In defending his suspension of key civil liberties on Monday in Canada’s parliament, Justin Trudeau was asked if his weaponization of the Emergencies Act is still necessary, now that police have cleared protestors out of Ottawa.
Trudeau said that his government wouldn’t keep its enhanced powers in place “a single day longer than necessary. . . [but] the state of emergency is not over.”
Indeed, in his view, it’s already requiring him to make parts of his new power permanent. The day before he spoke, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland said she was using the Emergencies Act to put crowdfunding platforms and the payment-service providers they use under a regulatory microscope. She almost giddily announced that those regulations will remain “permanently in place.” The contrast between words and deeds was truly Orwellian.
Trudeau’s weaponization of the Emergencies Act has given the government “the unilateral power to freeze bank accounts and cancel insurance policies, without so much as a court order and with essentially no recourse for those he targets.” Who knows what other powers he and his minions will decide must remain “permanently in place.”