"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Northwoods is a ministry dedicated to refreshing Christians and challenging them to search for the truth in Christianity, politics, sociology, and science
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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The Emergencies Act was revoked just 10 days later on Feb. 23, but it has had long-lasting ramifications.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.
In one of the worst cases of injustice ever perpetrated in Canada, two of the organizers of the truck convoy of 2021 were convicted of mischief and could face 2 years in prison, with one of them losing his truck.
Protesting the illegal and immoral actions of Justin Trudeau around the Covid_19 pandemic will go down in history as a heroic moment in Canadian character building. No one was injured or killed, no one was in danger, a few people were irritated and inconvenienced, big deal!
The extreme overreaction of the Liberal government came from a frightened, adolescent Justin Trudeau, whose response to the pandemic made a lot of people very rich, and few people with any real benefit. In fact, the untested safety of the vaccines predictably ended up in the unnecessary deaths of several people.
If anyone should be in jail, it is Trudeau and any judges who allowed him to weaponize them.
Crown Seeking Two Years in Prison for Lich and Barber Following Mischief Verdict
Freedom Convoy organizers Chris Barber and Tamara Lich sit in the gallery as they wait for the start of the day's hearings at the Public Order Emergency Commission, where they were to appear as witnesses, in Ottawa on Nov. 2, 2022. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang
Crown prosecutors are seeking two years of prison time for Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, after the two were found guilty of mischief but had most of their other charges dropped, Barber’s lawyer has confirmed to The Epoch Times.
“The Crown prosecutor wants to lock Tamara Lich and me in prison for two years for standing up for freedom,” Barber said in a social media post on April 15.
In addition to the Crown seeking a penitentiary sentence for Lich and Barber, which involves two years or more of imprisonment, Barber said that the Crown is also seeking to auction off his truck, “Big Red,” which led part of the convoy from Saskatchewan to Ottawa in January 2022.
“It’s not about a vehicle, it’s about erasing hope,“ Barber said in the social media post. ”They want to erase the spirit of the convoy and make an example out of us so no one ever dares to stand up again.”
When the government is as wrong as Trudeau's was, those who stand up against it are heroes and ought to be recognized as such. To put them in prison says something very dark and sinister about Canada. These prosecutors ought to be very disgusted when they look in the mirror every morning.
On April 3, 2025, Lich and Barber were found guilty of mischief, while Barber was found guilty of counselling others to disobey a court order. Justice Heather Perkins-McVey ruled that there was insufficient evidence for the other charges of intimidation, obstructing police and counselling others to do the same. Both were also found guilty of counselling others to commit mischief, but that finding was stayed at the request of Crown lawyers.
In a social media post on the same day, Lich confirmed that the Crown is seeking two years prison time for the two organizers and has filed an application to confiscate Barber’s truck.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Crown prosecutor’s office but did not immediately hear back.
Lich and Barber were the main organizers of the 2022 protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions, which culminated in vehicles parking in downtown Ottawa and other locations for several weeks. The Liberal government eventually invoked the Emergencies Act to bring the demonstration to an end.
The last time the Emergencies Measures Act was invoked was by Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre. But at that time, in the 1960's there were bombings, high-profile kidnappings, and political murders in Montreal. And still there were questions of excessiveness by the government. There is no question of excessiveness by Justin, it is without doubt!
A public inquiry determined that the government had met the threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act, but a federal judge ruling on a case brought forth by some of the protesters later said that the government’s use of the act was unreasonable and unjustified.
Application to Stay Proceedings
On April 16, Barber’s defence lawyer Diane Magas filed an application in court for a stay of proceedings on the basis of an “officially induced error of law.”Magas argued that Barber sought legal advice from lawyers, police officers, and a Superior Court judge on the legality of the protest he was involved in, and was given erroneous advice.
In the application, Magas said Ottawa Police Service’s incident commander during the protest, Insp. Russel Lucas, had testified that OPS was aware of the protest in advance of its arrival and had approved the plan for where the demonstrators would park. She also said Barber was directed by police officers where to park his truck in downtown Ottawa.
At two injunction hearings related to silencing the honking of truck horns, Barber was told by his lawyer at the time that he could continue protesting in the location as long as he did so peacefully and safely, according to Magas. Barber was also advised by his legal counsel that he could honk his horn in situations of emergency, and that breaching the court injunction against honking would be civil contempt and not a criminal offence.
Barber was charged with counselling others to disobey a court order when he encouraged protesters in a Feb. 7, 2022 TikTok video to honk if they saw police arriving, which violated the court injunction against honking.
Magas said her application for a stay of proceedings applied to Barber because he considered the legal consequences of his actions and sought legal advice, obtained advice from an appropriate official, and reasonably relied on that advice even though it later turned out to be erroneous.
If the justice were to accept Magas’s application and stay the proceedings, Barber’s case would be put on hold and he would likely not face charges.
As it should be if there is any integrity in the justice system whatsoever.
The Federal Court has ruled the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act during the so-called “Freedom Convoy” that descended on Ottawa in 2022 violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In his ruling, Justice Richard G. Mosley said the move was “unreasonable” and outside the scope of the law. Mosley is a 21-year veteran of the Federal Court and is a respected voice on national security legal matters. He has weighed in on some of the most high-profile recent cases in Canadian intelligence, including a 2016 decision that found CSIS had been illegally storing Canadians’ communication data for more than a decade.
The case was brought forward by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the Canadian Constitution Foundation, Canadian Frontline Nurses and a handful of individuals.
Mosley wrote, “I have concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility — and was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.”
“I think it’s in the interest of this government and future governments and all Canadians that the threshold to invoke the Emergencies Act remains high and that it is truly, as Justice Mosley says, a legislation of last resort,” CCLA lawyer Ewa Krajewska told Global News.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says that Ottawa will appeal the ruling.
Why is it in the best interests of Canada to appeal this ruling? The appeal should be paid for by the Liberal Party.
1:54
Use of Emergencies Act during Freedom Convoy protest violated Charter rights: Federal court
“We respect very much Canada’s independent judiciary, however we do not agree with this decision, and respectfully we will be appealing it,” Freeland said at the cabinet retreat in Montreal.
Freeland, flanked by Attorney General Arif Virani and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, said that in the opinion of the government public, national and economic security was under threat during the protest, and said the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time was a “hard decision.”
“We were convinced at the time – 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,” Freeland said.
Krajewska said it’s not unexpected the federal government is appealing the decision, but is surprised to see this intent announced so quickly.
“I hear the ministers that they sincerely felt that they were doing the right thing and invoking it, but they misapprehended the legal threshold that needed to exist in order for them to invoke it,” she said.
“They felt that they needed to react to the situation, and this was the best reaction. But it wasn’t.”
1:31
Feds justified in using Emergencies Act during ‘Freedom Convoy’: final report
LeBlanc discussed how the situation expanded beyond Ottawa to the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, a key trade route with the United States, and the Coutts border crossing in Alberta.
“It’s not banal when security services tell you that they found two pipe bombs and 36,000 rounds of ammunition and ended up laying criminal charges as serious as conspiracy to commit murder and assaulting peace officers. So the context is important,” LeBlanc said.
Four people were charged with conspiracy to commit murder that were associated with the border blockade in Coutts.
Much of the Coutts blockade was cleared prior to the February 14, 2022 declaration of a public order emergency, the first step in invoking the act.
The CCLA successfully argued that the existing laws of Canada were sufficient in dealing with the blockades and extraordinary powers granted by the Emergencies Act were not needed.
“Yes, what was happening in Coutts may have been concerning, but [Mosley] finds that the existing laws of Canada were sufficient to deal with what was happening in Coutts and elsewhere in the country, and that is what the government was not able to demonstrate,” Krajewska said.
0:43
Singh says NDP only ‘reluctantly’ agreed to Emergencies Act after federal court ruling
During the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), Justice Paul Rouleau said that the decision to invoke the act met the “very high threshold” outlined in the legislation.
The Public Order Emergency Commission was required under the law, which states that any time the Emergencies Act is invoked there must be an inquiry to probe whether the use was warranted and that the work on that needs to begin within 60 days.
Krajewska pointed out that while Rouleau’s report found the government was justified, he pointed out people could reasonably disagree with his decision and it was not a legal analysis.
What does the court ruling reveal?
The ruling includes a secret February 2022 memo from the Privy Council Office (PCO), the central government department that supports the prime minister, recommending Trudeau invoke emergency powers.
The document, which was partially censored and marked “cabinet confidence” – some of the most sensitive information in the federal government – noted that PCO believed the “examples of evidence to date” support the conclusion that the Emergencies Act was required.
Although from the outset, PCO noted their conclusion could be challenged.
“While there is no current evidence of significant implications by extremist groups or international sponsors, PCO notes that the disturbance and public unrest is being felt across the country and beyond the Canadian borders, which may provide further momentum to the movement and lead to irremediable harms – including to social cohesion, national unity, and Canada’s international reputation,” the document read.
“In PCO’s view, this fits within the statutory parameters defining threats to the security of Canada, though this conclusion may be vulnerable to challenge.”
Nevertheless, Canada’s most senior bureaucrat at the time – Clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette – approved the memo recommending the Emergencies Act be invoked.
PCO’s recommendation noted that “while municipal and provincial authorities have taken decisive action in key affected areas,” the situation was “concerning, volatile and unpredictable.”
“In addition, PCO is of the view that this is a national emergency situation that is urgent, critical, temporary and seriously endangers the health and safety of Canadians that cannot be effectively dealt with uniquely by the provinces or territories,” the document reads.
Krajewska tells Global News that the document was first produced during POEC, and the CCLA had it submitted to the court during this case.
“I think it’s very important from a democracy and transparency perspective that the government produced this document during POEC and that it’s now been appended to this decision,” Krajewska said.
“It’s important for Canadians to understand how the decision was made and what information the government had before it when it was making this decision.”
The document is a remarkable window into the advice Trudeau was getting from the public service during the crisis. Cabinet documents are very rarely released, and even the censored version contained some revelations.
For instance, it shows PCO was in active talks with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) about how the military might assist in ending the protests should they be required.
“Nothing in the invocation implies a role for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in the response to this emergency. Planning does continue to explore whether, how and when military assets could be used to advise and assist with the management of the situation,” the document read.
“This could include CAF providing available resources and equipment support such as towing operations. CAF could also be deployed to support law enforcement in certain situations, in response to a request from a province/territory.”
Trucker protests: Docs show Canadian military grapple to deal with members taking part in convoy
The PCO memo revealed on Tuesday also notes that while Premier Doug Ford was an enthusiastic supporter of Trudeau invoking emergency powers, other premiers were more skeptical.
“A large number of other premiers expressed concern about the need to act carefully to avoid enflaming the underlying sentiment they considered to lie behind the protest, which they linked to public health measures including vaccine mandates,” the document read.
“These premiers were not seeing the local manifestations of this movement yet in their jurisdiction.”
Quebec Premier François Legault“had a strong negative reaction to the proposal, saying that he would oppose the application of federal emergency legislation in Quebec,”where the memory of Trudeau’s father invoking the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis is still alive.
Pierre Trudeau's overreaction in Quebec was greatly exaggerated by his pathetic son. At least in the Quebec crisis, there were kidnappings, murders, and bombs exploding. In Ottawa, there was nothing worse than a little noise and a big traffic jam. Justin's reaction was like that of a scared, little boy.
