Canadian Civil Liberties Association sues government over Emergencies Act

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is seeking a judicial review of the government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to quell anti-government protests in downtown Ottawa and elsewhere.

The group says it does not want to minimize the impacts that the protests are having across the country, but it is unclear that the demonstrations endanger the lives, health or safety of Canadians so seriously that they constitute a national emergency.

It says police deal with complex law-enforcement issues every day and have cleared multiple border blockades across the country without emergency powers.

The group’s criminal justice director Abby Deshman says the Emergencies Act orders do not apply only in Ottawa and affect the rights of every Canadian.

She says the group believes the measures are clearly unconstitutional and it will be asking the courts to step in to defend the rule of law and the constitutional rights of all people across the country.

On Monday, the group claimed the federal government had not met “the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act.”

“The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation ‘seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada’ and when the situation ‘cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,'” they wrote.

“Governments regularly deal with difficult situations and do so using powers granted to them by democratically elected representatives. Emergency legislation should not be normalized. It threatens our democracy and our civil liberties.”

The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met. 1/3

— Canadian Civil Liberties Association (@cancivlib) February 15, 2022

According to a new survey, two-thirds of Canadians support Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to help handle the protests across the country.

Trudeau has said using the Emergencies Act is a measure of last resort to bring an end to the illegal and undemocratic blockades that have harmed Canadians for nearly three weeks now.

The act, which became law in 1988, is a federal regulation that can be used by the government in the event of a national emergency.

Canada’s government describes a national emergency as “an urgent, temporary and critical situation that seriously endangers the health and safety of Canadians or that seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada.”

On Thursday, Ottawa’s interim police chief said his officers — along with provincial and federal police — have been bolstering their resources and developing clear plans as they prepare to remove protesters who have been occupying the city’s downtown for nearly three weeks.