The Liberal government unreasonably invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy protests that gridlocked the capital city and border points nearly four years ago, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Friday.
The court dismissed the government’s appeal of a 2024 ruling which deemed former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to use the legislation unlawful and infringed on protesters’ Charter rights.
“As disturbing and disruptive the blockades and the convoy protests in Ottawa could be, they fell well short of a threat to national security,” wrote the three judges on the appeal court.
Mixed bag.
Always nice to see some constraint on “emergency” powers… but a mob starting shit over nonsense was ignored by all lower levels of government. Telling people to just go home after an entire week of aimless provocation is not exactly cracking skulls the minute someone in a keffiyah holds up sign in an empty field.
And if bricks started falling through windshields after three days of nonstop noise, well, that would have been a riot justifying any state power… toward the people saying “leave us alone.”