Canada’s Officious Overreach

You don’t have to support protesting truckers to answer these questions as I do. Where will it stop? Is Canada still a free and democratic society? How does Canada compare with other free and democratic societies that have not found emergency powers to be necessary? My answer is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to clamp down on protesting truckers replicates what Hitler did for Germany in 1933. After the fire in the Reichstag (the German parliament building), Hitler secured the Enabling Act that allowed him to bypass the Weimar Constitution, which comprised laws, and checks and balances guaranteeing rights and freedoms similar to those in Canada’s Charter.

22 percent of eligible voters actually cast ballots for Trudeau’s government

There are many similarities between what happened in Germany and the invocation of Canada’s Emergencies Act. Hitler got less than 45% of the vote in the preceding election and did not command a majority in the Reichstag. That was despite the terror and mayhem that he fomented. The Nazis used coercion, bribery, and manipulation to get the Enabling Act passed in the Reichstag, with support from the seats held by their coalition partner, the German National People's Party. Hitler then pressured the ailing President von Hindenburg to sign the Act into law. Similarly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau secured the signature of Canada’s puppet Governor General Mary Simon. At the last election, Trudeau secured just 32 percent of the total votes for the Liberals, with the Conservatives getting the majority of the total votes cast. Just 22 percent of eligible voters actually cast ballots for Trudeau’s government. Along with the Bloc Québécois the Conservatives vehemently oppose the invocation of the Act that still has to pass through parliament. But to legitimize the Emergencies Act in the House of Commons, it seems that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority has the support of the NDP. That’s despite their being historically the party representing working people like the truckers. The Emergencies Act indicates that it goes into effect immediately upon its invocation, with parliamentary approval required retrospectively. But what if approval doesn’t happen? And if endorsement fails, what happens to those who’ve been subjected to disqualified overreach? And even if invocation succeeds in parliament, can the courts block it? That’s the challenge for the courts by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), joined by the Canadian Constitution Foundation. A problem may arise from the fact that the establishment elite owns the justice system. Appointed as they mostly are by Liberals in recognition of contributions to party funds, the independence of judges is in question when there’s a conflict with vested interests. Contrary to judges’ self-serving assertions, the only justification for judicial independence is to shield citizens from government overreach. But when there’s a conflict with vested interests, judges, like the federal court’s chief justice Paul Crampton, do the opposite. In a case last year where the plaintiffs attacked, unsuccessfully, the government’s right to incarcerate travellers entering Canada by air, Justice Crampton said this: “It bears underscoring here that what is relevant is the objective of the Impugned Measures, not their actual effectiveness…” By this reasoning, the intelligentsia may justify all abuse and maladministration. Jay Cameron, litigation director of the Calgary-based Justice Centre, said Justice Crampton’s deference to government edicts is “an embarrassment to the body of law regarding confinement and detention.” Canadians who fled communism will at once recognize Justice Crampton’s mindset.

---

Trudeau has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Act

It remains therefore in question how the courts will handle the CCLA’s assertion that Trudeau has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Act. Invocation requires a threat that “seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it,” or “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” and when the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” The CCLA says conditions don’t meet the necessary threshold. Logically, the legal case for imposing the Emergencies Act also hinges on the Charter. Its first provision “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” So will the courts defer to the jurisprudence they’re obliged to follow—as Justice Crampton did not? Logically, and subject only to conflicts between jurisdictions, no restriction on liberty can survive unless it also obtains in other free and democratic societies, namely the U.S. and other Commonwealth countries. Given that no other free and democratic societies have needed such arbitrary and dictatorial powers, and given that a general relaxation of Covid redirections worldwide, how can any reasonable and informed citizen accept that the imposition of the Act meets the necessary criteria? The supreme irony of this business is that none of the turmoil needed to happen. Instead of meeting with truckers or unwinding his Covid restrictions, Trudeau said he met only with those whose cause he agreed with. Like the Black Lives Matter rioters who caused billions of dollars’ worth of damages, mostly hurting law-abiding Blacks. Colin Alexander was publisher of the Yellowknife New of the North. His most recent book is The Ballad of Sunny Ways, Popular and scurrilous traditional verse about living, loving and money.