From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“Legal thresholds do not bend, much less break, in exigent circumstances. We are putting this and future governments on notice: even in times of crisis, no government is above the law”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is again in court to claim its use of the Emergencies Act to stop the 2022 Freedom Convoy was warranted, in appeal of a ruling from last year which found its use of the act was unjustified.   

Today, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) noted in a press release that it is before the Federal Court of Appeal “to defend its historic victory for the rule of law.” 

“While the extraordinary powers granted to the federal government through the Emergencies Act are necessary in extreme circumstances, they also threaten the rule of law and our democracy,” said Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, who serves as the Director of the Fundamental Freedoms program at the CCLA. 

McNicoll said that the CCLA will be urging the “Federal Court of Appeal to reject the federal government’s attempt to relax the thresholds necessary for invoking the  Act’s extraordinary powers.” 

“Legal thresholds do not bend, much less break, in exigent circumstances. We are putting this and future governments on notice: even in times of crisis, no government is above the law,” concluded McNicoll. 

In January of 2024, Canada’s Federal Court announced that the use of the EA by the Trudeau government in early 2022 to shut down Freedom Convoy, which was calling for an end to COVID mandates, was a direct violation of the nation’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and thus was “not justified” and “infringed” on the rights of protesters.

The January 2024 decision by Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley saw the judge write, “Having found that the infringements of Charter sections 2(b) and 8 were not minimally impairing, I find that they were not justified under section 1.” 

Shortly after the court ruling, the Trudeau government announced that it would appeal Mosley’s ruling, claiming the federal court “erred in fact and law in declaring that the Regulations infringed subsection 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” 

Notably, in the Federal Court of Appeal, where the case is now being heard, 10 out of the 15 judges were appointed by Trudeau.     

The CCLA said that the government’s use of the EA “which had never been invoked before in Canada,” allowed the federal government to “enact wide-reaching orders without going through the ordinary democratic process—but only once stringent legal thresholds are met.” 

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Trudeau’s government enacted the EA on February 14, 2022. 

During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse, and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister. 

Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23. 

In the lead-up to the protest, Trudeau had disparaged unvaccinated Canadians, saying those opposing his measures were of a “small, fringe minority” who hold “unacceptable views” and do not “represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other.”      

In another Freedom Convoy court battle, protest leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber underwent a year-long criminal trial which concluded last September.

Both Lich and Barber will have their verdicts announced on March 12, 2025, as LifeSiteNews has reported.

Lich and Barber face a possible 10-year prison sentence for a slew of non-violent crimes, details of which LifeSiteNews has reported on extensively.