Commentary
The Federal Court of Appeal on Jan. 16 upheld the ruling that the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and unconstitutional. It is more than just a legal judgment; it is an unequivocal vindication of Canada’s democratic foundations.
To put it mildly it: this decision builds trust in the rule of law.
When I visited the Freedom Convoy 2022 on those bitterly cold January-February days, I was struck with the disconnect between what I saw on the ground and with that of the federal government’s narrative, echoed in many of the media, subsidized as they are from the public purse. On Feb. 13, I stood in front of the flatbed trailer that served as the stage for various special guests among who was our senior statesmen, the Hon. Brian Peckford, a former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, who gave an impassioned speech that I will never forget.
Peckford told the crowd that the courts will be influenced by the truckers, “so at the end of the day, they [the courts] will restore our charter of rights and freedoms. The use of peaceful civil disobedience “is a very, very important concept.” It has a role in influencing “our body politic and must influence our laws.”
Peckford called upon the individual and the collective to influence “the government and the judiciary of this country to reestablish the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we intended it to be in 1982.”
“Don’t forget that the Constitution is not a federal law, the Constitution is not a provincial law. The Constitution is not a little puny municipal bylaw. The Constitution is the supreme law of Canada. Nothing comes above the Constitution, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a part of that Constitution. And your individual rights and freedoms are in that Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
I took the time to reacquaint myself with the video I took of Peckford’s speech in light of the Jan. 16 Federal Court of Appeal’s decision. Simply put, Peckford was prescient.
On that cold February day, we had no idea that within the halls of government surrounding us the prime minister and his inner circle were laying the plans for the invocation of the Emergencies Act to be announced the very next day; a breach of our rights that is worthy of the Federal Court of Appeal’s derision.
As I detailed in my book, “210° Celsius: 16 Ways the Truckers Ignited Canada for the Long Haul,” the invocation of the Emergencies Act was an unprecedented government overreach, executed with a disturbing disregard for legal limits and fundamental freedoms. Now the Federal Court of Appeal agrees with what we saw on the ground.
My book extensively documents how the government’s response to the Freedom Convoy was marked by what I described as “startling instances of overreach.” The Court of Appeal’s careful scrutiny and ultimate dismissal of the government’s arguments underscore a critical truth: the extraordinary powers of the state are not meant for political convenience, but for genuine, last-resort crises, strictly delineated by law.
