On Monday 14 February, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau sent an unlikely Valentine's gift to his citizens, invoking rarely used emergency powers, which
came into effect the next day. This was in response to the 'Freedom Convoy' of thousands of truckers and protesters who have gathered in the nation's capital, Ottawa. Trudeau claimed that the protests were not peaceful, implying that the crisis could not be solved by normal policing under existing statutes.
The reality is that, during more than two weeks of protests, Ottawa's protesters are guilty of little more than municipal traffic and noise infractions. There has been no violence. Nevertheless, two of the protest leaders, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, have been detained by police under the emergency powers.
The threshold for invoking emergency powers in Canada is supposed to be high. Indeed, similar powers have only been used in the two world wars and, controversially, in 1970, when then prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin's father, used emergency powers to suppress a
separatist movement in Quebec.
His son's use of emergency powers, in the context of a peaceful protest, has been criticised by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has argued that the necessary threshold has not been met to justify invoking these draconian powers. It should also be noted that Trudeau and his government have consistently refused to meet and even to listen to the protesters' grievances, despite the protesters themselves being willing to engage in dialogue.Strangely, the most problematic element of the protest - a trucker blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan, over which 25 per cent of US-Canada trade travels - was
peacefully resolved the weekend before Trudeau's proclamation, by the provincial police. Meanwhile, on the same day that Trudeau declared his emergency, another blockade - on the border between Alberta and the US state of Montana - ended peacefully and without the use of force. The police and the protesters ended up
hugging each other after the issue was resolved.
Comment: Considering the funding source for his election, Gascón is dutifully upholding Soros' Open Society ethos: