A law professor says the real concern with the Emergencies Act lies not only in the measures used during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa, but also in the financial measures that give the government control over people’s life savings.
“That’s not the way banking should work in a free and democratic country.”
Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14 in response to the protests in recent weeks against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions by truckers and their supporters in Ottawa and across the country.
“In doing so, [the financial institutions] will be protected against civil liability for actions taken in good faith,” Freeland said.
Pardy said the federal government’s actions undermine the rule of law and civil liberties.
“This is the suspension of certain liberties in the country, including control over your bank account,” said the law professor, who is also executive director of Rights Probe, an organization that seeks to defend individual rights and the rule of law and “inform and assist people to resist government coercion and mob rule.”
‘Martial Law’
Pardy noted that the use of the Emergencies Act against protesters and their supporters was similar to the application of “martial law.”“On the ground, it’s been used as an excuse, basically, to prohibit people entering into an area of downtown Ottawa, or if you’re already there, to check and see why you’re there, and where you live, and where you’re going and so on,” he said.
“So if you’re in that territory, it must seem very much like martial law.”
“In fact, they’ve gone out of their way to suggest it applies to the whole country with respect to this kind of activity,” he said.
The proclamation states that the emergency measures can be taken to “regulate or prohibit any public assembly—other than lawful advocacy, protest or dissent—that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace, or the travel to, from or within any specified area.”
“So the question remains, to what extent are you now allowed to protest?” Pardy asked.
He said the Ottawa protests did impact residents in terms of noise nuisance and parking, for example, but pointed to already existing rules and laws covering those situations.
“If you park your rig on a street and don’t move it, and the effect is that you are double-parked and you block the street, then you are probably violating parking laws, and maybe [Ontario’s] Highway Traffic Act rules, no doubt,” he said.
There was also an application for an injunction to stop the coordinated honking taking place, and after it was granted by the courts, the honking came to an end, Pardy noted.
“The question still remains though, is the protesting unlawful?” he added.
Strict Criteria
As to whether invocation of the Emergencies Act was warranted, Pardy said the federal government didn’t meet the strict criteria required by the act to deem the movement a “national emergency.”He said there was no violence at all by the protesters, and “so there was actually no danger to lives, health, or safety.”
Pardy pointed out that the protest actions outside Ottawa, such as blockades at several Canada–U.S. borders, were resolved by the provinces and regular police forces. “So it suggests that the provinces did have the capacity to deal with these problems,” he said.
“And these problems were also resolved before the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and therefore it looked like they could have been resolved under other laws of Canada that existed.”
Pardy likened the COVID-19 phenomenon to a progressive phenomenon in which the ideology dictates that the collective comes first and the government is the one that “shall lead us through.”
“We have a premise that experts and officials and politicians are there to tell us what to do and how to keep ourselves safe and how to keep our neighbours safe. And they are the ones who are knowledgeable and have the expertise, and to challenge them is to challenge science itself,” he said.
“In other words, ‘How dare you challenge vaccine mandates. We have told you they’re necessary.’”
Pardy said though Canadians are known for doing what they’re told, pushing them too far will reap different outcomes.
“If you push some Canadians far enough, they will eventually say ‘No, you’ve gone too far now. We actually don’t agree with this, and we don’t want this anymore,’” he said.
“In my opinion, that’s the real threat to the established powers.”