By Colin Alexander ——Bio and Archives--January 30, 2024
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Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says the government will appeal the decision delivered in the Federal Court by Justice Richard Mosley on January 23. He ruled that Ottawa’s use of the Emergencies Act early in 2022 to end the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy’s protest on Parliament Hill was not justified.
Addressing a challenge to the Act’s invocation to end the protest in early 2022, by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and others, Justice Mosley said, "I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires (outside the government’s powers).”
Ms Freeland said this after the decision’s release: “We respect very much Canada's independent judiciary. However, we do not agree with this decision … I was convinced at the time it was the right thing to do, it was the necessary thing to do. I remain and we remain convinced of that.”
The next stop would normally be at the Federal Court of Appeal. But many reasonable and informed Canadians will see a problem, at least with its Chief Justice, Paul Crampton. When accepting the government’s imposition of Covid imprisonment, he wrote, “It bears underscoring here that what is relevant is the objective of the Impugned Measures, not their actual effectiveness… Accordingly, all that is required to demonstrate that the Impugned Measures are not arbitrary is the existence of some link between them and the objective(s) they were intended to achieve.”
Jay Cameron, litigation director of the........