Why Justin Trudeau's Use of the Emergencies Act on Peaceful Freedom Convoy Protesters Should Be Roundly Condemned by the Public Order Emergency Commission
The following is my submission to the Commission which begin hearings in October 2022, into the Federal Government's use of the Emergencies Act during the Freedom Convoy protest in February 2022
To The Public Order Emergency Commission
As a former Commissioned Officer of the Canadian Armed Forces and a retired Senior Emergency Planning Analyst (Civilian Member) with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and a one time journalist, I believe I can offer an informed submission to this Commission on the federal government’s actions against the Freedom Convoy in February of 2022.
The Freedom Convoy was one of the largest peaceful protests of its kind. It inspired and gave hope to many Canadians as it echoed the feelings of many, here in Canada, and in countries around the world, who were trying to rise up from beneath the boot of the COVID authoritarians. My position is that the federal government had no legal or security grounds upon which to invoke the Act. This point was also eloquently expressed by members of the Canadian Senate as they debated the invocation of the Act which, of course, was a mute point because the unlimited governmental powers it allowed for had already been unleashed on the Convoy members. Canadian Senator Dagenais Gives Excellent Speech Against Approving the Emergency Act
I believe it was orations like this that gave rise to the Prime Minister’s decision to revoke the Act as quickly as he imposed it. It would have been a huge embarrassment to have the Senate veto the Act after the damage had already been done. How could the arrests and seizures of property and the freezing of bank accounts be defended then?
Throughout the initial preliminary parliamentary committee hearings into the Declaration of the Emergencies Act, all the police services involved in the operation made it clear they never asked the government to invoke the Act as the government had claimed. In addition, at the time the Act was invoked the City of Ottawa, was already in negotiations with Convoy representatives and coming to an agreement on how the Convoy could depart Ottawa, or at least leave the downtown core. Prime Minister Trudeau tried to argue that his decision was related to the Convoy blockades at the border, but all of those had been peacefully resolved well before the Act was invoked. All of these facts underscore my conclusion that the invoking of the Act was unwarranted and unprecedented.
My own experience with the Convoy leads me to the same conclusion. Given what I was seeing on alternative and independent media streams on the Convoy, I questioned why the legacy media reporting on it was so different and negative from what I was seeing on live streams. So, as an Ottawa resident I decided to visit the Convoy to see for myself what was happening. I visited it on a very cold Sunday morning. What did I encounter? Happy, welcoming patriotic people from across the country proudly carrying Canadian flags and simply shouting freedom and hugging one another. The atmosphere was amazing and infectious, it was like a magnificent Canada Day in the middle of winter.
I saw people shoveling snow on the streets and sidewalks, having friendly interactions with police, collecting and removing trash bags set out by the Convoy to be taken to a central trash collection site. There were posters and signs, but there was no litter, and no graffiti anywhere. They were cooking food outside and were happy to share it with anyone who came by. They were people of all colours, races and backgrounds gathering together. Yes, there were truckers, but there also were farmers, veterans, retired police, and people who had lost livelihoods, and even family members due to the COVID restrictions. I encountered a mother with two children who wept because her children were suffering because they could not go to school. I met veterans who had served in Afghanistan who were tired of seeing the freedoms that they, and those that had gone before them had fought for, being chipped away by government COVID mandates. I was quite moved when at 11 am they raised the Canadian flag, sang Oh Canada and said the Lord’s Prayer.
There was no violence, there weren’t even horns being blown when I walked through the streets, which, by the way, still had open lanes for thru traffic. The people I spoke with were there, not because they were anti-vaxers, not because they were racists or mosogynists and certainly not because they were Nazi’s, as our Prime Minister accused them of being in the House of Commons. They were people who were tired of the government trying to run and mandate how they lived and where they could or couldn't go. They were there because they wanted the government to listen to them. Instead of doing that Liberal and NDP parties in government smeared them at every chance they got, along with the help of the legacy media, while members of the Conservative party did little to defend them.
Everything they were accused of turned out to be wrong. They did not attempt to set fire to a downtown apartment building. They did not deface the Terry Fox statue (putting a cap and Canadian flag on it is not defacing it). In fact, by the time I visited the Convoy, those things had been removed from the statue and they now had sentries guarding it. They did not deface the War Memorial in any way, and as for the woman dancing on the grave of the unknown soldier, it is not even clear if she was with the Convoy. Again, after the incident, veterans with the Convoy began a vigil of guarding the Memorial. There was no food stolen from the homeless, they were, in fact, feeding them. The rumours of a stash of weapons hidden somewhere turned into nothing. Yet, not the media and nor the politicians who made these accusations ever walked them back or apologized. I believe the legacy media has a lot to answer for in the way they vilified the Convoy and should be called to account for that.
I almost wept when the Prime Minister announced he was invoking the Emergencies Act. I felt it was so very wrong and an extreme overreach of the government. What was even worse was the announcement by the Finance Minister that the government was freezing the bank accounts of anyone involved with the Convoy, no court order, frozen, just like that. She further indicated that anyone that was even thought to be supporting the Convoy through the Go-Fund-Me and Give-Send-Go funding sites may also have their accounts frozen. Tell me that wasn’t a threat that sent chills down the spines of many Canadians. This was an egregious abuse of power, particularly in a democratic country like Canada. The Convoy members were not terrorists and certainly not a threat to the security of the country, so such extreme measures originally designed to be used on terrorist organizations, were completely unwarranted and beyond the pale for any democratic government. This move made international headlines as members of the European Parliament chastised our Prime Minister, calling him a dictator.. https://www.opindia.com/2022/03/justin-trudeau-disgrace-to-democracy-dictator-humiliation-eu-parliament/
The treatment of the Convoy members, none of whom resisted when the police began the removal operation, was shameful and disturbing. Authorities threatened to have the Children's Aid Society seize their children and the Humane Society take and euthanize their pets. An elderely woman was trampled by police on horses, which the Ottawa Acting Police Chief tried to deny, despite the fact it was on video. Despite little resistance from the protesters police did use violence, as a veteran soldier, who barely survived a mine explosion while serving in Afghanistan, can attest to, how shameful.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=530755924920207
Finally there was the unnecessary arrest and incarceration of some of the ‘leaders’ of the convoy and in particular Tamara Lich. The 51 year old Metis mother and grandmother, with absolutely no criminal record, was taken away in handcuffs and originally charged with mischief. Her first bail application was denied, by a judge who, we learned, had connections to the Liberal party. Lich spent almost three weeks in jail, before being granted bail by another judge, but her bail restrictions were beyond ridiculous. Then on June 27, she was re-arrested on a Canada-wide warrant, for allegedly breaching one of those conditions and spent nearly another month in jail, after her first bail application was, again, denied. As a Canadian I am deeply concerned about our Justice System’s treatment of Ms. Lich. who is hardly a criminal. There is something seriously wrong when a woman like Lich can be so blatantly abused by a supposed fair justice system, when a man like Myles Sanderson, who murdered ten people on the James Smith Cree Nation had managed to rack up 59 convictions for violent crimes and was walking free to commot multiple murders. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-why-wasnt-myles-sanderson-in-jail
This is a stark but troubling comparison given that Lich may face more jail time if she is found guilty at her upcoming trial in September of next year.
I conclude my submission by saying I was never more ashamed and frightened of my government the day they brought the full force of the state down on a group of people who were protesting peacefully, which is a democratic right and part of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Perhaps they stayed little too long, but the reason for that was, that they were waiting to be heard by a government that absolutely refused to listen to them.