To bring an end to the Freedom Convoy led by Canada’s truckers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now exercising extraordinary powers under the nation’s Emergencies Act. The act was designed to empower a government to protect Canada from threats to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. But Trudeau is using it to get rid of a political headache: the loud, noisome, but nonviolent blockade of bridges in Canada and the downtown of the nation’s capital.
Canada’s Emergencies Act is an enabling act that replaced the War Measures Act. This state of legal exception has been invoked only during the two world wars and during Canada’s struggle against the FLQ, when a violent organization of Quebecois nationalists kidnapped the deputy premiere of Quebec. Now it’s being used on the trucker convoy, which has been notably nonviolent despite serious provocation, such as the government’s simply sabotaging privately owned heavy equipment, or the court-ordered freeze of donations.
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