OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is consulting premiers on Monday about the federal government’s plans to invoke the Emergencies Act to grant exceptional powers to deal with the ongoing trucker convoy protests and blockades, CTV News has learned.
During an early morning Liberal caucus meeting, Trudeau told MPs about plans to push forward new measures to support the provinces and municipalities currently facing continued demonstrations.
This comes after a weekend of continued protests and high-level federal meetings to discuss next steps to address what the federal government has called “illegal blockades.”
Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told CTV News on Sunday that the federal government was prepared to invoke the Emergencies Act “when circumstances exceed the capacity of the provinces to manage it under their authorities.”
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“We are prepared to use every tool available to us, including emergency powers and to make sure that we bring every resource of the federal government to bare. This is a critical situation for the country,” Blair said, calling the ongoing anti-mandate and increasingly anti-government protests a “significant national security threat.”
Enacting these emergency powers, it requires consultation with the premiers of the impacted provinces followed by a series of other steps.
The Act allowxjmtzyws for actions to combat urgent and critical situations that seriously threaten some aspect of Canadians’ lives, and that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.
The current iteration of the Emergencies Act passed in 1988 and has never been used. The last time these federal emergency powers were invoked under the then- War Measures Act was during the 1970 FLQ October Crisis, when Trudeau’s father was the prime minister.
While the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ont. has reopened, other border blockades persist, including in Coutts, Alta. and Emerson, Man., and for the third week downtown Ottawa remains occupied with emboldened participants undeterred by the threats of “severe” consequences in the face of minimal police enforcement of the layers of laws, injunctions, and emergency orders already in effect.
RELATED IMAGESview larger image
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaves a media availability about the ongoing protests in Ottawa and blockades at various Canada-U.S. borders, in West Block on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa on Friday, Feb. 11, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
People gather for an anti-mandate protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday, February 13, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
