In its final submission to the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), the The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) represented by Cara Zwibel and Ewa Krajewska—stated in no uncertain terms that the emergency orders were unlawful, unconstitutional, and did not meet the legal threshold of the
The occupations were as serious as the attempted insurrection in Washington on January 6, 2021. The “trucker” protests felt different because they unfolded in slow motion and were cleared without violence.
Many Ottawans would say their health and safety, including their mental health, suffered during the occupation and still more would say they were afraid. For example, truck exhaust fumes were seeping into nearby apartments, which was obviously unhealthy. The occupiers were indistinguishable from goons; people were frightened to see them roaming their streets.
Ontario, like Alberta, was either unable to act or chose not to.
The protesters were not merely exercising the right to make their grievances known. To paraphrase PMJT, they didn’t just want to be heard; they wanted to be obeyed. They were extortionists. They were directly attacking the right and responsibility of democratically elected administrations to govern. Faced with this, two provincial governments effectively collapsed. That left the federal government alone with the problem and a blunt instrument with which to solve it. (You have to think some provincial politicians relished the idea of forcing a second Trudeau family member to suspend Canadian civil liberties.)
Democratic citizens endure countless infringements on their freedom because they recognize the rule of law as a net benefit. If they stop believing that, then we have a national security threat, a public order emergency that cannot be ignored.
Democracy looks like weakness to bullies and sometimes democrats need to remind them there’s an iron fist inside the velvet glove.
The point of the CCLA submission, however, is a legal one: that the threshold in the Emergencies Act was not met. If this is true, and I suppose Commissioner Rouleau will be deciding on this, then the government broke its own law. That's not ok. The rules and definitions are there for a good reason and if we start letting governments decide who poses a national security threat (even if it's contrary to evidence from law enforcement/ intelligence agencies), then it won't be long before anyone who espouses anti-government or anti-authoritarian views will be considered a terrorist or a national security threat. I don't think we want to go down that road. We are already seeing in the US where environmental activists protesting the cutting down of a forest for a police training centre are being arrested and charged with "domestic terrorism": https://www.thecut.com/2023/01/what-we-know-about-the-atlanta-protester-killed-by-police.html. This is why I stand with the CCLA. We can't be short-sighted when it comes to our rights and freedoms. They must be protected, and in the case of the border blockades and Ottawa protests, the invocation of the Act did not meet the legal threshold. The words of UBC law professor Brian Bird really resonated for me when he stated: "When we agree with the complaints of the protestors, our affinity for protest itself may increase as well… It takes a major dose of even-handedness and tolerance to express support for peaceful protest, when we vehemently disagree with the reason for this or that protest, or the views that the members of a protest hold. And yet in Canada, this ideal, this even handedness and tolerance, seems to be our aim in a free and democratic society committed to maintaining a public square that is open to all its citizens and apart from exceptional circumstances, the unhindered expression of their core convictions."
That's the most reactionary, tendentious nonsense I've read yet about this protest and the government response to it and that's saying something. Take away the hyperventilating distortions, invective and appeals to authority and almost nothing remains. How ironic that it was in response to such a thoughtful and well-researched essay on such a critical topic. Anyone who appeals to the rule of law to justify an "iron fist" response to peaceful protesters, aka "goons" for Archie Bunker, sorry, for Bill Turpin, and to the need to resort to extreme powers outside of existing law, wouldn't recognize the rule of law if it bit him in the ass. The relevant laws for dealing with the disruptions were there, Bill; no extraordinary powers - the kind that under Canadian law are to be reserved for genuine threats to national security, and even then used with restraint - needed. Even the CSIS director agreed that the threshold was not met. If Jody Thomas and Justin Trudeau want to "modernize" those laws, let them do it through legislation, not by setting them aside when they find the limits they place on their own power inconvenient. That's the *subversion* of the rule of law.
You know we live in desperate times when establishment liberal voices are outflanked on the left by career spooks, and when former newspaper editors are calling for extra-legal state repression.
I won’t be annoyed if you decline to post this. Perhaps it is how I should have approached the issue in the first place. – BT
***
The CCLA is important organization. I side with it almost reflexively but this time I disagree.
Section 3 says:
For the purposes of this Act, a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
• (a) 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 (emphasis added)
• (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
In my opinion the situation met both conditions, but it only needed to meet one to be a national emergency as defined by the act.
a) My comment argued the occupation seriously endangered the lives and health of Ottawans. The failure of the provinces to act (especially Ontario) is in itself proof they lacked the capacity to deal with the problem. In other words, if they’d had the capacity, they would have taken action.
b) I agree it’s a tougher test in this case, but “the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” is the exclusively the responsibility of the federal government. Had the elected government caved to the protesters’ demands, its ability to fulfil that responsibility would have been seriously undermined. How long could it have allowed the occupation to continue before Canadians and other states lost faith? This not a trivial question. Russia, for example, intends to challenge our sovereignty in the Arctic. What lessons would Moscow have learned from that?
The CSIS Act lists four items under “threats to the security of Canada” but doesn’t say whether all four must be true or just one of them. To me, the context says it’s the latter. So, a):
“espionage or sabotage that is against Canada or is detrimental to the interests of Canada or activities directed toward or in support of such espionage or sabotage,”
My dictionary defines sabotage as to “deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something), especially for political or military advantage (emphasis
IMO, that’s a good description of what happened in Ottawa.
Thank you for clarifying your position, Bill. Very helpful, and I think discussion and dialogue is crucial in a democracy, so I would never consider not posting your comments! I would like to add, someone from the CCLA (either Cara or Ewa) were present for roughly 6 weeks of testimony that ran often 10 or 12 hours each day. I think that if there was evidence that these definitions were met, then they would have been privy to it. I guess I trust (and hope) that they're being thorough in their analysis -- as there was no way in hell I could have watched that many hours of testimony or read the thousands of pages of documents submitted. And based on their summation (as I laid out in the article) the intentionally very high threshold wasn't met. I appreciate that it might be your opinion that it was -- and many people will agree with you -- but opinions don't really matter here -- there has to be evidence. Justice Rouleau has a very difficult task ahead of him and I hope he sticks to evidence and doesn't end up straying into ideology or politics. I think it's also important to recognize that many people's opinions about the protests were forged by the news stories they were reading -- and my view on these was that they did not fairly represent the totality of the assembly but focused (as media typically does) on the bad apples, and made allegations that were also not based in evidence or reality. I've been reading lately about the Ipperwash story and media reaction to it -- and while the subject matter is very different, the media in the Ipperwash case also presented the protesters in a very negative light and never addressed whether the reasons for the protest were actually justified. Back to the convoy though, I was struck during the testimony of the Commander of the Ontario Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau (POIB), Patrick Morris. When he was questioned about whether there was evidence of espionage, sabotage, and foreign influence, he stated: “I saw media accounts, yes… I saw online rhetoric. I saw information on social media. I saw assertions of that type of activity. I'm aware of no intelligence that was produced that would support concern in that regard.” The media was full of stories like this and it fuelled a lot of anti-protest sentiment. Where did these stories come from? Who fed these (false) stories to the media? I find it very concerning.
The occupations were as serious as the attempted insurrection in Washington on January 6, 2021. The “trucker” protests felt different because they unfolded in slow motion and were cleared without violence.
Many Ottawans would say their health and safety, including their mental health, suffered during the occupation and still more would say they were afraid. For example, truck exhaust fumes were seeping into nearby apartments, which was obviously unhealthy. The occupiers were indistinguishable from goons; people were frightened to see them roaming their streets.
Ontario, like Alberta, was either unable to act or chose not to.
The protesters were not merely exercising the right to make their grievances known. To paraphrase PMJT, they didn’t just want to be heard; they wanted to be obeyed. They were extortionists. They were directly attacking the right and responsibility of democratically elected administrations to govern. Faced with this, two provincial governments effectively collapsed. That left the federal government alone with the problem and a blunt instrument with which to solve it. (You have to think some provincial politicians relished the idea of forcing a second Trudeau family member to suspend Canadian civil liberties.)
Democratic citizens endure countless infringements on their freedom because they recognize the rule of law as a net benefit. If they stop believing that, then we have a national security threat, a public order emergency that cannot be ignored.
Democracy looks like weakness to bullies and sometimes democrats need to remind them there’s an iron fist inside the velvet glove.
The point of the CCLA submission, however, is a legal one: that the threshold in the Emergencies Act was not met. If this is true, and I suppose Commissioner Rouleau will be deciding on this, then the government broke its own law. That's not ok. The rules and definitions are there for a good reason and if we start letting governments decide who poses a national security threat (even if it's contrary to evidence from law enforcement/ intelligence agencies), then it won't be long before anyone who espouses anti-government or anti-authoritarian views will be considered a terrorist or a national security threat. I don't think we want to go down that road. We are already seeing in the US where environmental activists protesting the cutting down of a forest for a police training centre are being arrested and charged with "domestic terrorism": https://www.thecut.com/2023/01/what-we-know-about-the-atlanta-protester-killed-by-police.html. This is why I stand with the CCLA. We can't be short-sighted when it comes to our rights and freedoms. They must be protected, and in the case of the border blockades and Ottawa protests, the invocation of the Act did not meet the legal threshold. The words of UBC law professor Brian Bird really resonated for me when he stated: "When we agree with the complaints of the protestors, our affinity for protest itself may increase as well… It takes a major dose of even-handedness and tolerance to express support for peaceful protest, when we vehemently disagree with the reason for this or that protest, or the views that the members of a protest hold. And yet in Canada, this ideal, this even handedness and tolerance, seems to be our aim in a free and democratic society committed to maintaining a public square that is open to all its citizens and apart from exceptional circumstances, the unhindered expression of their core convictions."
That's the most reactionary, tendentious nonsense I've read yet about this protest and the government response to it and that's saying something. Take away the hyperventilating distortions, invective and appeals to authority and almost nothing remains. How ironic that it was in response to such a thoughtful and well-researched essay on such a critical topic. Anyone who appeals to the rule of law to justify an "iron fist" response to peaceful protesters, aka "goons" for Archie Bunker, sorry, for Bill Turpin, and to the need to resort to extreme powers outside of existing law, wouldn't recognize the rule of law if it bit him in the ass. The relevant laws for dealing with the disruptions were there, Bill; no extraordinary powers - the kind that under Canadian law are to be reserved for genuine threats to national security, and even then used with restraint - needed. Even the CSIS director agreed that the threshold was not met. If Jody Thomas and Justin Trudeau want to "modernize" those laws, let them do it through legislation, not by setting them aside when they find the limits they place on their own power inconvenient. That's the *subversion* of the rule of law.
You know we live in desperate times when establishment liberal voices are outflanked on the left by career spooks, and when former newspaper editors are calling for extra-legal state repression.
Great journalism as usual, Linda Pannozzo.
Note to The Quaking Swamp.
I won’t be annoyed if you decline to post this. Perhaps it is how I should have approached the issue in the first place. – BT
***
The CCLA is important organization. I side with it almost reflexively but this time I disagree.
Section 3 says:
For the purposes of this Act, a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
• (a) 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 (emphasis added)
• (b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
In my opinion the situation met both conditions, but it only needed to meet one to be a national emergency as defined by the act.
a) My comment argued the occupation seriously endangered the lives and health of Ottawans. The failure of the provinces to act (especially Ontario) is in itself proof they lacked the capacity to deal with the problem. In other words, if they’d had the capacity, they would have taken action.
b) I agree it’s a tougher test in this case, but “the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” is the exclusively the responsibility of the federal government. Had the elected government caved to the protesters’ demands, its ability to fulfil that responsibility would have been seriously undermined. How long could it have allowed the occupation to continue before Canadians and other states lost faith? This not a trivial question. Russia, for example, intends to challenge our sovereignty in the Arctic. What lessons would Moscow have learned from that?
The CSIS Act lists four items under “threats to the security of Canada” but doesn’t say whether all four must be true or just one of them. To me, the context says it’s the latter. So, a):
“espionage or sabotage that is against Canada or is detrimental to the interests of Canada or activities directed toward or in support of such espionage or sabotage,”
My dictionary defines sabotage as to “deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something), especially for political or military advantage (emphasis
IMO, that’s a good description of what happened in Ottawa.
Thank you for clarifying your position, Bill. Very helpful, and I think discussion and dialogue is crucial in a democracy, so I would never consider not posting your comments! I would like to add, someone from the CCLA (either Cara or Ewa) were present for roughly 6 weeks of testimony that ran often 10 or 12 hours each day. I think that if there was evidence that these definitions were met, then they would have been privy to it. I guess I trust (and hope) that they're being thorough in their analysis -- as there was no way in hell I could have watched that many hours of testimony or read the thousands of pages of documents submitted. And based on their summation (as I laid out in the article) the intentionally very high threshold wasn't met. I appreciate that it might be your opinion that it was -- and many people will agree with you -- but opinions don't really matter here -- there has to be evidence. Justice Rouleau has a very difficult task ahead of him and I hope he sticks to evidence and doesn't end up straying into ideology or politics. I think it's also important to recognize that many people's opinions about the protests were forged by the news stories they were reading -- and my view on these was that they did not fairly represent the totality of the assembly but focused (as media typically does) on the bad apples, and made allegations that were also not based in evidence or reality. I've been reading lately about the Ipperwash story and media reaction to it -- and while the subject matter is very different, the media in the Ipperwash case also presented the protesters in a very negative light and never addressed whether the reasons for the protest were actually justified. Back to the convoy though, I was struck during the testimony of the Commander of the Ontario Provincial Operations Intelligence Bureau (POIB), Patrick Morris. When he was questioned about whether there was evidence of espionage, sabotage, and foreign influence, he stated: “I saw media accounts, yes… I saw online rhetoric. I saw information on social media. I saw assertions of that type of activity. I'm aware of no intelligence that was produced that would support concern in that regard.” The media was full of stories like this and it fuelled a lot of anti-protest sentiment. Where did these stories come from? Who fed these (false) stories to the media? I find it very concerning.