Ottawa sued over Emergencies Act
Civil rights group says invoking the law was unnecessary and ‘unconstitutional’
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is taking the federal government to court over what it calls an “unprecedented” use of government powers by activating the Emergencies Act to end the protest that’s been occupying downtown Ottawa for more than two weeks.
The CCLA argues that Ottawa has bypassed democratic norms in using the act to deal with the protest, and that the situation hasn’t met the threshold needed to justify it, said spokesperson Abby Deshman. The association is now seeking to nullify the use of the act.
“We believe the federal government invocation of these power is unlawful and unconstitutional,” Deshman said Thursday.
The Emergencies Act gives the federal government heightened powers to deal with national emergencies, including the power to limit constitutional rights. When the Liberal government invoked it earlier this week, it was the first time the 33-year-old law has been used.
The CCLA insists it was unnecessary. Now, through an application for judicial review, the organization will seek a declaration that the current use of the Emergencies Act is not consistent with the parameters laid out within the law for its use.
Among the CCLA’s objections, Deshman said it is unclear that the protests endanger the lives and health of Canadians enough to justify the use of emergency powers. She said it also applies too broadly to all Canadians.
“The emergency must be such that it cannot be effectively dealt with under any other Canadian law,” she said. She pointed to the clearing of other protests and blockades across Canada being done by local police without the powers granted by the act.
The CCLA’s executive director, Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, said the association recognizes those living in Ottawa have been “profoundly and negatively affected” and acknowledges there are reasonable limits on protesting.
“When imposing reasonable limits, police can and must exercise restraint, as must government,” Mendelsohn Aviv said.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, a conservative legal advocacy group, says it intends to launch its own legal challenge.
Lawyer Sujit Choudhry, on behalf of the foundation, said Thursday the foundation is filing an urgent application for judicial review, asking the court to declare the proclamation of a “public order emergency” as illegal. “The existing laws of Canada were used to clear the Ambassador Bridge, and I believe (Public Safety Minister Bill) Blair said last week they have all the tools they need,” he said.
The act requires a government to explain why precisely the existing tools available to law enforcement aren’t sufficient, he said: “In the prime minister’s speech today, he did not mention even once why the existing laws were inadequate.”
Choudhry said the act is “deliberately narrow” and was meant to “repudiate the War Measures Act which was a discredited piece of legislation that was used among other things for the internment of Japanese and Italian Canadians during the Second World War.”