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OTTAWA – The Liberal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act in response to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests was unreasonable, unjustified and violated the Charter, the Federal Court has ruled.
In a lengthy ruling published Tuesday, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley found that though the Freedom Convoy protests in early 2022 were causing harm to Canada’s economy, trade and commerce, they did not rise to the level of a threat to national security as defined by the law.
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He thus sided with civil liberties groups who argued the Liberal government went beyond its powers and was not justified in its historic invocation of the Emergencies Act in February 2022.
“I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation (of the Emergencies Act) does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility – and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration,” Mosley wrote.
On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government did not agree with Mosley’s decision and promised to appeal it.
“The public safety of Canadians was under threat, our national security, which includes our national economic security, was under threat,” she said. “I was convinced at the time. It was the right thing to do. It was the necessary thing to do.”
Mosley’s ruling stems from four legal challenges by civil liberty groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitutional Foundation (CCF).
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The groups argued the Liberals exceeded their powers when they invoked the unprecedented powers of the act on February 14, 2022, in response to ongoing Freedom Convoy blockades in Ontario and Alberta.
Displaying an uncommon level of introspection in a ruling, Mosley admitted that at the outset of the hearing, his view was “leaning” towards the belief that the government’s invocation of the Act was reasonable.
He said he considered the events of the convoy to have gone “beyond legitimate protest” and were an “unacceptable breakdown of public order.” He also admitted that had he been at the government’s table at the time of the decision, he may have agreed it was necessary to invoke the act.
“I acknowledge that in conducting judicial review of that decision, I am revisiting that time with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and law than that which was before the (government),” he wrote.
But months of time to “carefully deliberate” on the evidence and arguments, as well as arguments by the CCF and CCLA, changed his mind.
“Their participation in these proceedings has demonstrated again the value of public interest litigants. Especially in presenting informed legal argument. This case may not have turned out the way it has without their involvement,” he wrote.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also reacted to the news on X (formerly Twitter) by placing the blame solely on Trudeau.
“He caused the crisis by dividing people. Then he violated Charter rights to illegally suppress citizens. As PM, I will unite our country for freedom,” he wrote on X.
More to come.
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