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Politico
Politico
National
Zi-Ann Lum

Canada invokes unprecedented emergency measures — and triggers a political firestorm

Supporters of the truckers against vaccine mandates implemented by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold up Canadian flags as they gather near Parliament Hill on Feb. 5, 2022, in Ottawa, Canada. | Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has just taken the biggest risk of his political life. He’s gone all in, deciding to invoke the Emergencies Act — the first such use in Canada’s history — to put an end to the paralyzing truckers’ convoy. It’s a big bet for a third-term prime minister already facing criticism for politicizing the pandemic.

“We cannot and will not allow illegal and dangerous activities to continue,” Trudeau said Monday afternoon in Ottawa. “These illegal blockades are hurting Canadians and they need to stop.”

Invoking the Emergencies Act is a measure of last resort. It gives the federal government enormous powers to quell the disturbances, shut down crowdfunding and freeze the bank accounts of anyone assessed to be aiding the demonstrators. Trudeau sounded a measure of both willfulness and desperation in a somber late afternoon press conference with Cabinet members.

He made clear his conviction that the protests were no longer “non-violent,” but also assured listeners that his government didn’t intend to use military force to put an end to the “Freedom Convoy” occupation that is now entering its third week on Parliament Hill and encampments around the city.

“We're not using the Emergencies Act to call in the military,” Trudeau said. He said the act doesn’t mean fundamental rights are suspended nor are Charter rights overridden. “We are not limiting people's freedom of speech,” he continued. “We are not limiting freedom of peaceful assembly. We are not preventing people from exercising their right to protest legally.”

It was an incongruous end to a Valentine’s Day, during which love songs rang out from the carillon in the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill hours before Trudeau announced controversial new steps to crack down on convoy occupations. Criticism over the prime minister’s historic announcement came flying from all sides and levels of government — a rough start for Canada’s inaugural kindness week.

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh said Trudeau’s decision to invoke the act — for the first time in Canada’s history — is evidence of a failure of leadership.

“The reason why we got to this point is because the prime minister let the siege in Ottawa go on for weeks and weeks without actually doing anything about it,” Singh told reporters.

That delayed response, he said, allowed protesters to shut down key trade corridors along the U.S.-Canada border, such as at the Ambassador Bridge, emboldening the convoy movement.

Trudeau’s bid to protect democracy in Canada was slapped down by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association as an overreach. The association said the federal government hasn’t met the necessary threshold to enact emergency legislation, and cautioned against its repeated use. “It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties,” the CCLA tweeted.

Premiers, Canada’s provincial governors, are concerned Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Act could further inflame political entrenchment.

“We really need not to put oil on the fire,” said Quebec Premier François Legault ahead of Trudeau’s official announcement.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said he respects citizens’ rights to protest — but he believes most convoy supporters are part of the “let-’er-rip crowd.” That crowd, he explained, are likely those who have denied Covid-19 as a legitimate health threat and have questioned the safety of vaccines. He pointed his finger at Ottawa, calling out Trudeau for “bad political theater” and saying that convoy supporters’ “outstanding grievance” is with the federal government, not his own.

Kenney called federal mandates, particularly those just being brought in as provinces and other countries are lifting measures, irresponsible public health policy that’s unsuitable “particularly at a combustible time like this.”

The convoy, while loud, is representative of a minority of Canadians. But a recent Leger poll suggests its noisy tactics are shifting public opinion: 32 percent of Canadians agree that it’s time to lift Covid-19 mandates now. Trudeau’s decision, appealing to the silent majority sick of the convoy’s lawless behavior, is a risky gamble that could create more headaches for his government.

Majority of Canadians think PM “worsened” situation

An Angus Reid poll released Monday made clear that a majority of Canadians (72 percent) believe the convoy protesters’ message has been heard and now it’s time for them to go home. But the trends fall along partisan lines.

Ninety-four percent of Liberal voters wanted convoyers to pack it up, while just over half (53 percent) of Conservative voters agreed it’s time for protesters to leave Ottawa.

The survey, which polled 1,622 people between Feb. 11-13, doesn’t give Trudeau passing marks.

On Parliament Hill, the political lines were still neatly drawn, but there’s a growing sense that Canada needs to find a way out of the pandemic. Trudeau made his historic announcement only an hour after MPs voted narrowly 185-151 against a Conservative motion proposing the government present a plan to lift federal vaccine mandates by the end of the month.

Conservatives are finding more adherents to their attack lines against Trudeau’s Liberals and the federal government’s handling of the pandemic.

But the protests haven’t made angels of Conservatives, either.

Interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen backed the convoy protest from the onset, using her predecessor Erin O’Toole’s lukewarm support as a cudgel to topple him just days after the protesters decamped in Ottawa on Jan. 28. She remained supportive of the protest-turned-occupation, telling protesters to keep on honking as their disruptive protest tactics paralysed the capital.

Now she’s turned her sights on Trudeau. “The prime minister had an opportunity to talk and to listen to people who he disagreed with, and he refused to do so,” Bergen said. Invoking the Emergencies Act is a “ham-fisted approach” that will likely have the opposite effect, she said, pointing the finger at the PM for escalating and inflaming the situation by using labels to deride people’s concerns and pandemic anxieties.

Bergen somewhat softened her stance last week, calling for protesters to take down barricades after a blockade on the Canadian side of the Ambassador Bridge snarled trade for days along the key artery between the U.S. and Canada, getting the attention of U.S. lawmakers.

In downtown Ottawa, police have been unable to control disruptive behavior associated with the protest, such as all-hours honking in residential areas and the temporary closure of businesses due to public safety concerns.

The interim Conservative leader suggested she has not moved into Stornoway, the official residence of the opposition leader far outside the bounds of Parliament Hill. Asked how she’s able to sleep through honking and fireworks from the convoy, Bergen said she has an app for that. “I'm right downtown,” she said. “I'm a white noise person, so I have my white noise app going on.”

Leadership hopeful Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre is another member of Bergen’s team who has been vocal with his support of the convoy. He blamed Trudeau for causing a political emergency.

“The solution is staring him in the face,” Poilievre said. “All he has to do is listen to the experts, do what other countries are doing — and that is to eliminate these mandates and restrictions — to let the protesters including the truckers go back to their jobs and their lives.”

His comments echo the message Conservatives have been sticking with, that the convoy protests are narrowly about a Covid-19 vaccine mandate that came into effect in mid-January in a sector where 90 percent of workers are vaccinated. The mandate is bilateral, enforced on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.

But the movement has metastasized into a jumble of anti-government, anti-establishment anger. Poilievre, like Bergen, has been unfazed about the impact of endorsing a populist movement organized by individuals with documented far-right beliefs and attitudes.

“I’m proud of the truckers and I stand with them,” Poilievre said last week. “If Canadians are being inconvenienced, or in any way suffering from these protests, it is because Justin Trudeau made these protests happen,” he said during a taping of a Postmedia podcast.

Convoy protests align with easing provincial restrictions

Conservatives’ and protesters’ demands to lift all Covid-19 mandates comes at a time where restrictions are easing across Canada, a country considered one of the most highly vaccinated in the world. The timing coalesces with dropping hospitalizations.

The Public Health Agency of Canada issued a statement Monday confirming the country is entering a “transition phase” of the pandemic, setting expectations that new Covid-19 waves and outbreaks should be anticipated, as restrictions ease.

“Future COVID-19 activity will depend on factors such as waning immunity, potential for repeated emergence of highly immune-evasive and/or more severe variants of concern, and seasonal dynamics,” the statement read.

While Covid-19 restrictions remains the main focus of debate between politicians and parties on the Hill, outside, it’s clear protesters are aggrieved about other issues. On the ground, the common thread is a widespread disdain for Trudeau and populist distrust of so-called elites.

“There will be time later to reflect on all the lessons that can be learned from this situation,” Trudeau told reporters Monday afternoon.

The prime minister sidestepped a question when asked if the White House’s interventions last week, including a phone call with President Joe Biden that touched on the Ambassador Bridge blockade, had any influence in his decision to invoke emergency measures.

Support from the U.S. president aside, Trudeau alone will have to wear his decision to invoke temporary, but extreme, emergency measures.

Under law, a public inquiry must be launched within 60 days of the expiration or revocation of the act investigating the circumstances that led up to its declaration.

The inquiry also has a reporting obligation: It must produce a report to be tabled in Parliament within 360 days after the act has expired or revoked — making the issue one the Liberal government will have to revisit next year.

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