All’s not well in Heliopolis (Sunny Ways City) Liberal stooge says the Emergencies Act was justified

As expected, Justice Paul Rouleau has declared that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act. “I have concluded,” the judge says, “that the very high threshold required for the invocation of the Act was met.”

So how credible is that finding? My first problem, and it’s serious, is that the appointment process for Justice Rouleau was objectionable. For any real emergency, assuming you agree there ever was one, there should have been bipartisan agreement on who was to be the commissioner. Problems with the appointment arise from the fact that he’s a longstanding and paid-up member of the Liberal nomenklatura. He’d worked as a Liberal staffer and had donated to the Liberal Party. His career began with the Liberal lapdog law firm of Heenan Blaikie, the one that was to collapse in disgrace as a result of bribery scandals and maladministration. His taking the job as commissioner is then the first exercise in outstandingly bad judgment we’ve come to expect in Ottawa. It violates the most fundamental principle that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.

Failure to recall Parliament pretty much of itself disqualifies any good faith there ever was either in handling lockdowns or the protesting truckers

It’s true, in theory, that Parliament can roll back invocation of the Emergencies Act at any time, as Justice Rouleau disingenuously points out. But that can’t happen unless the House is actually sitting. Given the days and days of ongoing protest, and if there really were an emergency, why didn’t Mr. Trudeau recall Parliament to debate invocation of the Act? Justice Rouleau attributes good faith to the various levels of government. But failure to recall Parliament pretty much of itself disqualifies any good faith there ever was either in handling lockdowns or the protesting truckers.

Now note that there was only one active truckers’ protest when Mr. Trudeau invoked the Act. That was the one in Ottawa. All the others, including major protests at the border crossings between Canada and the United States at Windsor, Ontario, and Coutts, Alberta, had wound down entirely or the unwinding was near completion. The issue then is only whether the protest in Ottawa met the legal criteria for invoking the Act.

By definition, there’s an emergency only when the ordinary mechanisms for dealing with a problem are insufficient. At the hearings last October, it came out that the protest did not meet the definition of an emergency. On Sunday the day before invocation of the Act, the three police forces, federal, provincial and municipal, had completed a plan to dismantle the protest. This was a six-page document that the federal government received that evening—almost all redacted for the hearings. Mr. Trudeau claimed it was not a plan at all. However, Ottawa’s Deputy Chief of Police Patricia Ferguson contradicted that assertion. She merely agreed that “it greased the wheels” for implementing the plan delivered to Mr. Trudeau the day before he invoked the Act. Greasing the wheels does not connote necessity. They’re two entirely different concepts.

Also the evening before invocation of the Act, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told Public Safety Minister Mendicino, by email, her view that the police had not yet exhausted "all available tools.” It turned out that no police service, municipal, provincial or federal, ever asked for invocation of the Act.

David Vigneault, head of CSIS: "There did not exist a threat to the security of Canada” as defined by the CSIS Act

In addition, David Vigneault, head of CSIS, felt obliged to “clearly convey” the agency’s view. It was that “there did not exist a threat to the security of Canada” as defined by the CSIS Act. The day before the Act was invoked, he briefed high-ranking government members, including Mr. Trudeau, of the service’s findings on February 13, Despite Mr. Vigneault’s determination on the facts, he nonetheless recommended invocation of the Act—one may surmise in subservience to what his paymaster wanted to hear.

It’s true, in theory, that Parliament can roll back invocation of the Emergencies Act at any time, as Justice Rouleau disingenuously points out. But that can’t happen unless the House is actually sitting. Given the days and days of ongoing protest, and if there really were an emergency, why didn’t Mr. Trudeau recall Parliament to debate invocation of the Act? Justice Rouleau attributes good faith to the various levels of government. But failure to recall Parliament pretty much of itself disqualifies any good faith there ever was either in handling lockdowns or the protesting truckers.

Now note that there was only one active truckers’ protest when Mr. Trudeau invoked the Act. That was the one in Ottawa. All the others, including major protests at the border crossings between Canada and the United States at Windsor, Ontario, and Coutts, Alberta, had wound down entirely or the unwinding was near completion. The issue then is only whether the protest in Ottawa met the legal criteria for invoking the Act.

By definition, there’s an emergency only when the ordinary mechanisms for dealing with a problem are insufficient. At the hearings last October, it came out that the protest did not meet the definition of an emergency. On Sunday the day before invocation of the Act, the three police forces, federal, provincial and municipal, had completed a plan to dismantle the protest. This was a six-page document that the federal government received that evening—almost all redacted for the hearings. Mr. Trudeau claimed it was not a plan at all. However, Ottawa’s Deputy Chief of Police Patricia Ferguson contradicted that assertion. She merely agreed that “it greased the wheels” for implementing the plan delivered to Mr. Trudeau the day before he invoked the Act. Greasing the wheels does not connote necessity. They’re two entirely different concepts.

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No police service, municipal, provincial or federal, ever asked for invocation of the Act

Also the evening before invocation of the Act, RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki told Public Safety Minister Mendicino, by email, her view that the police had not yet exhausted "all available tools.” It turned out that no police service, municipal, provincial or federal, ever asked for invocation of the Act.

In addition, David Vigneault, head of CSIS, felt obliged to “clearly convey” the agency’s view. It was that “there did not exist a threat to the security of Canada” as defined by the CSIS Act. The day before the Act was invoked, he briefed high-ranking government members, including Mr. Trudeau, of the service’s findings on February 13, Despite Mr. Vigneault’s determination on the facts, he nonetheless recommended invocation of the Act—one may surmise in subservience to what his paymaster wanted to hear.

Justice Rouleau conceded that most protesters were not violent even as they were disruptive. Invocation of the Act specifically requires a threat of serious violence. So what’s serious violence as distinct from any other kind? Most reasonable people would say it requires the use of force or the threat of force with some kind of weapons. Mr. Trudeau said he was invoking the Act after weeks of unlawful and dangerous activity. The police stated categorically that they found that the protesters carried no weapons. Clearly, violation of parking bylaws and the Highway Traffic Act constitutes low-level law-breaking. But how dangerous is that? Really?

In his summary the judge claimed that there were incidents (plural) at the National War Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There was much made of a woman standing on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Just standing. Not sufficiently respectful, of course, but no damage was done let alone was there any overt disrespect. It turned out later that the woman had been drunk and that she was not associated with the truckers.

There’s no end to the double standards of Justice Rouleau’s Report and in law enforcement generally

Justice Rouleau also said there was an incident at the Terry Fox memorial/ Yes, someone draped a flag over the statue. So what? Protesters didn’t even get charged when photographs were published identifying those who, in July 2021, pulled down statues in Winnipeg of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth. Why did so little effort go into finding and prosecuting those who vandalized or burned down hundreds of churches? There’s no end to the double standards of Justice Rouleau’s Report and in law enforcement generally.

Months before the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy, Mr. Trudeau had taken it upon himself to comment on the months-long protest by farmers in Delhi, capital of India. He said, “Canada will always be there to defend the rights of peaceful protest. … We believe in the importance of dialogue …” He pretty much contradicted George Orwell’s saying, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” For the truckers, however, he said he met only with representatives of causes he agreed with. Those causes apparently included the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States that caused several billion dollars worth of property damage, largely to Black-owned businesses.

And soon after hearings ended on imposition of the Act, in November 2022 Mr. Trudeau had this to say about protests in China about Covid lockdowns there: "Canadians are watching very closely. Obviously everyone in China should be allowed to express themselves (and) should be allowed to share their perspectives, and indeed protest. We're going to continue to ensure that China knows we'll stand up for human rights. We'll stand with people who are expressing themselves.”

In sum, regardless of what you think of the protest, Justice Rouleau’s Report illustrates, of itself, that Canada has a problem with government by the elite, for the elite and against the people.

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