A nation felled by traffic violations
CSIS director David Vigneault is the latest senior bureaucrat who seems to believe that it does not matter what the Emergencies Act actually says. What’s written in legislation can be safely ignored if doing so helps the government of the day expand its powers. The act of proposing, amending and passing laws through Parliament is just so tedious.
Testifying at the Public Order Emergency Commission on Monday, Vigneault agreed that the Freedom Convoy protests did not “constitute a threat to the security of Canada,” as defined in law. Yet, he recommended using the Emergencies Act anyway. He told the commission that national security legislation was outdated and that existing definitions of a security threat do not include “economic harm or environmental harm, even public health harm and the pandemic.”
To anyone concerned with how quickly the rule of law is vanishing in this country, to justify emergency powers, “threats to the security of Canada” must include either “the threat or use of acts of serious violence,” “espionage or sabotage,” clandestine “foreign influenced activities” or activities directed toward the overthrow of the “constitutionally established system of government in Canada.”
Not the “potential” for threats to arise in the future, as the government has suggested, not the possibility that those who want to “hasten the collapse of western society” were exploiting the convoy, as CSIS had warned, and certainly not the existence of “economic” harms.
The legislation is narrow on purpose, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now has very public cover from the head of Canada’s intelligence agency, his national security adviser and the clerk of the Privy Council, all of whom made a variation of the same argument: that the growth and totality of the protests and blockades required an extraordinary response and the restrictions contained within the Emergencies Act were of no consequence. This was the perfect advice for a prime minister who — like most prime ministers, admittedly — delights at sidestepping the House of Commons.
Whatever the deficiencies in the recommendations given, however, it was ultimately a political decision to use the act. Trudeau, not Vigneault, is who must bear responsibility for his government’s overreaction.
Even so, let’s engage in this fantasy for a moment and assume that the crisis caused by the Ambassador Bridge blockade in Windsor, Ont., along with the other border blockades, specifically in Alberta, elevated what was happening in Ottawa to such a degree that it required new powers. Let’s also assume that the economic damage being caused justified the declaration of a national emergency, even if it did not meet the standards set by the legislation. This is what the government wants Canadians to believe, as the order-in-council invoking the Emergencies Act listed more economic concerns than any other.
And yet, even the lower standards of Trudeau and his advisers were not met. By the time the prime minister announced he was invoking the act, the Ambassador Bridge was clear. The most serious element of the crisis, the one that prompted international rebukes and threatened the livelihood of thousands, was brought under control without the use of emergency powers, instead using existing crowd-control methods.
Why did that not give the government pause?
Perhaps invoking the act was meant as a signal that other blockades would not be tolerated, but there were other ways to do that. Trudeau could have come out and explained frankly what his government was considering, but chose to hold off on declaring an emergency so long as the protests were swiftly brought under control and border security was tightened.
The Liberals could have presented a motion in Parliament signalling to police that they supported their actions. They could have also introduced amendments to the Emergencies Act in the House, or even introduced new, non-emergency legislation that would have given police more options.
What is missing in all this is how easily the jurisdictional squabbling between different levels of government, coupled with police incompetence, resulted in paralysis. That the Emergencies Act was even considered is testament, not to the threat of the convoy, but to how poorly governed and unserious Canada often is.
First, the Ottawa Police Service failed to recognize what was happening. Despite public reports, including in the Post, that the aim of the convoy was to gridlock Ottawa until pandemic restrictions were lifted, the police assumed the group would all leave a few days after the initial protest.
While the federal government is responsible for bridges and tunnels connecting to the United States, the roads leading up to the border are the responsibility of municipal police. In Ontario, the line where the responsibility of city police ends and provincial police begins is not predefined. A police chief must request aid. This resulted in all levels of government claiming there was nothing they could do.
A phone call between Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford before the act was invoked involved both men claiming that they weren’t responsible.
A better, more streamlined approach might be, for example, to follow the lead of Quebec, where a police force must have a minimal level of training depending on the size of the city it is responsible for. Any policing beyond that level of expertise falls, by statute, to the Sûreté du Québec.
Although the convoy became entrenched and led to lawlessness and disorder in downtown Ottawa, it started with a series of traffic violations. Only in Canada does ignoring parking tickets bring the government to its knees.
THE EMERGENCIES ACT LEGISLATION IS NARROW ON PURPOSE.