puts the government on a war footing against its own citizens.

If the government has to tell you there’s an emergency, there isn’t one.

If your government has to tell you your rights aren’t being violated, they are.

And, as the old saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war.

Despite seeing what governments in so-called liberal democracies were capable of in 2020 and 2021, I never would have predicted on the eve of 2022 that the Emergencies Act would even be mentioned, let alone used to freeze protesters’ bank accounts and take away their business licenses.

To this day, the only emergency was the cessation of civil liberties at the hands of the Trudeau government.

In less than a week, Canadians will be able to read the report from the Public Order Emergency Commission, which may or may not find the government was unjustified in invoking the Emergencies Act. Even if it ends up being a scathing indictment of the act, there is no penalty attached, and the NDP has committed to keeping the government in power regardless.

Anyone who watched the weeks of hearings saw that they culminated in haggling over a technicality in the CSIS Act.

Legal gymnastics were all the government had left after its narrative about the supposedly racist, violent, white supremacist, insurrection crumbled.

Irrespective of Commissioner Paul Rouleau’s findings, it’s incumbent upon Canadians to never forget.

Never forget the ones who vilified people for choosing not to be vaccinated. Never forget the government that maligned those who dared criticize it. Never forget that the prime minister suspended civil liberties because he refused to admit his failures.

For them, we need accountability, not amnesty.

Thanks to those who read this newsletter. Make sure to hit “subscribe now” above to not miss future editions. If you enjoy my commentary on the Freedom Convoy and the Emergencies Act, you may enjoy my #1 bestseller, The Freedom Convoy: The Inside Story of Three Weeks that Shook the World, which is available at Indigo, Amazon, or directly from the publisher.