A judicial inquiry into the federal government's use of emergency powers against the Freedom Convoy will cost nearly $19 million, according to the Privy Council Office. Eighteen lawyers are on staff at the Public Order Emergency Commission..“The Commission has requested up to $18.8 million in funding,” the Privy Council Office wrote in a submission to the Commons government operations committee. Funding includes the cost of billable hours for staff counsel as well as lawyers representing groups granted standing at the Commission..According to Blacklock's Reporter, Freedom Convoy lawyers did not request any funding. Those who did include the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers and the Ottawa Coalition of Residents and Businesses representing nine community groups..“The funding will support key activities including the investigation and public hearings which will have numerous requirements, i.e. legal services,” said the Privy Council. Hearings are to take place after Labour Day..“The inquiry must submit its final report to the government with findings and recommendations by February 6, 2023,” the Commission said in a statement. “This means the Commission will have to complete its hearings and fact-finding process by the end of October.”.Cabinet was required by law to have a judicial inquiry scrutinize its use of the Emergencies Act against truck drivers protesting vaccine mandates. The Commission has said it will livestream all proceedings on the internet regardless of whether TV networks broadcast its hearings, and will gain access to confidential cabinet records..“This exceptional step recognizes the fundamental importance of the Public Order Emergency Commission’s work and how critical these documents are in inquiring into why the government declared a public order emergency,” counsel for the Commission said in a statement. Lawyers did not detail the number of documents..“I am committed to ensuring the inquiry will be fair and open,” Justice Paul Rouleau, head of the inquiry, said in a statement. He said the hearings must proceed “in a timely and orderly way.".Emergency orders enforced from last February 14 to 23 resulted in the arrest of some 230 protesters, typically on mischief charges, and the freezing of a total $7.8 million worth of bank and credit union deposits belonging to Freedom Convoy sympathizers. The Act also granted police extraordinary powers to declare any sympathy protests “illegal assemblies.”.“The notion of a right to protest absolutely does exist,” Professor John Packer, director of the University of Ottawa’s Human Rights Research and Education Centre, told an April 15 Parliament Hill conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Charter Of Rights. “It is in the very core of human rights to rebel against excessive abuse of authority.”
