Canadian Convulsions > Trudeau not justified in invoking Emergencies Act on trucker convoy - Appeals Court

 

Ottawa’s Use of Emergencies Act to Clear Convoy Protests Unjustified, Appeal Court Rules

Police confront participants of the Freedom Convoy protest after the Emergencies Act was invoked, on Feb. 19, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Matthew Horwood

1/16/2026|Updated: 1/16/2026

The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected Ottawa’s appeal against a 2024 lower court decision that deemed the government’s use of the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy “unreasonable.”

The appellate court’s review of the 2024 Federal Court ruling found that the lower court had “correctly determined” the declaration of a public order emergency was unreasonable, noting in its Jan. 16 ruling that parts of the order infringed paragraph 2(b) and section 8 of the Charter. These sections relate to freedom of expression and protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

The judges wrote in their decision that though the convoy demonstrations in Ottawa and at some Canada-U.S. border crossings were “disruptive” they fell “well short of a threat to national security.”

The Freedom Convoy protest of 2022 began as a demonstration against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for truckers traversing the Canada-U.S. border, but became a larger movement opposing various pandemic-related mandates and restrictions.

The federal government invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, 2022, to deal with the protests, giving law enforcement sweeping powers to arrest demonstrators, freeze the bank accounts of some protesters, and compel towing companies to remove protesters’ vehicles from downtown Ottawa. The act also made it illegal to attend any event deemed an unlawful assembly, such as the protest in downtown Ottawa.

The Emergencies Act was revoked just 10 days later on Feb. 23, but it has had long-lasting ramifications. Civil liberties organizations have argued in court that the Liberal government did not meet the legal threshold to invoke the legislation in response to the protest, saying that Canadians’ Charter rights were violated.

Judgment

The appellate court said it found that cabinet did not have reasonable grounds to believe that a threat to Canada’s national security existed based on “the evidence that was before it and on a proper interpretation of the Act.”

While Ottawa argued that the Federal Court made an error when concluding that the requirement of a “national emergency” was not met, the Appeal Court said the government’s concerns about an increase of threats of ideologically motivated violent extremism were insufficient to ground a “reasonable belief” that a threat to national security existed.

The Appeal Court also noted the protests had negative trade-related impacts on commerce, but the government did not suggest that “anyone’s health and safety were seriously at stake,” and there was no evidence to that effect.

“In the absence of any further explanation, we fail to see how they could now be relied upon to establish that the situation was of such a magnitude that it seriously endangered the lives, health or safety of Canadians,” the court said.

The Appeal Court also took issue with the government’s argument that a less stringent definition of “threats to the security of Canada” outlined in Section 2 of the CSIS Act could be used when invoking the Emergencies Act.

During the Public Order Emergency Commission, then-CSIS Director David Vigneault testified that he supported the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, even though the service did not believe the Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to national security as per the definition in the CSIS Act.

The federal government has argued that the economic disruption seen during the Freedom Convoy constituted a threat to the security of Canada. But the Appeal Court said the government’s “expansive interpretation” of serious violence to property was “unwarranted and unreasonable.”

“It could stifle all kinds of protests and demonstrations that blockade pipelines, nuclear plants, railway lines and other kinds of infrastructure to advance a cause,” the court said, adding there was no indication that the “kind of economic disruptions described in the Section 58 Explanation could be the basis for declaring a public order emergency.”

The appeal court said the government’s economic order around the freezing of bank accounts also had the “egregious problem” of the personal banking information of Canadians being potentially shared with law enforcement without a warrant. The court said the order could have been less impairing by specifying that the information shared with the RCMP or CSIS by financial institutions “could not subsequently be used by the RCMP or other police forces to investigate or prosecute individuals” that breached the prohibitions created by the Emergencies Act.

Without such procedural safeguards being included in the economic order, the court said the Attorney General of Canada “failed to establish that the infringement of section 8 of the Charter resulting from sections 5 and 6 of the Economic Order was justified under section 1 of the Charter.”

Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms President John Carpay said the appeal court’s decision indicated that the Emergencies Act was “never meant to be used against peaceful citizens exercising fundamental freedoms.” He added that the ruling was a “significant victory for the rule of law,” and showed that emergency powers must “remain truly exceptional, or they cease to be compatible with a free and democratic society.”

Public Order Emergency Commission

The Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) was created as legislation required following the invocation of the act, to determine if Ottawa was justified in its use. Commissioner Paul Rouleau released his final report on Feb. 17, 2023, after months of examining documents and interviewing witnesses. Rouleau found that cabinet met the “very high” threshold to invoke the act.

Rouleau argued there were “reasonable grounds to believe that there existed a national emergency arising from threats to the security of Canada that necessitated the taking of special temporary measures.”

However, on Jan. 23, 2024, Justice Richard Mosley of the Federal Court declared the invocation of the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protest was “unreasonable” and did not “bear the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency and intelligibility.”

Mosley said he had initially believed the Emergencies Act invocation was justified, but saw otherwise following arguments by the Canadian Constitution Foundation and Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. Those two organizations argued Ottawa did not meet the legal threshold to invoke the legislation.

Mosley said the Emergencies Act was meant to be a tool of last resort, and the federal government appeared to have invoked it because it was “convenient, or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces.”

The justice said the invocation of the Act infringed on Charter Sections 2(b), which deals with freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, and Section 8, which deals with the right to be secured from unreasonable seizure.

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