Freedom Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller was ejected from the Emergencies [War Measures] Act Inquiry Tuesday, after demanding the Trudeau government reveal censored passages in documents submitted to the inquiry. Miller insisted that Justice Paul Rouleau needed to respond quickly to the request and that a delay was just another way for the Liberal government to hide behind procedure. .“When decisions are not made on procedural issues of this importance without delay, procedural fairness of not just my client, but everyone’s is violated. Canadians are entitled to the truth and you can’t hide behind unlawful redactions in a public inquiry claiming baseless redactions on staffer correspondence because it may hurt you. And that in my view is what the Government of Canada is doing and it needs to stop. And had we had a timely ruling on these redactions this application made orally today would have been entirely unnecessary,” Miller told reporters outside the Library and Archives Canada building, where the inquiry is taking place. .The passages in question are conversations between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford, and government ministers such as Bill Blair. .Miller is trying to expose the identity of the individual who waved a Nazi flag during the Freedom Convoy protest, in order to demonstrate that the person was not part of the Freedom Convoy demonstrators but was a hostile agent trying to undermine the protest. .Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino was on the stand for the government Tuesday as he tried to prove that invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act was used as a mechanism to reduce tensions and violence during the protest.That claim has been one of the most outrageous that I have heard while covering this inquiry. That is positively Orwellian and reminded me of how the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon euphemistically declared the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War as “accelerated pacification.” These Liberals really know how to live and work in an alternate reality. .Mendicino also claimed that he had threats on his life during the convoy protest, but I’m sure that is nothing new for this minister and there is no evidence that those threats were actually coming from the truckers or their supporters. .Despite all of the documentation revealing that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) did not consider the Freedom Convoy a threat, CSIS Director David Vigneault claimed on Monday that he supported Trudeau invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act. Can somebody say political interference? .We are into the final stretch of the inquiry with the heavy hitters making appearances. If the universe is unfolding as it should, Trudeau should be at the inquiry on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning — if he doesn’t duck the inquiry altogether. But his ministers are not, so why should he? .The Public Order Emergency Commission expects to write its report by February. And that’s not unreasonable, given the amount of information it has to sift through. .But the public will write its own report before the official one is released. .The inquiry has not gone well for the government. It has lost the battle in the court of public opinion and the commission of public relations. The Trudeau government has appeared ill-prepared for this inquiry and the reasons that it submits for bringing down the hell of the Emergencies [War Measures] Act are ill-digested and half-baked. Clearly there was more at work than public safety here and it all focuses on Trudeau’s desire to punish his political enemies. .That will be the focus when Trudeau appears and I predict there won’t be an empty seat in the library’s main meeting room. This has been the best political theatre to hit Ottawa in decades.
Freedom Convoy lawyer Brendan Miller was ejected from the Emergencies [War Measures] Act Inquiry Tuesday, after demanding the Trudeau government reveal censored passages in documents submitted to the inquiry. Miller insisted that Justice Paul Rouleau needed to respond quickly to the request and that a delay was just another way for the Liberal government to hide behind procedure. .“When decisions are not made on procedural issues of this importance without delay, procedural fairness of not just my client, but everyone’s is violated. Canadians are entitled to the truth and you can’t hide behind unlawful redactions in a public inquiry claiming baseless redactions on staffer correspondence because it may hurt you. And that in my view is what the Government of Canada is doing and it needs to stop. And had we had a timely ruling on these redactions this application made orally today would have been entirely unnecessary,” Miller told reporters outside the Library and Archives Canada building, where the inquiry is taking place. .The passages in question are conversations between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford, and government ministers such as Bill Blair. .Miller is trying to expose the identity of the individual who waved a Nazi flag during the Freedom Convoy protest, in order to demonstrate that the person was not part of the Freedom Convoy demonstrators but was a hostile agent trying to undermine the protest. .Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino was on the stand for the government Tuesday as he tried to prove that invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act was used as a mechanism to reduce tensions and violence during the protest.That claim has been one of the most outrageous that I have heard while covering this inquiry. That is positively Orwellian and reminded me of how the administration of U.S. President Richard Nixon euphemistically declared the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War as “accelerated pacification.” These Liberals really know how to live and work in an alternate reality. .Mendicino also claimed that he had threats on his life during the convoy protest, but I’m sure that is nothing new for this minister and there is no evidence that those threats were actually coming from the truckers or their supporters. .Despite all of the documentation revealing that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) did not consider the Freedom Convoy a threat, CSIS Director David Vigneault claimed on Monday that he supported Trudeau invoking the Emergencies [War Measures] Act. Can somebody say political interference? .We are into the final stretch of the inquiry with the heavy hitters making appearances. If the universe is unfolding as it should, Trudeau should be at the inquiry on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning — if he doesn’t duck the inquiry altogether. But his ministers are not, so why should he? .The Public Order Emergency Commission expects to write its report by February. And that’s not unreasonable, given the amount of information it has to sift through. .But the public will write its own report before the official one is released. .The inquiry has not gone well for the government. It has lost the battle in the court of public opinion and the commission of public relations. The Trudeau government has appeared ill-prepared for this inquiry and the reasons that it submits for bringing down the hell of the Emergencies [War Measures] Act are ill-digested and half-baked. Clearly there was more at work than public safety here and it all focuses on Trudeau’s desire to punish his political enemies. .That will be the focus when Trudeau appears and I predict there won’t be an empty seat in the library’s main meeting room. This has been the best political theatre to hit Ottawa in decades.
