Justin Trudeau invokes Emergencies Act to stop convoy protests

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This article was published 13/02/2022 (949 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA—Border blockades and a convoy of trucks and anti-government protesters choking off the streets of Canada’s capital city prompted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to finally do Monday what he had avoided during two years of a global pandemic: declare a national state of emergency.

Trudeau took the unprecedented step of invoking the federal Emergencies Act to declare a “public order emergency” that will grant police and financial institutions extraordinary powers to confront the convoy protesters.

This includes powers to create no-go zones around critical infrastructure such as border crossings and downtown Ottawa, halt public assemblies that “breach the peace” in those red zones, commandeer tow trucks in order to remove big rigs blocking streets, and freeze or suspend protesters’ bank accounts and vehicle insurance coverage.

“Despite their best efforts, it is now clear that there are serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce the law,” Trudeau said as civil libertarians warned of an overreach by his government.

Under the new measures, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police can be empowered to act as local and provincial police. Anyone violating emergency orders could face fines of up to $5,000 and up to five years in jail.

The declaration is effective immediately, but must be tabled in Parliament within seven days, and will be in place for 30 days unless the government stops it early or Parliament votes to revoke it, as outlined in the Emergencies Act.

A senior federal official said the government expects the powers to be used in “the next hours and days.”

The prime minister stressed the emergency declaration does not mean the government is calling in the military to deal with protesters, but will instead empower police to clear out illegal blockades he said are harming “regular Canadians” by choking off trade, shuttering businesses and making people feel unsafe.

Describing the decision to assume the powers as a “last resort,” Trudeau said it was nonetheless necessary because the situation calls for special measures — such as those designed to cut off funding to the protests — that provinces couldn’t enact on their own.

Trudeau said his conversations with world leaders on the Ukraine crisis revealed “democracies around the world are concerned” by the outbreak of protests in Canada, including countries that did well during the pandemic but are also seeing backlashes against public health measures.

He said leaders see “frustration by people who are tired of this pandemic and the impact of social media and illicit funding of concerted activities designed to destabilize a country that has the highest vaccination rate of many of our peer countries.”

Senior government sources acknowledged the pressure that built over the past week, especially when the Ambassador Bridge was closed by protesters and several Biden administration officials made interventions with their counterparts, which one described as “definitely something that was significant.”

“It sort of allowed us to … really understand and appreciate that this isn’t just a domestic issue, that it is having an impact on our international relationships,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss government matters.

The measures were unveiled on the same day the RCMP seized three trailers and a cache of firearms, ammunition and body armour near a border protest in Coutts, Alta., where traffic into Montana has been halted or slowed for more than two weeks — a development another senior government official admitted is worrying, along with troubling news that two elite Canadian Forces’ soldiers and a former member are under investigation for participating in the Ottawa convoy.

Organizers of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” responded to the emergency declaration with the same defiance they’ve projected for almost three weeks, as local police and politicians urged them to lift their occupation of the capital’s downtown core.

Chris Barber, a trucker from Saskatchewan and one of the protest spokespeople, told the Star he thinks Trudeau is bent on “tyranny.”

Barber said the use of the Emergencies Act is already galvanizing more protesters to come to Ottawa in buses from Western Canada, and that police should not enforce new powers on behalf of a government that has “gone rogue on its people.”

Asked if the powers to freeze bank accounts and suspend the truck insurance of protesters would intimidate protesters, Barber was dismissive.

“He wants to mess with the wrong group of people,” Barber said of Trudeau.

“All he’s doing is throwing a tantrum. The only thing I want to do is put a soother in that guy’s mouth.”

Trudeau faced immediate pushback from the federal Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois, and conservative premiers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec, but support from the federal New Democrats and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he is open to backing the government, but promised to “provide scrutiny” and flag concerns “if there’s any inappropriate use of these measures.”

At Queen’s Park, Ford said it’s crucial to “stabilize our businesses and trade around the world, as the world is watching us right now, wondering if it’s a stable environment to open up businesses and expand businesses.

“At the end of the day, all the premiers agree with one thing: We cannot have people creating chaos at our borders, interrupting trade with the rest of the world. It won’t be tolerated and we’ll make sure we take care of it,” Ford said.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the blockades caused “serious harm to our economy, to our democratic institutions, and to Canada’s international standing” as a reliable trading partner and a place to invest.

“This is unacceptable,” she said. “It cannot stand and it will not stand.”

Freeland said the emergency declaration will cut off the flow of money from Canada and abroad to “Freedom Convoy” organizers and demonstrators across the country. As of Monday, the government will require crowdfunding sites, such as those that have raised millions of dollars for the protesters in recent weeks, to report “large and suspicious transactions” to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

The government will also issue an “immediate” order to authorize Canadian banks and other financial institutions to freeze or suspend accounts suspected of supporting illegal activities without a court order, she said.

“This is about stopping the financing of these illegal blockades,” Freeland said. “If your truck is being used … your corporate accounts will be frozen. The insurance on your vehicle will be suspended.”

Freeland said the economic impact of the blockades has been massive, with daily trade over the now-cleared Ambassador Bridge worth $390 million, while ongoing blockades in Emerson, Man., and Coutts, Alta., threaten a total of $121 million in trade per day.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the government’s intelligence agencies believe a “significant percentage of those contributions are coming from abroad, they’re foreign contributions.”

Security expert Wesley Wark said trying to regulate foreign-based crowdfunding platforms under FINTRAC may turn out to be little more than a “nice symbolic gesture.” The agency oversees transfers of money over $10,000, and Wark said it already has difficulty tracking money-laundering and terrorist financing.

But Wark said freezing funds in protesters’ bank accounts is a tool to dissuade blockade participants that “really does hit their livelihoods in a way that could be very effective.”

While the declaration of a federal emergency may anger those inclined to support the convoy, Wark said he believes government inaction would have “thrown gas on the fire and emboldened these protesters.”

The Canadian Association of Civil Liberties condemned the use of the Emergencies Act as unnecessary. In a Twitter post, it said the convoy protests do not meet the threshold spelled out in the law, which states it is meant for a situation that “seriously threatens” the government’s ability to “preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada,” and when the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.”

“Emergency legislation should not be normalized. It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties,” the CCLA said.

Since the convoy arrived in Ottawa more than two weeks ago, residents and local politicians have decried how the city has been placed under “siege,” with days of constant honking from hundreds of parked trucks, and reports of harassment associated with protesters in the downtown. Police have said they are investigating alleged hate crimes, assaults, property damage and an attempted arson in the lobby of an apartment building. City officials have received death threats, including the police chief, while images of Nazi swastikas and Confederate flags that emerged during the protest’s first week sparked widespread condemnation and concern.

In downtown Ottawa on Monday, dozens of semis packed onto Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill, after the city’s mayor urged protesters to move their trucks from residential streets closer to the ostensible target of their outrage: politicians responsible for pandemic health measures in the House of Commons and Prime Minister’s Office.

In the streets around Parliament Hill, a new wave of trucks arrived, and took up spaces left vacant by other protesters Sunday after a surge of demonstrators descended on the capital for a third straight weekend.

Eddie Humphrey poured fuel from a yellow jerry can into a semitruck parked in front of Parliament Hill. Asked about the expected use of the Emergencies Act, Humphrey said he would sit cross-legged on the pavement and put his hands up.

“We’re not here for a fight. It’s turned into a celebration of healing and love and that,” said Humphrey, who came to join the protests last week from Manitoba, where he works for the provincial hydro agency.

“These guys rolled in with their voices, their air horns, and gave us a voice,” he said, “and I believe things are changing because of this.”

With files from Kris Rushowy

Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc

Alex Ballingall is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @aballinga