Roundup: Federal Court says Emergencies Act didn’t meet the threshold

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The Federal Court ruled yesterday that the invocation of a public order emergency under the Emergencies Act didn’t actually meet the threshold for such a declaration. (Full decision here). As a result, some of the uses of emergency powers were overbroad, such as the curtailment of freedom of expression in clearing the occupation, or that the police just kind of made it up as they went along as they froze the bank accounts of the owners of trucks participating in the occupation (and really, only about 57 individuals were affected). The federal government declared immediately that they were going to appeal this decision, citing in part the fact that the public inquiry didn’t come to the same conclusion. While I have a full story coming out later today on this, it’s important to note that the ruling was fairly narrow and technical, rejected a number of the complainants that were part of it, and largely affects future invocations of the Act, having little effect on what happened (because we can’t turn back time).

Amidst the various reactions, revisionism certainly was on display among the talking heads over the course of the evening, who insisted that the government had more “surgical” tools they could have used instead of invoking the Act, erm, except no, they didn’t. The problem was that Doug Ford washed his hands of the whole thing, and eventually the federal government had no other option than to invoke the Act because nobody else was getting control of the situation. And the Conservatives? They are eating up this decision and spreading shitposts far and wide over their socials about how this was a condemnation of Trudeau, and how “divisive” he was, and so on. This feeds directly into their dystopian world-building where they are pretending that Trudeau is some kind of jackbooted dictator taking away people’s rights, when that’s explicitly not what happened here, or any reflection of our objective reality whatsoever. But they want to create the illusion that this is true for their believers, because when you can get them to stop believing in our objective reality, people are so much easier to manipulate.

In commentary, Emmett Macfarlane makes a reasoned case for disagreement with the decision which is well worth reading, while Paul Wells makes more of a case for this decision over the public inquiry, though I suspect he too falls a little into the trap of revisionism because the existing tools weren’t working precisely because Doug Ford refused to act.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv have killed 18 people, which Russia claims are all hits on the military-industrial complex. It is more likely that Russia is probing Ukraine’s defences for weakness as they suffer from shortages because Western arms manufacturers are slow to produce new ammunition and equipment, and the US’ budget deadlock is not helping matters any. On the front lines, the reliability of drones used by Ukrainian troops is of varying quality because many of them are cheaply and hastily assembled.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says that the government is launching a “Team Canada engagement strategy” in the US to remind political leaders at every level of Canada’s interests.
  • Trudeau is also rejecting calls to massively slash pending in order to appease business groups or the Conservatives.
  • Canada is sending another $35 million worth of military equipment to Ukraine.
  • An RCMP plan to recruit more specialists for federal policing duties has been put on hold because they didn’t engage the union before starting.
  • The RCMP have their already overdue draft response to the Mass Casualty Commission report, but won’t say when the plan to release it.
  • A CSIS presentation in Edmonton in December of 2022 warned of how particularly vulnerable the province is to foreign interference.
  • A group of feminist organisations are calling on the government to end the use of “parental alienation” claims under the Divorce Act.
  • Here is a look at the calls for amendments to the cybersecurity bill as it begins committee study next week.
  • Anthony Rota is bellyaching in the passive voice about how tough the last few months have been since he was forced to resign as Speaker.
  • The NDP are holding their caucus retreat in Edmonton, and Jagmeet Singh is trying to sound tough on the Liberals and Conservatives.
  • There was a heavily armed shooter at Edmonton City Hall, and fortunately nobody was hurt.
  • My column looks at the recent polling and report on the state of civics education in this country and why it’s as dire as it is.

Odds and Ends:

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