Date of publication: Mar 30, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 3 minutes of reading • 129 Comments Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, February 19, 2022 in Ottawa. Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images
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OTTAWA – A Calgary lawyer is urging Prime Minister Justin Trindade to release all documents behind the historic invocation of the emergency law, the first of many demands for transparency over the Liberals’ unprecedented decision to use its extravagant powers. of the law to stifle a protest.
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Brendan Miller represents four people who attended the so-called Freedom Escort demonstrations in Ottawa in February. In affidavits, two of them say that they had frozen their bank accounts. The other two report occupational consequences or injury from police actions following the invocation of the emergency law. They ask for a judicial review of the use of the act to determine if it was justified. Trinto invoked the Emergency Law on Feb. 14 just over two weeks after the occupation of downtown Ottawa began and in response to similar protests at border crossings in Coutts, Alta., And Windsor, Ont. The protesters wanted the restrictions on COVID-19 to be lifted. The act, which had never been used before, gave police the power to close large parts of downtown Ottawa, freeze bank accounts, and force truck drivers to work to remove dozens of vehicles parked for weeks. around Parliament.
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Trinto recalled the act nine days later, following a massive police operation in central Ottawa that cleared the streets and resulted in nearly 200 arrests. Miller’s challenge is among many seeking judicial review of Trinto’s decision to invoke the act. In his letter he says the government must be transparent about why it did it. “The requested files should be provided to the court and Canadians should expect that His Majesty the Government will not suppress or deprive them of the grounds for invoking the emergency law,” he said. Most documents presented at cabinet meetings, as well as transcripts of conversations at these meetings, are covered by the cabinet. Ministers are also not allowed to discuss what is happening in the meetings, with the expectation that it allows cabinet ministers to speak freely around the table.
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Anything considered confidential by the Cabinet is excluded from access to information requests and under Canadian Evidence Act may also be excluded from litigation. In his letter, Miller argued that Canadians should be allowed to know what led the government to take such an unprecedented measure. “Invoking the emergency law – the statute that replaced the war measures law – should always be subject to judicial review in Canadian cases,” he said. Prime Ministers have the power to relinquish confidence in the cabinet, and Trinto has done so once in the past during the SNC-Lavalin case, when former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould could testify before a parliamentary committee. This resignation was not extended to many members of his staff, as the Ethics Commissioner later stated when examining the case.
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Other prime ministers have also resigned on rare occasions. Conservative MP Raquel Dancho, the party’s public security critic, said the government should relinquish its privileges and be transparent about its decision. “It has not become clear that the invocation of this unprecedented oversight of government power has ever reached its limit and the information used by the Liberal government to justify it was full of misinformation and lack of credibility,” he said in an email. “Canadians deserve transparency and clarity, so we believe the Liberal government should relinquish its confidence in the Cabinet to answer questions about activating an emergency law that was never used and stop hiding behind from legal tools that prevent the provision of answers “.
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An appeal to Miller’s court is unlikely to be the first time Trinto has been asked to share documents. As a precondition for the act, a parliamentary committee is automatically appointed to study the use of the act. This committee has already started its work and the law also requires the government to launch a formal investigation into the circumstances behind the decision. The National Post contacted the government to ask if it was willing to relinquish the cabinet’s confidence in the case, but a spokesman declined to comment. “We have no comment on this matter at this time as it is before the courts,” Stéphane Shank told the Privy Council Office. • Email: [email protected] | Twitter: ryantumilty
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