Yes, and there are processes in place for these businesses to address this. They are able to enter into a law suit with respect to this matter and the grievances associated with this.
In 1988, as Parliament was studying the bill that would become the Emergencies Act, MPs spent a great deal of time defining the term “
national emergency.” In the end, Parliament set forth exacting criteria that would, it was hoped, prevent the invocation of the legislation in all but the gravest of situations. The reasons advanced this week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government meet none of those benchmarks.
Despite the Liberal government’s efforts to paint the current events with the most dramatic colours, it has become patently clear that we are not faced with a “
nati emergency,” as defined by the Emergencies Act.
Do the protests in Ottawa endanger the lives or safety of Canadians? No. It is true that the demonstrations are causing a host of problems for residents and workers in the nation’s capital, but inconvenience, even serious inconvenience, is not equivalent to lives being threatened.
Is the situation beyond Ontario’s capacity to deal with? No. Federal, provincial and local police officers were able to clear the Ambassador Bridge blockade in Windsor, Ont., before the act was invoked.
Is the ability of the federal government to preserve the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Canada threatened? Not in the least.
Finally, as several experts and commentators have pointed out, Ottawa’s municipal bylaws and the Criminal Code contain all the tools necessary to deal with this kind of event.
History is full of irony
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The wide-ranging authority granted to financial institutions to freeze the accounts of any person engaged, “directly
or indirectly,” in illegal activities is cause for concern. So is the prohibition of any public assembly “that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.” Those measures are not “
targeted,” as claimed by Ottawa, but excessively broad.
More importantly, the recourse to the Emergencies Act in a situation that does not meet the level of seriousness envisaged by its drafters may create a dangerous precedent.
Why not invoke the act when Indigenous groups and their supporters block crucial railways? Or when students cause chaos for weeks on end, as was the case in Quebec 10 years ago?
Back in 1988, as the debate in Parliament was coming to an end, Liberal MP Russell MacLellan expressed his misgivings, saying, “I am concerned that Bill C-77, the emergencies legislation, can be implemented far too often. While the number of cases in which it can be implemented have been reduced even further as a result of amendments, my party still believes that there are occasions when this legislation can be used needlessly.”
History is full of irony. No doubt MacLellan did not suspect that the first government to fall into this trap would be a Liberal government, led by a prime minister named Trudeau.
“Emergency powers cannot, and must not, be normalized.”