The report will be out as soon as a scapegoat is found. Has to be someone willing to take one for the team and not be able to have a reality check later and say "I was paid to say that". In the US that person would just be Arkansided, but I doubt we have the ability to do that in Canada.
Public Inquiries into Emergencies Act begin September 19
- Thread starter The_Foxer
- Start date
Number 2. Heck, it amounts to "hell of a man." Who wants better'n that?
Says health reasons and utter frustration:
Ethics commissioner frustrated by Liberals' lapses: 'Act has been there for 17 years, for God’s sake'
Parliamentarians’ concern about ethics and conflicts of interest isn’t worse than ever, but is also not getting better, commissioner says.
Kind of hard to shame a politician that has no self respect. That seems to be most of them these days. Or, more probably it has always been this way, and we just hear about them because communication is so much faster and easier these days.Says health reasons and utter frustration:
Ethics commissioner frustrated by Liberals' lapses: 'Act has been there for 17 years, for God’s sake'
Parliamentarians’ concern about ethics and conflicts of interest isn’t worse than ever, but is also not getting better, commissioner says.nationalpost.com
Did Trudeau get the recipe for the Clinton alchemy?Says health reasons and utter frustration:
Ethics commissioner frustrated by Liberals' lapses: 'Act has been there for 17 years, for God’s sake'
Parliamentarians’ concern about ethics and conflicts of interest isn’t worse than ever, but is also not getting better, commissioner says.
Yeah, like you never stuck some random object in a woman because it was longer'n it was wide and you were drunker'n your survival instinct.
I mean, the boy IS from Arkansas.
To situate the events that led to the first-ever invocation of the Emergencies Act last year, you need to roll back the clock to Aug. 12, 2021. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government had settled on a pretext to call an early election to transform his minority government into a majority.
It was to be a “pandemic election” to coast to victory on his government’s fairly successful handling of its various COVID-19 policy prescriptions and remedies.
Until Aug. 12, the Trudeau government had gone along with expert advice to the effect that mandatory vaccination is a bad idea, because it’s divisive and less effective than incentives and rapid-testing schemes, and the last thing you should do is politicize vaccination.
But then, on Aug.12, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said federal employees, Crown corporations and federally regulated industries like cross-border trucking and trains and airplanes would fall within the new rule: Vaccines would be mandatory.
Three days later, the federal election was announced.
Terry Glavin: It was Justin Trudeau who picked the fight with the 'Truckists' — National Post
Looking back on what led to last year's bedlam in the streets of Ottawa
The lines were drawn. Either you supported Trudeau’s mandates and did what you were told, or you were a racist and a misogynist, and you were against science, part of a nasty little group that, in Trudeau’s words, “muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people?”
In Prince Rupert, on British Columbia’s north coast, at roughly 7 a.m. on Jan. 22 last year, an Ottawa-bound convoy of trucks rolled eastward out of town along Highway 16, eventually converging with other convoys from points south and east, and by Saturday, Jan. 29, Ottawa was besieged, it’s fair to say.
Roughly 15,000 protesters and 3,000 trucks had begun what has been called an “occupation” of Ottawa that wasn’t broken up until Friday, Feb. 18, when a complex multi-agency police operation cleared the streets. Tow trucks hauled away 21 vehicles, 70 people were arrested, and Justice Paul Rouleau is expected to release the findings of his inquiry into the Emergency Act’s declaration, any day now, more or less.
There were enough nasty people, misogynists and racists, who were quite happy to rise to the occasion and insinuate themselves into the truckers’ protest leadership. And they did well, exploiting and manipulating the righteous fury and growing frustration of working people who were tired of being lied to and lied about. And there was a good bit of mayhem. Border crossings were blockaded. And life in Ottawa, for a while there, was barely tolerable.
There was also no shortage of hysteria coming from the pro-mandate side, and from the government itself. Here’s NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, a week before the Emergencies Act was invoked: “The intent of the convoy is clear. They want to overthrow the government. And now there is clearly foreign interference. There are many examples of American politicians and other folks that are funding this direct action that is trying to undermine our democracy. … this is not a protest. It is clearly an act to try to overthrow the government.” That was rubbish.
And here’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, the day after the Valentine’s Day invocation of the successor to the War Measures Act: “What is driving this movement is a very small, organized group that is driven by an ideology to overthrow the government.” But it was nothing of the kind.
During the hearings before Justice Rouleau, the primary justification the Trudeau government offered for opting for the statutory nuclear option to deal with what by then was the collapse of law enforcement in Ottawa was the economic disruption the truckers’ protest was causing, and the mere possibility of violence, either carried out by violent extremists or by some “lone wolf” crank, or in a confrontation between protesters and counter-protesters.
“Apart from the economic concerns,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) points out, “the evidence on which the government relies to back up these claims is extremely thin. The law enforcement and intelligence agencies whose expertise should help inform the government’s decisions did not assess the protests as giving rise to a serious threat of violence.”
It isn’t inconceivable that Rouleau will find in favour of the Trudeau government’s decision to suspend the ordinary operation of the law across Canada for several days last year, but his word won’t be the last.
The CCLA is challenging the government in court. A case could be made that even if the Emergencies Act thresholds were not met, it was still, in its way, necessary, but not because the protests presented any grave threat to Canada’s national security. The greater threat was clearly the paralysis of the Ottawa police, encumbered by an inability to so much as commandeer tow trucks to move rigs blocking traffic, a power clearly set out in Section 129 of the Criminal Code.
At the end of the day, the epic confrontation between the Truckists and Trudeau was a fight that Trudeau picked.
“From a positive and unifying approach, a decision was made to wedge, to divide, and to stigmatize,” is the way the cerebral Quebec Liberal MP Joël Lightbound put it last year, just before he resigned as chair of the Liberals’ Quebec caucus. “I fear that this politicization of the pandemic risks undermining the public’s trust in our public health institutions.”And that is exactly what has happened.
Former finance minister Bill Morneau says the same, that using vaccine mandates as a political wedge in the 2021 federal election was a bad idea. “I didn’t see that as something that was helpful,” Morneau told the CBC last month. But that’s just Trudeau’s style. “When you react to social media, when you react quickly to the 24/7 news cycle,” Morneau said, “you find yourself taking decisions, saying things that exacerbate the strongly held opinions of the people who are putting out those points of view.”
And whatever Justice Rouleau finds, and however the courts rule on the CCLA’s case, that’s what led to last year’s bedlam in the streets of Ottawa.
The Rouleau Commission, which is the independent inquiry looking into the government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, is expected to table the final report on February 20 hopefully, & on February 13, the national civil liberties group the Canadian Constitution Foundation filed their factum in the federal court judicial review challenging the use of the act.
The outcome of the inquiry is not determinative of the federal court judicial review. They are separate procedures with very different rules and in very different forums. And both present different opportunities.
What Commissioner Rouleau says about whether the statutory threshold for invoking the act was met will have serious political implications. However, the inquiry report is not about finding any type of liability, and the commissioner can make recommendations but not orders.
Meanwhile, hearings in the federal court judicial review have been scheduled for the first week of April. Unlike the inquiry, which is funded by the government, the judicial review was brought independently by several different organizations, including the Canadian Constitution Foundation, Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
In their factum, the CCF has argued that cabinet did not have reasonable grounds to conclude that the protests were threats to the national security of Canada or to conclude that the protests could not be effectively dealt with under existing law.
The CCF also makes extensive arguments about the unconstitutionality of the powers created by the regulations under the Emergencies Act. These included the regulations that restricted public assembly and froze bank accounts. The CCF’s position is that regulations and economic measures were in violation of the charter.
Unlike the Inquiry, the federal court can make orders. The court has been asked to make a declaration that the emergency proclamation and regulations were illegal, and that the regulations and economic measures were unconstitutional under the charter.
Christine Van Geyn: Trudeau government's rash use of Emergencies Act deserves consequences — National Post
This week marks one-year since the Trudeau government invoked the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protests, and on that anniversary, the Liberals are fighting a war on two fronts defending their decision to use that extraordinary legislation. The Rouleau Commission, which is...
Both the judicial review and the inquiry have significant potential to impact how this legislation can be used in the future. This was the first time the Emergencies Act was used since it was enacted in 1988.
The Emergencies Act is the successor to the War Measures Act. It gives tremendous power to the prime minister and cabinet, including the power to create new criminal law by executive order. These are powers that must have a high threshold and which we all should be wary of in a liberal democracy.
In different ways both the federal court and the inquiry have opportunities to build a legal framework around that legislation, and around the judicial review of emergency powers. The Inquiry included a lengthy policy consultation phase that considered recommendations for how the Emergencies Act could be reformed.
The federal court has an opportunity to treat this judicial review as the test case for the use and review of the legislation. The Emergencies Act should be treated as the exceptional legislation that it is, and that Parliament intended it to be.
Both the Inquiry and the federal court have opportunities to make that clear to the government, who in this case, acted rashly by improperly invoking the law. The hope of civil liberties groups is that there will be both political and legal consequences to that decision.
The inquiry tasked with looking into the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act will release its report TODAY — a document that should shed new light on one of the Trudeau government's most controversial and consequential decisions.
The final report of the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) is to be TABLED in the House of Commons AT NOON.
apple.news
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act last February to end the protests — the first and only time the law had been triggered since it was created in 1988. The act replaced the federal government's previous emergency powers law, the War Measures Act.
On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago.
Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s actions ahead of the report’s findings.
apple.news
It’s important though for people to realize that inquiries aren’t courts and regardless of what Rouleau finds, no one will face charges as a result. Mostly, as Rouleau said at the opening of the public hearings, he will be making recommendations.
“It’s also important to understand what commissions of inquiry do not do. They do not make findings of legal liability. They do not determine whether individuals have committed crimes. While inquiries seek to uncover the truth, they are not trials. Questions of civil and criminal liability are decided by courts and not commissions.”
Court cases are still underway challenging the government’s use of the Emergencies Act and soon enough, a judge will rule on that matter.
The final report of the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) is to be TABLED in the House of Commons AT NOON.
Federal government met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act: Rouleau — CBC News
Commissioner Paul Rouleau says the federal government met the "very high" threshold needed to invoke the Emergencies Act last winter, citing "a failure in policing and federalism."
On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago.
Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s actions ahead of the report’s findings.
LILLEY: What we can expect, and hope for, in the Emergencies Act report — Toronto Sun
It’s all over but the waiting, and the hoping I suppose. On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago. Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s...
“It’s also important to understand what commissions of inquiry do not do. They do not make findings of legal liability. They do not determine whether individuals have committed crimes. While inquiries seek to uncover the truth, they are not trials. Questions of civil and criminal liability are decided by courts and not commissions.”
Court cases are still underway challenging the government’s use of the Emergencies Act and soon enough, a judge will rule on that matter.
White wash .The inquiry tasked with looking into the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act will release its report TODAY — a document that should shed new light on one of the Trudeau government's most controversial and consequential decisions.
The final report of the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) is to be TABLED in the House of Commons AT NOON.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act last February to end the protests — the first and only time the law had been triggered since it was created in 1988. The act replaced the federal government's previous emergency powers law, the War Measures Act.Federal government met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act: Rouleau — CBC News
Commissioner Paul Rouleau says the federal government met the "very high" threshold needed to invoke the Emergencies Act last winter, citing "a failure in policing and federalism."
On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago.
Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s actions ahead of the report’s findings.
It’s important though for people to realize that inquiries aren’t courts and regardless of what Rouleau finds, no one will face charges as a result. Mostly, as Rouleau said at the opening of the public hearings, he will be making recommendations.LILLEY: What we can expect, and hope for, in the Emergencies Act report — Toronto Sun
It’s all over but the waiting, and the hoping I suppose. On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago. Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s...
“It’s also important to understand what commissions of inquiry do not do. They do not make findings of legal liability. They do not determine whether individuals have committed crimes. While inquiries seek to uncover the truth, they are not trials. Questions of civil and criminal liability are decided by courts and not commissions.”
Court cases are still underway challenging the government’s use of the Emergencies Act and soon enough, a judge will rule on that matter.
The inquiry tasked with looking into the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act will release its report TODAY — a document that should shed new light on one of the Trudeau government's most controversial and consequential decisions.
The final report of the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) is to be TABLED in the House of Commons AT NOON.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act last February to end the protests — the first and only time the law had been triggered since it was created in 1988. The act replaced the federal government's previous emergency powers law, the War Measures Act.Federal government met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act: Rouleau — CBC News
Commissioner Paul Rouleau says the federal government met the "very high" threshold needed to invoke the Emergencies Act last winter, citing "a failure in policing and federalism."
On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago.
Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s actions ahead of the report’s findings.
It’s important though for people to realize that inquiries aren’t courts and regardless of what Rouleau finds, no one will face charges as a result. Mostly, as Rouleau said at the opening of the public hearings, he will be making recommendations.LILLEY: What we can expect, and hope for, in the Emergencies Act report — Toronto Sun
It’s all over but the waiting, and the hoping I suppose. On Friday, the Trudeau government will table the final report into their use of the Emergencies Act one year ago. Bill Blair, the minister for emergency preparedness, made that announcement on Twitter while also defending the government’s...
“It’s also important to understand what commissions of inquiry do not do. They do not make findings of legal liability. They do not determine whether individuals have committed crimes. While inquiries seek to uncover the truth, they are not trials. Questions of civil and criminal liability are decided by courts and not commissions.”
Court cases are still underway challenging the government’s use of the Emergencies Act and soon enough, a judge will rule on that matter.
Let the Class Action suits begin!
So, what will it be?
Will Justin renounce all findings and state he was right?
Or will he use that same old "We will all learn from this" sctick that he has bee using since 2015?
Will Justin renounce all findings and state he was right?
Or will he use that same old "We will all learn from this" sctick that he has bee using since 2015?
If this report is in his favor, then he will use it for vindication. If this report is not in his favor, he will justify himself regardless, stating it’s not binding, etc…” using the facts available at the time, etc…”
Facts and Trudeau in the same sentence...
Oil and a puddle of water don't mix.
Oil and a puddle of water don't mix.
Go figure….
apple.news
OTTAWA—Police dysfunction, stubborn politics and a “failure of federalism” turned last winter’s so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests into a national crisis that warranted the first-ever use of the Emergencies Act, Ontario Justice Paul Rouleau concluded in a much-anticipated report….not the protesters or their actions though?
Rouleau determined — “with reluctance” — that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government met the “very high threshold” to trigger the act and create a host of extraordinary police powers to quash the protests.
But Rouleau also called the protests “legitimate,” and blamed government leaders — at all levels — and police for failing to anticipate and “properly manage” the demonstrations against COVID-19 health measures, something he described as a predictable response to a disruptive pandemic.
“Had various police forces and levels of government prepared for and anticipated events of this type and acted differently in response to the situation, the emergency that Canada ultimately faced could like have been avoided,” Rouleau wrote.
“Unfortunately, it was not.” Rouleau, however, also concluded the need to invoke the act was avoidable – and that it was government and police failures that made it necessary.
Rouleau also blamed Trudeau — who called protesters part of a radical “fringe minority” — for enflaming the protesters and “further embittering them toward government authorities.” He wrote that Trudeau may have been referring to racist and extremist messages — Nazi and Confederate flags were spotted among the Ottawa protest — but that he should have acknowledged that “the majority of protesters were exercising their fundamental democratic rights” to denounce what they saw as government overreach.
apple.news
apple.news
Rouleau’s report largely exonerates Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal government, except to say that political leaders “at all levels” should have made more efforts to recognize that “the majority of protesters were exercising their fundamental democratic right.”
The government had “Secret” legal advice, which it declined to share with the commission, but Rouleau said multiple people testified that it gave the government reason to have faith they met the threshold the act required. (???)
“Each of them explained what they believed those thresholds to be. I do not need to see the legal advice itself in order to accept the evidence that they believed their conclusions to be justified in law,” he said. (Huh?)
His report also emphasizes the “pervasive” role of misinformation and disinformation in catalyzing and then entrenching the protesters in Ottawa.
On the one hand, he says misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 pandemic and public health measures were a key “accelerant” of the protests. On the other hand, his report found misinformation about the Freedom Convoy itself was used to “unfairly discredit all protesters” and was amplified by news media.
Justin Trudeau called out for labelling convoy protesters but Emergencies Act report finds he met threshold to shut them down — Toronto Star
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testifies before the Public Order Emergency Commission public inquiry on Nov. 25, 2022, in Ottawa.
OTTAWA—Police dysfunction, stubborn politics and a “failure of federalism” turned last winter’s so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests into a national crisis that warranted the first-ever use of the Emergencies Act, Ontario Justice Paul Rouleau concluded in a much-anticipated report….not the protesters or their actions though?
Rouleau determined — “with reluctance” — that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government met the “very high threshold” to trigger the act and create a host of extraordinary police powers to quash the protests.
But Rouleau also called the protests “legitimate,” and blamed government leaders — at all levels — and police for failing to anticipate and “properly manage” the demonstrations against COVID-19 health measures, something he described as a predictable response to a disruptive pandemic.
“Had various police forces and levels of government prepared for and anticipated events of this type and acted differently in response to the situation, the emergency that Canada ultimately faced could like have been avoided,” Rouleau wrote.
“Unfortunately, it was not.” Rouleau, however, also concluded the need to invoke the act was avoidable – and that it was government and police failures that made it necessary.
Rouleau also blamed Trudeau — who called protesters part of a radical “fringe minority” — for enflaming the protesters and “further embittering them toward government authorities.” He wrote that Trudeau may have been referring to racist and extremist messages — Nazi and Confederate flags were spotted among the Ottawa protest — but that he should have acknowledged that “the majority of protesters were exercising their fundamental democratic rights” to denounce what they saw as government overreach.
Police ‘dysfunction’ to blame for letting Freedom Convoy get out of control: commission report — National Post
Commissioner writes at length on the failings of the police services in assessing the intelligence before the protesters came to Ottawa
Trudeau government justified in using unprecedented powers of Emergencies Act: ruling — National Post
The use of Emergencies Act could have been avoided if not for failures of policing and federalism, Commission report declares
The government had “Secret” legal advice, which it declined to share with the commission, but Rouleau said multiple people testified that it gave the government reason to have faith they met the threshold the act required. (???)
“Each of them explained what they believed those thresholds to be. I do not need to see the legal advice itself in order to accept the evidence that they believed their conclusions to be justified in law,” he said. (Huh?)
His report also emphasizes the “pervasive” role of misinformation and disinformation in catalyzing and then entrenching the protesters in Ottawa.
On the one hand, he says misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 pandemic and public health measures were a key “accelerant” of the protests. On the other hand, his report found misinformation about the Freedom Convoy itself was used to “unfairly discredit all protesters” and was amplified by news media.
So. . . everything's fucked, and only Justin can Save Canada?
Boy howdy, y'all're screwed!
Boy howdy, y'all're screwed!
