Numerous Freedom Convoy protesters who had their bank accounts frozen after the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act have filed a tort lawsuit against federal ministers and financial institutions behind the decision.
The lawsuit is in addition to several others that have been launched or are going to be launched after a federal court found the invocation of the act infringed Charter rights.
“It’s what we had to do. The people that are in it, are not in it for the money. It’s the principle. They have to be held to account, every last one of them,” said Eddie Cornell, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Loberg Ector LLP commenced the proceedings in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on behalf of 20 plaintiffs on Feb. 14, which is exactly two years after Ottawa invoked the Emergencies Act to deal with the trucker protest.
The Freedom Convoy protest was started as a response to a COVID-19 vaccination mandate and other pandemic restrictions and culminated in vehicles converging in the nation’s capital. To end the protests, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history, giving law enforcement expanded powers to arrest demonstrators and freeze the bank accounts of some protesters.
A Feb. 14 press release claims the plaintiffs are seeking relief from the “unjustified and unconstitutional actions” of the federal government, financial institutions that followed the federal directive to freeze bank accounts, and police agencies that helped bring the protest to an end.
Mr. Cornell, who co-founded the group Veterans 4 Freedom, told The Epoch Times that Canadians who had their accounts frozen were chosen as plaintiffs because their cases are easier to prove in court. “With other people, for example, that were...shot with tear gas and that sort of thing, it’s a much bigger litigation, it takes much longer, and much more evidence has to be gathered. So we had to go with something that is provable beyond a doubt,” he said.
Seeking General and Special Damages
The Statement of Claim filed on Feb. 14 says that the plaintiffs were subjected to the “unreasonable use of the Emergencies Act,” which breached their Section 8 and Section 2(b) Charter Rights. It also accused the defendants of having “acted in panic, political spite, and with the intention of punishing and intimidating citizens of Canada.”According to the Statement of Claim, all plaintiffs are individuals or businesses who had their financial accounts and private property frozen, including banking, credit cards, and cryptocurrency. It adds that not all plaintiffs participated in the Freedom Convoy, and some had joint accounts frozen despite never having been in Ottawa.
The lawsuit also lists the Canadian Anti-Hate Network as a defendant, arguing that the organization provided “false information to several other defendants and media organizations designed to harm the plaintiffs” and that its statements led to the Emergencies Act being invoked.
The lawsuit seeks general and special damages of up to $1.16 million for each plaintiff for various charges such as injurious falsehoods, defamation, harassment, intimidation, Charter breaches, and “high-handed misconduct.”
