Alberta justice minister slams Emergencies Act report
Posted Feb 17, 2023 4:33 pm.
Last Updated Feb 17, 2023 4:34 pm.
Alberta Minister of Justice Tyler Shandro is slamming the final report into the use of the Emergencies Act, saying the invocation “set a dangerous precedent.”
In a statement, he says the province “maintains that the federal government’s consultation with provinces was inadequate” in the lead up to the decision.
“The decision to invoke the act violated the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Albertans and gave the federal government the ability to seize property without due process of law,” his statement reads.
His comments came the same day the report from the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) was tabled in the House of Commons.
Shandro adds the province’s decision to legally challenge the federal government hasn’t changed.
“As a result, the conclusion reached by the inquiry does not affect Alberta’s decision to participate in legal challenges initiated against the federal government by the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association last year,” he said.
“The 56 recommendations in the report show that there were many issues with the way the federal government used the Emergencies Act. My department will be reviewing the report and its recommendations, and I call on the federal government to do the same.”
Moving forward, Shandro says Ottawa “must involve provinces and territories in the decision-making” before invoking the Emergencies Act, adding these decisions directly affect the provinces and Canadians.
The POEC said Friday the Liberal government met the “very high threshold” for invoking the Emergencies Act during the weeks-long “Freedom Convoy” protests last winter.
The public inquiry also found that while the protest that blocked borders, clogged streets and led to sharp divides in public opinion was unlike anything the country had experienced, it was not unpredictable – and could have been better managed.
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“Had various police forces and levels of government prepared for and anticipated events of this type and acted differently in response to the situation, the emergency that Canada ultimately faced could likely have been avoided,” Justice Paul Rouleau, the commissioner of inquiry, concluded in his final report released Friday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022 for the first time since it replaced the War Measures Act in 1988. That move granted extraordinary powers to police and governments to limit the protesters’ right to assembly and freeze their bank accounts in the hopes of clearing the demonstrations and preventing protesters from returning.
Less than a week later, police from across the country launched a massive operation to dislodge the protest from the streets of Ottawa, ending in hundreds of arrests.
With files from Cormac MacSweeney and The Canadian Press
