On February 22, the Canadian Parliament  – the House of Commons – passed the Emergencies Act Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked on Valentine’s Day/February 14th. Though the Canadian Senate appeared to be about to vote NO in a close vote on February 23rd, Justin Trudeau quickly held a press release and announced the Emergencies Act was no longer in effect. I wrote an article about the way previous governments in Canada had handled the most contentious protests and civil disobedience dating back to the Great Depression. Before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, no Canadian prime minister had refused to meet with a peaceful protest on Parliament Hill. While Justin Trudeau, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, and Public Safety Minister Marco Mendocino repeatedly claimed the trucker freedom convoy in Ottawa was illegal, the court did not agree. On February 7, 2022, a chief justice of Ontario ruled that the ongoing protests in downtown Ottawa were in fact legal.

“Canadian Emergencies Act, Justin Trudeau, and Civil Disobedience in Context,” was posted on several websites, including American website Dissident Voice on February 20th. Two days earlier police had ended the peaceful protests, including trampling several protesters with horses. In the article I note that the War Measures Act was only used once in peacetime, to respond to the FLQ Crisis of October 1970. The Emergencies Act, which replaced the War Measures Act in 1988, was worded to give guidance to prime ministers to make use of this “nuclear option” only if all other remedies to resolve a public protest had been exhausted. Conservative Defense Minister, Perrin Beatty, drafted the Emergencies Act. He was critical of its invocation not as a last, but a first, resort to resolve a peaceful protest. My article is found on this link here: “Canadian Emergencies Act, Justin Trudeau…“