“The responsibility of the prime minister is to make the tough calls to keep people safe.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testifying at the Public Order Emergency Commission, Nov. 25, 2022.
No one, surely, would dispute that statement. And no one would disagree, as the prime minister – the final witness as the commission wound up six weeks of public hearings into the government’s handling of the Emergencies Act in February – went on to say, that if governments cannot keep their people safe, faith in public institutions will surely erode.
The question facing Judge Paul Rouleau and his commission on Friday was whether that tough call, to declare a public emergency on Feb. 14, was really necessary in order to break up the “Freedom Convoy” that had been occupying the heart of Ottawa and blockading border crossings for weeks.
Critics of the tough call – ranging from civil libertarians to leaders of extreme factions of the convoy protest – contended that the police and civil authorities had adequate authority and had no need for the exceptional powers provided under the Emergencies Act (EA).
But the issue, as Trudeau put it to the commission, was not the adequacy of existing powers, but rather the ability or willingness of the police to use those powers. The government had lost confidence in the police. Confusion reigned. There was no coordination among police services, and, although some of them claimed to have plans to restore public order, in the opinion of the government none were workable plans that would disband the protests without inflaming the extremists in their ranks, leading to an escalation in violence.
Trudeau was passionate, at times dramatic, as he walked the commission through the facts, warnings, rumours, intelligence reports, legal opinions, advice from premiers and appeals from members of Parliament that he had received as he weighed whether the trucker protests, if continued, would constitute to a threat to national security and thereby warrant declaring a public emergency.
He told the commission he was still undecided after a final round of consultations on Feb. 13 with his Incident Response Group, with the cabinet and, as required by the EA, with the premiers of the provinces and territories. Perhaps he was undecided, but he seemed to be leaning. The following morning, he said, he concluded that country would face, in the words of the act, a “threat of serious violence” if he did not invoke the emergency measures.
He was, he said, “serene and confident” that he had made the right decision on Feb. 14. Attempts by lawyers cross-examining him on behalf of the truckers, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the government of Alberta, among others, failed to shake his resolve.
Constitutional lawyers, professors and editorial writers, among others, will debate for months, probably for years, whether the prime minister’s reasons met or fell short of the legal test for declaring a public emergency – whether he acted appropriately or exceeded his statutory authority.
It will be a bootless debate. The decision to use the Emergencies Act came down to a matter, not of legal interpretation, but of political judgment – the tough call that only the prime minister could make.
Events in ensuing days bore out his judgment. Trucks blockading Parliament Hill and downtown Ottawa streets were towed away, border points were cleared and kept open, the flow of foreign funds to protest groups was cut off, caches of body armour, assault weapons and other firearms were discovered, arrests were made, public order was quickly restored, and no one was seriously hurt. That done, the government withdrew the Emergencies Act. No one lost any rights or freedoms.
By way of a footnote, Trudeau and his deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freedland, sounded different tones last week. Where Trudeau was logical, persuasive and at times passionate, Freeland revealed a take-no-prisoners approach to a critic of the government’s handling of the crisis in February. The CEO of one of the big banks, almost certainly the Bank of Montreal’s Darryl White, had passed along a snarly message from a foreign investor – “I won’t invest another red cent in your banana republic in Canada.”
She shot him out of the water, telling the banker, “If the investor you speak of is American, tell them we are not like the USA who had people literally invade their legislature. If they are a Brit, remind them of Brexit. If they are French, remind them of the Yellow Vests. If they are German, look at how badly they are handling Russia right now.”
Right on, Chrystia!
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com