On February 14, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he would be suspending many of Canadian’s remaining liberties by invoking the Emergencies Act, formerly known as the War Measures Act..To justify this, Trudeau had to trump up the threat faced by the federal government. To the prime minister, this is not truckers and protestors engaged in civil disobedience, this is a domestic enemy insurgency. To believe these powers are necessary, one has to believe that the threat rises to the levels required during both world wars and the FLQ terrorist campaign..There has been some chatter among the chattering classes as to if the Trudeau government’s justification meets the thresholds established in the Emergencies Act for invoking it. But there’s been remarkably little chatter about the extreme new powers the government has granted itself..You’re welcome to read through the official federal Gazette spelling out these new powers for yourself, but if you’ve read this far, allow me to do you the service of summarizing the most important parts and provide some context as to what this means..Firstly, the federal government can now declare any protest (public assembly in the legal jargon) as illegal, on the grounds that they “may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.”.For Trudeau, the Freedom Convoy — long before it reached Ottawa – was always a breach of the peace because its participants held “unacceptable views”. How liberally the government will use its new power to declare public assemblies to be in breach of the peace is still to be determined..Merely attending any of these illegal protests is now a crime carrying significant penalties, including jail time. Adding to this, it’s an extra offence to bring a minor to these protests. Parents caught with their children at these crime scenes would then face the prospect of involvement from the provincial child services bureaucracies, and all that means..There’s been some attention paid to the provision that allows police to forcibly conscript people and property for their uses, but some more digging into this is necessary. The authoritarian nature of this is, so far, little understood..The order empowers the police to verbally — or in writing — conscript anyone and their property to assist them. If those people decline to give their labour or property to the police, they can be arrested and imprisoned for up to five years. Compensation for those who agree to conscription will be set retroactively, with the price set solely by the government..Maybe read that last paragraph again. Failure to be forcibly conscripted into government service can land you in prison for up to five years..At least in part, the federal justification for these emergency powers is to protect critical infrastructure. The list of what qualifies is quite extensive, but has one glaring omission: oil pipelines..It’s illegal to protest in any way that disrupts “airports, aerodromes, heliports, harbours, ports, piers, lighthouses, canals, railway stations, railways, tramway lines, bus stations, bus depots and truck depots; infrastructure for the supply of utilities such as water, gas, sanitation and telecommunications, international and interprovincial bridges and crossings, power generation and transmission facilities, hospitals and locations where COVID-19 vaccines are administered, trade corridors and international border crossings, including ports of entry, ferry terminals, customs offices, bonded warehouses, and sufferance ware- houses.”.What is not included on that list is one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure to Canada’s – and in particular the West’s – economy: oil pipelines..I will leave it to the reader to ponder why that may be..The truckers could pack up and leave Parliament Hill and drive on over to the nearest oil pipeline and blockade that unmentioned piece of not-very-critical infrastructure. But they should be careful not to block a bus station (section 1.a) or a COVID-19 vaccine clinic (section 1.e) on the way. That could still land them in prison..When the War Measures Act was invoked during the Second World War under more reasonable circumstances, it was regularly abused to strip Canadian citizens of their fundamental rights. Japanese civilians thrown into concentration camps were in many cases held prisoner there until 1949, four years after Japan surrendered..Trudeau Jr.’s use of the Emergencies Act will have its own abuses and overreach, but its enumeration of its new powers (and exemptions to those powers) already go too far..Canadians are not all in this together. Our federal and provincial governments have striped the unvaccinated of their fundamental liberties, and unduly disrupted and controlled the lives of everyone on Canadian soil..Trudeau has personally demonized those who disagree with him as sub-human and unworthy of their country, and now invoked a martial law to deal with critics..It’s two weeks to flatten your freedoms folks..Derek Fildebrandt is Publisher of the Western Standard
