‘Canadian Civil Liberties Association’ says Trudeau doesn’t have the necessary justification for the Emergencies Act.
QUICK FACTS:
- A Canadian civil liberties protection group has come out against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act over the trucker “Freedom Convoy” protests against Covid-19 mandates in the country.
- The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is objecting to Trudeau’s actions, saying that the problems at the nation’s capital haven’t risen to the level needed to invoke the act, according to their tweet.
- Trudeau had announced on Monday that he would invoke the act, and is the first leader since his father, to declare emergency in peacetime, according to Reuters.
- The emergency act allows him to enact some tough measures that would shut down the protest, including freezing bank accounts linked to the protest.
WHAT THE CCLA SAID:
- “The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met,” the civil liberties group stated in their tweet.
- “The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation ‘seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada’ & when the situation ‘cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.’”
- “Governments regularly deal with difficult situations, and do so using powers granted to them by democratically elected representatives. Emergency legislation should not be normalized. It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties.”
BACKGROUND:
- The last time the act was put into place was in 1970 when the elder Trudeau, Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, put military troops in the streets after a small militant group kidnapped a diplomat and provincial cabinet minister, according to Reuters.
- In this case, Canadians are facing another Trudeau as they attempt to regain their freedoms through protesting the vaccine mandates that have made many choose between working and taking an injection they don’t trust, outlined by Yahoo News.
