The incredible powers that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has given his government to freeze people’s bank accounts is based on their reliance on “analysis” from the CBC.
This is according to a 14-page document the government tabled in the House of Commons Wednesday night detailing the supposed rationale for invoking the Emergencies Act in the first place.
The incredible powers that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has given his government to freeze people’s bank accounts is based on their reliance on “analysis” from the CBC. This is according to a 14-page document the government tabled in the House of Commons Wednesday night detailing the supposed...
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On Thursday, Deputy PM and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland confirmed that banks had begun complying with the government’s orders and were freezing people’s accounts.
“The consequences are real and they will bite,” Freeland said.
While Freeland made it sound as if only truckers with big rigs would be targeted, the rules stipulate the bank freezes can apply to anyone “directly or indirectly” involved in the protests.
While constitutional law experts and civil liberties groups have said the threshold has not been met for the government to invoke the Act, the 14-page document the Liberals offered up presents their own more formal argument to back them up. The actual facts presented are shockingly thin and are mostly a regurgitation of online news stories.
“It remains possible that the Trudeau government has evidence, such as intelligence reports, of a credible national security threat within the Freedom Convoy sufficient to justify invoking this extraordinary law,” Aaron Wudrick, a lawyer who works with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, wrote in a recent guest column. “If they have such evidence, they should immediately make it clear publicly.”
It’s a great point. Maybe it was true. But it now appears that the Liberals do not possess any secret knowledge. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The basis for some of the most controversial measures they’ve brought in merely rely on nothing more than CBC reporting.
The Act, according to the government, “requires a comprehensive list of financial service providers to determine whether any of the property in their possession or control belong to protesters participating in the illegal blockades and to cease dealing with those protesters.”
This means that anyone associated with the protests could conceivably see their banking — including mortgages — revoked.
As if that in itself isn’t shocking enough, this conclusion wasn’t arrived at after detailed study by anyone in the Ministry of Finance or Public Safety Canada. Instead, the only evidence they offer is “the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s
February 14, 2022 analysis of the data” of the GiveSendGo.com fundraisers list that was hacked and released publicly.
So this is based upon a cybercrime with details leaked to the CBC? Vetting anyone?
The document later circles back to again justify the financial measures saying: “The importance of this measure is highlighted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s recent reporting about the crowdfunding website, GiveSendGo.com, which indicated that the majority of the donations to the protests were made by donors outside of Canada.”
That’s it.
No departmental reports underlying this assessment. No RCMP intel. Nothing except a story put together by three CBC reporters.
It’s one thing for the Liberal government to rely on the CBC for their opposition research. Now it looks like they’re farming out their security briefings to them.
The whole thing is an unjustifiable mess.
Trudeau has made one of the most momentous decisions in Canadian politics in decades and the entire rationale for it is a sloppy document ripped from Liberal-friendly media.
