‘I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness,’ the judge said.
A federal judge has declared that the invocation of the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protest was “unreasonable” and that related regulations infringed on Canadians’ charter rights.
“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration,” wrote Justice Richard Mosley in a Jan. 23 decision.
The judge said while he had initially believed the Emergencies Act invocation was justified in response to an “unacceptable breakdown of public order,” arguments by the Canadian Constitution Foundation and Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms led him to see otherwise.
The two civil liberties organizations had argued in court that the Liberal government did not meet the legal threshold to invoke the legislation in response to the protest. They supported lawsuits filed by five plaintiffs who participated in the protest, two of whom had their bank accounts frozen as a result of the Emergencies Act.
The Freedom Convoy protest was started in response to a mandate requiring COVID-19 vaccination for truck drivers crossing the Canada–U.S. border, and resulted in encampments of trucks in the nation’s capital. The protest evolved into a larger movement against pandemic mandates and restrictions, with similar protests being held at several Canada-U.S. border crossings.
In response to the protests, the federal government ultimately invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, which gave law enforcement expanded powers to arrest demonstrators, freeze the bank accounts of some protestors, and require towing companies to remove protesters’ vehicles from Ottawa’s downtown core. This latter power was not used, according to evidence presented during the Public Order Emergency Commission.
‘Other Tools’ Available
In his decision, Justice Mosley wrote that the Emergencies Act was meant to be a tool of last resort, and Ottawa could not invoke it because “it is convenient, or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces.”
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