WEYBURN - It’s hard to judge how much fact and how much fiction is being spread at the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry in Ottawa, and there’s more yet to come.
What is certain is the federal government is going to say anything it can to justify itself, and to justify the unprecedented action of declaring a street protest as a national security threat.
The Emergencies Act was not created to serve their own political interests, but clearly the prime minister didn’t get that memo. On Feb. 14, Justin Trudeau declared the public order emergency, invoking powers that ought only to ever be used in the face of an actual national threat to security.
Thus the inquiry was set up to question all of the parties involved to officially determine if there was any justification for invoking the act to deal with the truckers that filled the streets of downtown Ottawa.
As Canada is a democratic country, the right to free speech and the right to protest is just as important as any of the other rights set out for the citizens of this country.
There have been truck convoys to Ottawa before, notably in protest of the carbon tax that is unfairly imposed on Western Canada, and this particular “Freedom Convoy” was put together to protest the many draconian restrictions imposed under the COVID pandemic.
(As a side note, this is an issue that actually begs to have an official inquiry, but probably never will, in spite of the actual harm the restrictions had on Canada’s economy and mental health of nearly every Canadian resident.)
The convoy was joined by other people outside of the protesters’ group, and many of these were some of the more extreme individuals who caused problems at the protest site. As such, there was no way the initial organizers could have any control over what these others did or said, and yet the media in Central Canada were fine with painting the whole group with the same brush.
What is telling is that recent testimony at the inquiry openly admitted the threat was not bad enough to warrant the public emergency order, but instead a wider definition of “threat” was used. That says it all, that the government came up with their own reason for the order.
This does not justify the use of an order that gives unprecedented powers to the federal government, an administration that openly acts against anyone who disagrees with them and ignores the hurt caused, personally or economically, to those residents (see the carbon tax fiasco).
The self-justification will continue when Trudeau takes the stand to testify at the inquiry, expected to happen by the end of this week. The commission will then take several months to put together its final report – but don’t hold your breath if you’re expecting any real justice or objective viewpoints in the final report.
