“Criminalizing Dissent”

After six weeks of testimony in Ottawa at the Public Order Emergency Commission, the federal government has failed to make its case that using the extraordinary powers in the Emergencies Act was justified.

The Emergencies Act is the successor to the War Measures Act. It is gives tremendous power to the prime minister and cabinet, including the power to create new criminal law by executive order. These are powers that must have a high threshold and which we all should be wary of in a liberal democracy.

Parliamentary staffers for the Liberal government expressed skepticism regarding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s claim that the Freedom Convoy received “disturbing amounts” of foreign funding, according to internal emails.

The emails, which were submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission and first reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter, detailed the political aides’ discussion around a media inquiry from the Wall Street Journal asking for clarification on the prime minister’s claims.

An Ontario court has rejected a request from two “Freedom Convoy” organizers to release $200,000 of frozen funds to pay for lawyers to defend a lawsuit launched on behalf of Ottawa residents and businesses.

B.J. Dichter and Chris Garrah are among a long list of defendants named in the potential class-action lawsuit filed in February, seeking damages for “civil nuisance” caused by truck horns, diesel fumes and other disruptions to residents and local businesses during the protest in January and February.

A week after testifying before the Emergencies Act inquiry, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Dec. 2 he expects police will take the appropriate measures to prevent a repeat of the Freedom Convoy as planning for a new iteration is under way.

“I think we have learned a lot, and I think police corps across the country have learned a lot about what happened last February,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Richmond, B.C.

Lawyers for “Freedom Convoy” organizers have won their bid to get access to unredacted versions of 20 documents at the Public Order Emergency Commission.

Lawyer Brendan Miller applied to have the public inquiry release information in government documents that it had blacked-out, arguing the information should not be protected by parliamentary privilege.

The Public Order Emergency Commission, which is led by Justice Paul Rouleau, has heard how the protests fractured supply chains, made a mockery of the capital city’s police and dented Canada’s international reputation. Amid all the revelatory details, Justice Rouleau has said that his focus remains squarely on the federal government’s decision to give itself the power to rule by executive order.

Despite the government’s extensive disclosures, it has not lifted the veil of solicitor-client privilege. The legal opinion that the government relied on to invoke the act remains hidden from the commission, the public and from the Parliament that retroactively voted on the use of the act.

The federal government is already preparing to deal with a new convoy protest being planned for February, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser told a parliamentary committee Thursday evening.

Testifying before a special committee of MPs and senators set up to study the government’s use of the Emergencies Act to shut down the protest that paralyzed downtown Ottawa and blocked several border crossings last winter, Jody Thomas said officials are aware a second convoy protest is in the works and her colleague Mike MacDonald, assistant secretary to the cabinet for security and intelligence, has already begun to prepare.

Emails released through a public inquiry suggest federal Liberal political aides were scrambling earlier this year to figure out the extent to which members of the Canadian Armed Forces were supporting the self-described “Freedom Convoy” protests that had gridlocked downtown Ottawa.

The internal communications are among thousands of documents submitted to the Public Order Emergency Commission, which is looking at the Liberal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the demonstrations in February.

How’s this for hypocrisy?

At a time when celebrities, tech barons, and the White House are laying low about the gargantuan anti-COVID lockdown protests spreading throughout China, Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is loudly virtue-signalling …

The Defence Department’s top official says he directed the military to prepare to intervene in the “Freedom Convoy” protests earlier this year, but the resulting plans were never seriously considered – in part due to concerns about another Oka Crisis.

Deputy minister Bill Matthews and another top defence official also said the Canadian Armed Forces was prepared to fly police officers to demonstration sites across the country, but that its tow trucks were too big – and too old – to help with the protests.

Matthews and Defence Department associate deputy minister Stefanie Beck made the comments in an August interview with lawyers for the public inquiry looking into the Liberal government’s decision to use the Emergencies Act to end the protests.

That’s so Canada – Our tow trucks are crap.

DOCUMENTS: @ElizabethMay circulated to cabinet false rumours of Kremlin involvement in #FreedomConvoy. "Hair raising," said May, who supported #EmergenciesAct. https://t.co/Y43uQ1RzMC #cdnpoli @POECommission pic.twitter.com/Z52LYm0dVu

— Blacklock's Reporter (@mindingottawa) November 29, 2022

OTTAWA – Social media acted as the “central nervous system” of the “Freedom Convoy” protest in Ottawa last winter, the Public Order Emergency Commission heard Tuesday as it considered the role of misinformation in the lead up to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

The policy phase this week follows six weeks of fact-finding hearings into the events that led to that decision, which included testimony about online threats and the role social media played in organizing the protest against COVID-19 public health measures.

Before thousands of trucks started rolling toward Ottawa last January, a loose group of protest organizers communicated mainly over TikTok and Facebook, the commission heard over those weeks of testimony. Many of them had never met in person until the protest began.