As this will be my last column of 2022, I thought it both convenient and essential to return to the single most explosive political phenomenon of the year.(What, you heard no explosion?)That would be the Emergencies Act Inquiry. It's become a fading memory for some. The conference room at the National Archives and Library is empty now, the seats once filled with the public throng, and the adjoining media room is quiet, the journalists long having filed their stories and editorial verdicts. For six weeks it was a captive audience, with testimony from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ministers about the banks, tanks, American investors, and the US President Biden being upset and wanting something to be done about the protestors.We saw a morally and ethically bankrupt government.But surely, pressure from the banks, a lone US investor saying mean comments that Canada was a banana republic and a senile president from a foreign country other than Canada are not a solid rationale for why the Emergencies Act was invoked.After weeks of testimony, the government looked increasingly inept and bereft of reasons to use the Emergencies Act, invoked by Trudeau on Feb. 13, 2022, approved by a House of Commons vote on February 21 and then revoked a scant two days later on February 23. The Emergencies Act is supposed to be used for national defense and security, not to put down peaceful protests the government of the day does not like.Trudeau recently admitted why he invoked the act. It really had nothing to do with public safety or fears of some populist insurrection. The prime minister admitted in a year-end interview that he did it because he didn't agree with the protesters and he wanted them silenced.It is doubtful the inquiry's final report will punish Trudeau for that arrogance and authoritarianism. History and the voters in the next election will have to do that.We also still do not know why the government didn’t meet with the protesters, or set up a back channel to listen to their legitimate concerns which were affecting a large swath of the population, not a “fringe minority."On the final day of the government testimony at the Emergencies Act Inquiry, Eva Chipiuk, lawyer for the Freedom Convoy, presented statements from the public to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that clearly outlined these legitimate concerns. These statements highlighted undue hardship, lost livelihoods, mental anguish, showing why many Canadians came together in unity supporting the Freedom Convoy in January and February 2022, to shrug off the yoke of oppressive government mandates and lockdowns.This legal approach of presenting the truth from the Canada’s forgotten men and women who have been damaged by the federal government’s policies, received criticism from the usual suspects. Noted art critic and sometime journalist Evan Solomon is as Ottawa establishment as they get and surely one of the most privileged from the Ottawa elite political class. He has a new sit-on-your-ass job where he will join former Trudeau chief of staff Gerald Butts at something called the Eurasia Group. Solomon tweeted, “Convoy lawyer wasted her time questioning the PM with banal theatrics, irrelevant readings of anecdotes and a shallow partisan last question, instead of actually probing the rationale for using the Act…”Solomon, as usual with his languorous reporting, got it all wrong and missed the lead story. Convoy lawyer Eva Chipiuk was brilliant in her final questions, which were a public relations coup, provoking the prime minister to lie, “I did not call the unvaccinated names,” he said, in spite of multiple videos of him clearly calling the unvaccinated and the Freedom Convoy many horrendous names, but also got the following real life cases on the official record.Chipiuk read Elizabeth Clapek’s statement, who was one of the many who cheered on the truckers from the overpasses and highways. Clapek said the Freedom Convoy, “…restored the hope that I had almost lost, these patriotic Canadians told me that I am not alone, that I matter I will never forget the hope and pride I felt watching these amazing truckers driving along Canadian highways crowded with Canadians flying patriotic flags and holding their signs of support. I will never forget the tears I shed as I regained that almost lost hope that love for my home and native land, that love for my fellow Canadians.”.Ottawa resident Karen Hannah, who obtained a sociology degree from Ottawa University, stated, “For months the leader of our country publicly shamed people like me and my husband. Our own family members turned on us, blamed us and some even told us we don't deserve health care. One of my most emotional moments was dancing on Ottawa’s Rideau St. beside a local man. He had tears streaming down his face, all he wanted was a hug, it was very overpowering for him. I met a girl 22 years old who just hopped in her car from Winnipeg and just kept driving. She stayed the entire time. I met people who were like family to me. People who gave up everything to come to Ottawa for justice and an explanation.”Sam Crozier's statement that was read to the prime minister said, “I am not asking for help. I am begging you to please listen hear my heart, feel my pain and help work towards the true north strong and free that we were promised. My husband, an army veteran, who now has PTSD and not from anything he has seen or done in the forces, but from what our own government has done, our government has destroyed my life. I once was optimistic, full of life person find myself struggling to stay above water now, I struggle to find joy in anything and daily fear a new announcement being made that will further punish us. I have written the same email to every Member of Parliament daily and been ignored by a large collection of the people meant to be our leaders meant to be listening to us.”These were the three testimonies read out into the Emergencies Act Inquiry record on the final day, they will likely not be in the final report. There are other testimonies, that should be included, but likely also will not make the final report.We heard a lot from people of Ottawa who were afraid of “microaggressions” such as honking and claimed the protesters were ripping off face masks of Ottawa residents (without any video evidence), which, in fact, took up a great deal of time at the Emergencies Act Inquiry. While many Ottawa residents were not happy about the Freedom Convoy in the city, there is also irrefutable evidence in tangible way with a literal massive amount of food and supplies gifted to the truckers and protesters, for weeks, over and above online donations, all coming from local support.One such Ottawa resident I met on the streets of Ottawa in February, was Nicole Jacobs who has lived in Ottawa for 30 years. She explained she was not afraid of the truckers, “I've walked these streets by myself. A woman by herself. Completely fine. Not threatened. Not shaken...In fact, I feel way safer with everybody watching you, than I have ever felt downtown without these people watching you. So that needs to be known. Canada needs to know that Ottawa is a great City but it's not stain-free. You guys are not staining the city. And anytime anybody tells you this isn't your city please remind them it's your country! Why do people in Ottawa say, ‘This is not their town. It's not their city. Get out?’ It's your country! Our country is not divided among cities and where you live and where your taxes go. What matters is you are a citizen of this country! So, yes welcome to your city!” Her testimony was submitted to the commission.Candice Sero did not testify at the inquiry, but her story stands as a record of police brutality.I met Candice Sero at the Emergencies Act Inquiry sitting with Tamara Lich. I reported in my column that Candice Sero, a woman from the Mohawk nation, told me she broke her collar bone when she was using a walker for the disabled, and knocked down and trampled by a police horse. She said she's still in pain because of the attack. She recently reported she is considering legal action against the police who have done an internal investigation through their Special Investigation Unit (SIU) which claimed she was not hurt severely enough, so her case was dismissed. Immediately following the police who trampled her were caught laughing about it in WhatsApp while bragging about living large with fine dining at the Chateau Laurier hotel in downtown Ottawa..Grandmother Jo Walsh was on the front lines of the Freedom Convoy Ottawa protest, announcing on Twitter she was arrested in its final days. She has been an active organizer since that time, supporting successful efforts to get rid of the mandatory ArriveCan app that was keeping unvaccinated Canadians trapped in Canada with border restriction vaccine mandates, unable to get on planes or trains.Walsh was at the Emergencies Act Inquiry and revealed on her social media why she has been so active and why was so upset at Trudeau’s testimony, “I was in the room when he said that [he didn’t call the unvaccinated names] I felt like jumping up and shouting out “my daughter miscarried 24 hours after her first jab. Your words killed my grandchild.”Dan Hartman, a trucker for 18 years, was having a normal life when August 25 his son took a Pfizer shot. Four days later Dan reported that his son, “went to the emergency with brown circles around his eyes and a rash on his face and neck and an extremely sore shoulder opposite to the injection site.”Hartnan's pain and quest for justice for his son is visceral. He recorded his response to Trudeau’s appearance at the Emergencies Act Inquiry on Twitter in a video he calls “screaming for vengeance”..His son, who was 17, loved to play hockey so took the vaccine due to mandate pressure. He was sent home from emergency and “September 27th, Sean was found dead on the floor beside his bed,” Hartman reported details of what happened and his quest for justice in a recent interview with Viva Frei..Will any of these important testimonies of what real life has been like under the Trudeau government mandates be included by inquiry honcho Justice Paul Rouleau? We do not know. But this is reality of the life we are all living, which the political class of lap top elites in Ottawa, seem more and more detached from. But reality can be brought down on their heads very quickly if Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wins an election in 2023 and actually fulfills his promise to drain the Ottawa swamp.
