“Criminalizing Dissent”

Several challengers to the Emergencies Act say they’re preparing to sue government officials and financial institutions after the Federal Court’s recent declaration that the invocation of the act was not justified.

Military veteran Eddie Cornell, police veteran Vincent Gircys, and Jeremiah Jost said in a Jan. 29 statement that they will sue “those in government, the financial institutions who froze people’s bank accounts, and the police officers who beat up and injured innocent.”

Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland tried to make Freedom Convoy participants into villains. Whenever they spoke about the convoy, during those fateful days in January 2022, they did their best to twist the facts and make the protesters look terrible. But by invoking the heavy-handed Emergencies Act, they instead made the convoy members the victims of government overreach.

Many public figures became household names around the time of the Freedom Convoy in the winter of 2022, for actions they took or didn’t, or for what they said or perhaps wish they hadn’t.

The Federal Court ruled Jan. 23 that invoking the Emergencies Act was not justified and that it led to violations of charter rights. Here’s a look at the status of key figures involved in the events.

It didn’t take long for Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to troop out to say the federal government will appeal. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals know what Tuesday’s court decision is: A millstone around their necks.

Invoking the Emergencies Act to shut down convoy protests in February, 2022, had been a popular decision at the time, and one of the biggest calls Mr. Trudeau ever made. Now the Federal Court of Canada has ruled it was illegal. Justice Richard Mosley concluded there was no national emergency, as defined by the law.

In 2024, now that Mr. Trudeau is much less popular, it’s a stiff blow to his credibility, and a kick at a government’s that’s already down.

It is not surprising that judges often disagree after witnessing the same evidence. They are, after all, simply lawyers in robes.

Federal Court Justice Richard Moseley ruled on Tuesday that the Liberal government did not have reasonable grounds to use the Emergencies Act to clear Freedom Convoy protestors in 2022, and doing so was an unreasonable overreach that infringed Canadians’ Charter rights

Two years to the day of the beginning of the 2022 Freedom Convoy, the Federal Court has declared the Trudeau government’s response to that protest unreasonable and unconstitutional. On Tuesday, Justice Richard Mosley of the Federal Court issued a decision in a group of cases challenging the invocation of the Emergencies Act in response to the convoy. The cases were brought by public interest organizations, including the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, as well as individual protesters who had been directly impacted by the emergency orders.

A federal judge says the Liberal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters was unreasonable.

The case was brought forward by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Constitution Foundation and individuals who argued Ottawa did not meet the legal threshold when it invoked the legislation, which had never been used before.

The two groups shared copies of the decision online.

Trudeau still got away with it.

h/t Mauser

Of course they send out the Nazi to announce the appeal.

BS. You used it to freeze innocent people’s bank accounts, just because they disagreed with your tyrannical regime.
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— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) January 23, 2024