Attorney General David Lametti has lost a Federal Court ruling on his use of emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy. A judge ordered that internal emails, which contradicted cabinet claims of a national crisis, must be admitted into evidence, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“Evidence of the cabinet proceedings that led to the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was not disclosed despite repeated requests,” wrote Justice Richard Mosley. The internal emails were “essential to the just and proper determination” of whether cabinet broke the law, he said..The Canadian Civil Liberties Association asked that internal records be submitted to the Court. The documents were already disclosed by the Public Order Emergency Commission..Department of Justice lawyers sought to keep the records out of Court, claiming cabinet confidentiality. Documents include emails in which police concluded the Freedom Convoy posed no security threat. “All this evidence is in my view admissible and relevant,” wrote Justice Mosley..“The underlying applications involve questions of significant public importance regarding the first invocation of legislation that grants the government extraordinary powers to deal with a public emergency,” wrote Justice Mosley. “The addition of admissible and relevant evidence to the record would help the Court to understand how that decision was made and whether it was lawful.”.Cabinet had claimed it was acting on the advice of police when it invoked the Emergencies Act. However, internal records revealed no police sought emergency powers. Several law enforcement agencies including the RCMP concluded the Freedom Convoy was not an extraordinary threat..“There was no serious violence in Ottawa, the main reason for the Emergencies Act,” RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brian Brennan wrote in a February 21, 2022 email. David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, similarly wrote in a February 13 report to cabinet that protesters never “constituted a threat to the security of Canada.”.Ontario Provincial Police Superintendent Patrick Morris, commander of the force’s Intelligence Bureau, reported February 22 there was no evidence the convoy was armed, dangerous or extremist. “It is not an ‘extremist’ movement,” wrote Superintendent Morris..“It is not comprised of ideologically motivated violent extremists. The actual leaders are not violent extremists with histories of violent criminal acts.”.“The lack of violent crime was shocking,” Morris testified last October 19 at the Public Order Emergency Commission. “I mean, even in the arrest and charges considering the whole thing in totality.”.“I want to be clear on this,” said Morris. “We produced no intelligence to indicate these individuals would be armed. There has been a lot of hyperbole around that.”.Lawyers for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have been in Federal Court since last February 17 in a constitutional challenge of cabinet’s use of the Emergencies Act..“They placed unprecedented restrictions on every single Canadian’s constitutional rights,” said Abby Deshman, director of the Association’s criminal justice program.
