Federal government met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act: Rouleau

Report calls out policing failures and Ontario's inaction during an 'unsafe and chaotic' protest

Commissioner Paul Rouleau said today the federal government met the "very high" threshold needed to invoke the Emergencies Act last winter, citing "a failure in policing and federalism."

"Lawful protest descended into lawlessness, culminating in a national emergency," he wrote in his highly-anticipated report, tabled Friday in the House of Commons.

snip


By invoking the act, the federal government gave law enforcement extraordinary powers to remove and arrest protesters, and gave itself the power to freeze the finances of those connected to the protests. The temporary emergency powers also gave authorities the ability to commandeer tow trucks to remove protesters' vehicles from the streets of the capital.

The law defines a national emergency as a situation that "cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada." Further, a public order emergency can only be invoked when there is "a threat to the security of Canada" as defined by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.

"In my view, there was credible and compelling information supporting a reasonable belief that the definition of a threat to the security of Canada was met," Rouleau wrote in his executive summary, which runs to more than 200 pages. The full report is 10 times that length.

more

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poec-report-released-friday-1.6750919